Male academics with wives/partners who don't work. Anyone else noticed this?

[Eglantiny]

First, I'll start with an apology
I'm not generalizing to all male academics. I'm sure there are some good ones out there.
And I'm not intending any shade on the women I'm talking about at all.

But I'm getting increasingly frustrated with male academics who have female wives/partners who either don't work, or who work in "non-professional" jobs.

I've noticed a few things about these men.
Firstly, they have high expectations of what an academic career should look like, and/or what's a reasonable set of outputs over a particular period of time.
I think this is simply because they have more time and headspace for actually getting stuff done because they've delegate life admin and responsibility to someone else.

Secondly, they don't give much of a shit about teaching and measure academic success on research alone.
I think this is because teaching relies on soft-skills, organisation, relationships etc. which they don't value or excel at, so assume isn't important.

Thirdly, they surround themselves with other odious men with similar approaches to life and academia.
I think this is partly affinity (we all want to be around people similar to us) but also because these men manufacture time/space to build networks that exclude others - after-work drinks, evening seminars, conference events etc.

Fourthly, they have a strange way of working with women. It's hard to pinpoint exactly but I find they only tend to work with women who are either super-big-time professors or early-career researchers.
I'm not too sure what my theory is for this. Maybe they don't see women as their professional equals. I think they work with big-time professors who can offer them something, and ECRs who they can be in charge of.

Fifthly, this only really applies to the social sciences disciplines but these men don't actually do much empirical research with people. They are good at spouting theory and at running quantitative models, but they do much less human data collection.
I think this is because human data collection relies on soft-skills which they don't have and don't value. They see theorizing and number-crunching as 'proper' academic research. I do also think some of them are quite insecure about being social science academics and try to get close to STEM-type methods.

Has anyone else noticed this ?

There's quite a lot of these men in my Department - RG, social sciences - and I just find them generally tiresome to deal with.

@Random789 I opened my OP with the disclaimer that I meant no offense to the wives/partners, and that I wasn't generalizing to all male academics.

You're absolutely right, there's most definitely a sub-set of male academics that immensely piss me off and that I wanted to moan about here. The thing that they all tend to have in common is a wife/partner without paid work, or in a "non-professional job".

I believe that the employment status of their female partner absolutely does impact these men's conduct, attitude, expectations and relationships at work in a variety of different ways which they don't see or acknowledge.

Not all male academics with wives/partners who don't work will fit all the traits that I mentioned above.
But, I'd say 99% of male academics who hit at least one of the traits I've listed do have such support at home.

I definitely see this in my social science dept. Lots of young men in early career roles producing a lot of high quality work but also with newborns and toddlers. They all have wives who don't work and take full advantage, so will be in the office for 14-15 hour days despite having young families. They go to all the after work socials. If I was their wife I wouldn't put up with it but I guess they're destined for professorship before mid-30s as a result so maybe that's when the wives get their turn (I doubt it).

I think it is a bit of a stretch to conflate having a partner who doesn't work with not being good with people or being insecure about being a social sciences academic, but there are obviously issues with balancing academia with other commitments.

Despite being a very research-focussed department primarily composed of people who do "theorising and number crunching", we don't really experience the issues the OP has outlined. In my department (RG, Social Sciences) I can't think of anyone whose partner doesn't work or whose partner works in a "non-professional job". By far the majority of people who have a partner have a partner who is also an academic.

But the darker side of this is that a large number of academics (both male and female) in my department don't have a partner and amongst the staff who are under 50, there is virtually no-one who has children. Depressingly, if you really want to gain a competitive advantage in an academic career, there is one thing that is even better than having someone else take care of your commitments, and that is having no commitments at all. You can work in your office all the time if there is no-one waiting for you to come home.

I agree with that. I'm the only senior woman in my faculty with children. The mums all get pushed onto teaching only contracts stop progressing at senior lecturer grade and are drowning in admin and pastoral roles that get no recognition.

I have a lot of very frustrated female friends who have either got stuck in temp academic jobs, went back and did PhD or just jumped out eventually as it wasn't working for them combined with children. Their partners without exception are now either Assoc Prof or full Prof.

I am one of the ones mentioned above, I did a lot of caring whilst plodding along as an academic, but I also had family help and without that, it's no exaggeration to say I could not have got off the ground in those early years as an academic.

I do also have some friends who have made it work in different ways, one female Prof with a husband who works p/t, and a couple where the split is more even and both have done well. Not so many children in those couples, either one or mostly none.

It's an interesting point that you raise, OP, because it sets standards for the whole sector which then many women fail to meet.

What are ideas to change this? I mean what policy changes would work? Genuinely interested as I'm in the staff advisory group in my faculty so could suggest changed but it's so hard to think of something that isn't just surface level lip service.

It's really hard, because the men who are working those extra hours are achieving more and it's kind of fair enough that it's rewarded, even though the structural elements that caused it aren't fair at all.

One significant change would be making sure everyone has to pull their weight with the big admin roles. I see so much professional incompetence from men, the women are more scrupulous and so get loaded with big roles, taking time from their research in addition to the structural caring load issues. Hey presto the men are thriving and the women floundering.

Neah, don't recognise in reality any of these claims.

I hear you OP (I work in a discipline between social sciences and humanities). My pet peeves:

Male academics with stay at home wives who insert themselves into conversations between female colleagues about how to square family and work, pretending to face the same challenges they do.

Ditto those that boast of how many kids they have (without even knowing their babysitters' names).

And those who proffer advice on how to get your books written 'while looking after the kids', where 'looking after' really means fobbing them off with a screen. I actually WANT to interact with my children, you fool.

I could go on....

I don't recognise these claims either.
I was going to say much of what @Random789 said.

What to do? Push for more realistic promotion targets- excelling in one area not all. Mentor women into roles and publications that get rewarded- eg ambitious articles in journals, in humanities, not textbooks. Amplify womens achievements endlessly. Run promotions workshops aimed at women. Make caring and taking parenting leave normalised so the impact is really seen. Make senior,'research driven' men do more admin and personal tutor roles.

Totally understand where you’re coming from @Eglantiny

I despise these men (and frankly, their wives who assume the status of their husbands, without the effort!)

So what you are saying is the women do not have a mind of their own?

Not an academic but recognise similar issues in our industry-"facilitated men" have a huge advantage over women with kids because they can do all the promotable extra curricular networking and put in all the hours it takes to achieve success. I just don't know what we can do about it?

I see you've met my husband. Actually, no, I completely echo your first point OP. That has definitely happened in my marriage. I wasn't disagreeable with it though but once it got going, it was just how it was. I don't agree with the other points.

I don't mind at all when he goes to conferences. It's like a holiday and the evenings are mine.

I have a mind of my own but once the kids are there, he continues with his big job and I get to do what I want as long as it fits around his big job or I find childcare with no family support.

Sounds like my life. Except that I don't have family help.

The worst part about them is surely their sexual incontinence? Such over inflated egos from all the adoring students that they think they are God's Gift. Weirdly this doesn't seem to affect women as much, and if they do shag around it's more often with other lecturers at conference rather than the Phd students.

I can honestly say I have never observed this. LOL

I recognise this a little, I am a former ‘faculty wife’ - someone who took a shitty paid uni admin job whilst my DH rose through the ranks to professor. He very much projects the active dad vibe but I carry a lot of the slack. Particularly around conference time when he will have had 3(!) in school hols this year.

He’s not alone, there is another academic nearby whose wife I hurriedly doing the morning drop offs while he saunters past 10 mins later, cool as a cucumber.

And another one who is more actively involved in child rearing, but still puts considerably pressure on his also-a-professor wife to carry the full weight of parenting.

I changed careers a while back and am now in leadership for a household name. It’s re-dressed the balance a bit but when the kids are sick I’m definitely going to be wfh and he will go to his office. It’s just not worth the headache.

I wonder if this is a quirk of broader societal factors. My DH has spent his whole life being told he is very important. And sometimes when it comes to my career I fit into the ‘grateful slave’ model. Especially where flexibility and the kids are concerned.

I don’t recognise this as the default in sciences although these people do exist. I think in science we have a lot of 2 career couples where women are less likely for their career to take a back seat.

I do think women are less likely to put up with the endless academics postdocing, probably because they want career stability before they have kids. They are more likely to piss or get off the pot, and round here a lot of them move to industry where they become the higher earner.

Basically it’s overentitled men getting away with what they are allowed to. I imagine this crowd avoid the kind of women who would expect them to pull their weight at home.

That's not what she's saying at all. There's nothing wrong with the partners of male academics being SAHMs or working in part time flexible jobs if that works for them and their families.

There is a problem with the male academics who benefit hugely from being supported by having a partner handling all domestic management so they can choose to work long hours and who don't recognise that those benefits help them hugely expect others. Academia (much more than other jobs) works by competition (for grants etc) based on volume of work output (do more work, get more grants which allow you to do and publish more work, which gets you promoted). People without a domestic support system who actually have to care for their children and do housework etc are at a huge disadvantage compared to people who don't.

Are these companies who throw money at Pride events to show how terribly diverse and inclusive they are, yet can’t even get basic stuff, like charity events, right?

I don't assume the status of my husband but I take a lot of credit for him getting where he is. It's a fact he couldn't have got there without me if he also wanted kids. Or if I'd insisted he do 50/50 care. Even now, the best way for me to make his life and job difficult would be to make him do half the share of the stuff I do. He'd have to step way back.

@Highdaysandholidays1

"It's an interesting point that you raise, OP, because it sets standards for the whole sector which then many women fail to meet."

Absolutely agree with this.