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.

Nonsense. You have no idea about my background/my family/the stuff I have experienced. The idea that I got to
where I am because of luck is frankly insulting. But sure it must be of comfort to you to think others achievements are down to luck.

I never said we have full time nannies. We occasionally hire nannies to cover for emergencies (eg childminder on long sick leave/inset days/late evening work).

@DrBlackbird I am not saying that there aren't systematic biases - there are. I was directly responding to the assertion that it is impossible to have an academic career without a SAHP partner or family support. That's obviously untrue.

I am a little surprised by your assertion that, "Unequivocally I could not have maintained an academic career without my in-laws providing child support for when my DC were ill over the years." I find that really odd. What do you think would have happened to you career if you took the odd day off when your child was ill? Absolutely nothing! You'd be fine. We all do it - men and women - when one of our children is sick. I think you really have a misunderstanding of the situation/have catastrophised hypothetically.

If it was the odd day off clearly that's not going to be very detrimental. When my DC were under 2 it was every month or so. Times by multiple DC and it gets quite a lot of disadvantage to have days off - maybe your DC were particularly robust :) Also, one of mine spent over 2 months in hospital then in and out for appointments for 6 months or so, so this is not necessarily hypothetical. Again, I don't think this is especially rare. Fortunately mine don't have ongoing issues but lots of people DC need a lot more hands-on care than others even as they get older.

At work, especially when you are looking at successful people, you will overwhelmingly find that people haven't been effected by these events, because if they were, they would be far less likely to be there, especially if they didn't have family support, and you can't possibly know the level of family support of hundreds of your colleagues that you've come across over the many years. (SoSad44 has overcome adversity to achieve her goals, well done :) but it is by no means a reasonable expectation for most people, for one thing , yes, it does require a lot of luck, but yes, luck is not the only factor)

I didn't mean to insult you. In nordic culture we believe that our success is build from our own effort but also the support of other people. Some people are luckier than others at any given point and that we shouldn't look down on others for their bad fortune - they were either unlucky, or on a downward swing in their life - and you should get uppity about your own success - it belongs not only to you but other too. Life has both ups and downs. I consider myself both lucky and successful right now but I know I can enjoy that more and be more content knowing that it could easily be taken away at any point. We accept that it's our responsibility to support others at their downward swing, trusting that it will be reciprocated in our time of need - which will inevitably come no matter what our current success. Ie. it's not insulting to suggest others are lucky right now. Sorry that you seem to have misunderstood. I'm pleased that woman are taking leadership positions and I've absolutely no doubt that, in general, they have to work harder and make more sacrifices to get there than men.

*should NOT get uppity about your own success, that should say

I honestly don't know any male academics married to SAH wives- that generation, never the majority, has retired. A lot of partners are p/t though and a surprising number of both men and women have very high earning spouses which enables the soft stuff that makes family life easier- nannies, private school, etc. So the bigger picture is that academic life is basically subsidised.

@HandScreen Really?

First, if you were responding to the assertion that it is impossible to have an academic career without a SAHP partner or family support then no doubt you’ll be reassured that afaik no one on this thread has made that claim.

Go back to the OP, she starts by saying she’s not generalising about all men let alone about all academics. Whilst some disagree, others say that resonates with their own experiences. The research supports something is happening such that there are fewer female than male professors.

Second, it’s odd that you can’t envision a situation whereby DC might be ill such that they need more than the odd day off. Or that if the day the DC fall ill is a day when an academic is expected to teach 300 PGs and taking that particular odd day off is problematic. There is scope here for considering that other people may have lives and needs different from yours.

Yes, if the day your child is ill falls on a day when you're lecturing, your partner would take the day off. Not rocket science. Academia is far easier to take a day off from when there are childcare issues than many other careers, in fact. It's a really odd narrative to suggest otherwise, or that doing so would have been detrimental to an academic career (as PPs have suggested - read back through the thread).

Not just children. Elderly relatives. Other caring responsibilities.
I’m a former wannabe academic married to an academic and I left academia the day I got the viva and started a teaching qualification because it was portable and more flexible. I recognise what the OP is referring to. We’ve moved 5? times for the various post docs finally ending up in a town where we have no family, no connections, don’t particularly like but the hallowed university with the minority department is here and only here. The only saving grace for me is that we were able to move back to the home country and I wasn’t shuffled around various mid size English towns until the end of the academic career.

Reminds me of Lessons in Chemistry, it seems like things haven't changed all that much since the 1950s.

In the UK, lack of decent and affordable childcare contributes to this problem.

There are so many mothers tied down with dropping off and picking up kids from school, it's such a waste of talent. I know dads help too but they usually drop and run to the office for WFH. So many women don't return to work or struggle to make progress at work because employers do not properly support woking mothers.

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.

Going back to the OP - I'm considerably nearer retirement than many of you, I think, so am older & have seen this much more - even in the Humanities, which is quite female-dominated in some areas. But I can remember doing my PhD alongside a male candidate, whose wife did his footnotes, in between producing 3 children and looking after everything at home, so he could study & teach as if he were single & childless.

Many of my female contemporaries are single and childless - this is the sacrifice we have made for our jobs. I've seen the way women's careers stall just at the time when male contemporaries are forging ahead. And many of my male colleagues have wives who are not academics, but predominantly teachers. Because that work fits around their husbands' needs to change jobs move etc.

It's something that regularly pisses me off - I'm competing against male colleagues who have a whole social & emotional support network. And it does make a difference.

There are so many mothers tied down with dropping off and picking up kids from school, it's such a waste of talent. I know dads help too but they usually drop and run to the office for WFH.

My dh did far more of the school runs when ours were little long before the days when it was possible to work at home even occasionally, let alone regularly. What odd language to use "I know Dads who help too"
I know plenty of Dads who parent their dc just the same as Mums.

In my experience, male academics often do have partners in 'big' jobs, whether in academia or elsewhere - and quite a lot of the female academics I know are actually the main breadwinner.

I think the main problem is that to get to the top it requires absolute commitment to working very long hours. If you are willing and able to conform to that pattern I don't think gender is necessarily a significant disadvantage, but on the whole and as a very generalised pattern, it seems to me that women (mothers) are more inclined to work a bit less when they have children whether strictly through 'choice' or not (there are of course other problems for women directly and indirectly related to the hours, e.g. building networks, travel etc).

I work in the social sciences and my research considers gender equality and diversity. One of the things that annoys me is how many academics (men and women) write about these subjects while also adopting extreme working patterns, setting a standard for productivity which those with significant caring responsibilities often can't or won't emulate. I was at a seminar the other day where an eminent researcher on flexible work was advocating the four-day week with standard (fixed) hours for reasons of equality, wellbeing and productivity - I know for a fact that she is very far from adopting this practice herself and would be horrified at the suggestion! She is extraordinarily productive because she works ALL THE TIME!

That's her/their choice of course, but I find it challenging when academics of this sort lament the lack of gender balance but don't acknowledge a certain contradiction (hypocrisy) in terms of their own behaviours. If all/most academics resisted these patterns it would clearly help a lot - but of course that won't happen not least because academia is full of highly competitive, ambitious and motivated people who have a passion for their research. It's the classic conflict between liberal notions of freedom and different choice embedded in equality of opportunity and how this maps on to the requirement for similarity embedded in equality of outcome. This is very difficult to reconcile.

I do sometimes think there is a slight exceptionalism in academia and sometimes a tendency for academics to act as if nobody has ever had children and managed a job, despite this being necessary and ordinary for many women over many decades. I think there is a particular strain of this amongst female academics in the US - its the elevation of academia in these narratives somehow, as a calling beyond any other (and whenever I see the hashtag #momademia I must admit I do feel a bit vommy).

(and sorry just to clarify and add to the already very long post above, I do agree this can be much more difficult for women on average, especially those who are mothers)

20 years ago I was just finishing my PhD. I went to a conference, presented a paper, and caught up with a lot of the leading academics in my field, some of whom I already knew (Scotland, rural economics) Nearly everyone of them was male. They had either no dependents or they had a SAHP. Of the women there, they either had no children or they were starting out.

tbh I stopped back at that point and moved into local government / applied work. I just could not see how I could succeed as an academic and have a normal family life. The sheer number of hours that have to be put in to move up, the willingness to travel, the ability to switch off from family and other distractions: that’s what all those men were able to do because someone else was taking care of all that. And that set the standard for ‘normal’ as an academic in that field.

Going back to the OP - I'm considerably nearer retirement than many of you, I think, so am older & have seen this much more - even in the Humanities, which is quite female-dominated in some areas. But I can remember doing my PhD alongside a male candidate, whose wife did his footnotes, in between producing 3 children and looking after everything at home, so he could study & teach as if he were single & childless.
**
Many of my female contemporaries are single and childless - this is the sacrifice we have made for our jobs. I've seen the way women's careers stall just at the time when male contemporaries are forging ahead. And many of my male colleagues have wives who are not academics, but predominantly teachers. Because that work fits around their husbands' needs to change jobs move etc.
**
It's something that regularly pisses me off - I'm competing against male colleagues who have a whole social & emotional support network. And it does make a difference.

This is spot on. because these men can carry on as if they had no other responsibilities they can out-compete anyone who does. And they set the standards, the norm for what a ‘successful’ academic is.

don't think a SAHP would have developed and grown in the same way, as they simply would not have faced the levels of responsibility and devision making and horizon stretching that are provided in an exciting career.

Goodness, you sound lovely!

I’m very happy for you that you’ve found it no problem to have a successful academic career without needing wider family support. That’s great. Perhaps now try to envision someone having a different life experience to you in which wider family support is necessary to have an academic career. It’s not rocket science 😉

But why do you need family support? Nursery runs from 8am-6pm, school runs from 8.30am-6pm with after school club. When would the family help be necessary? I don't have any colleagues who rely on family help for child rearing (most academics don't live near their families).

But why do you need family support? Nursery runs from 8am-6pm

In some institutions teaching goes on past 6pm. Mine, for example.

And your co-parent can't pick them up?

And your co-parent can't pick them up?

Not if he is teaching too, no.

Well, looks like the answer to my question is a no, it’s not possible to envision a different set of circumstances. Everyone in academia apparently has exactly the same life experiences as each other wrt looking after DC because you and your colleagues all do. Seems like that’s that then.

There are so many different experiences of academia that it’s impossible to generalise.
In the area I worked in, it was pretty routine for there to be multiple overseas conferences a year, fieldwork overseas lasting weeks or even months. Lots of evening social events/lectures or invites to speak at other UK and overseas universities etc that were necessary for networking and career progression.
Very far from a 9 to 6 type job.
It was impossible for both parents to have this type of job and raise a family without outside help. As a result, there were no couples I knew of (with children) where both parents reached Professor level (apart from one who had a family member live with them full time to help out). All of the Professors had a partner with a less demanding job - either academic but at a much more junior level or a university admin type job was also quite common.