to be totally fucked off with the antisahm comments on here?

[slackers]

Wtaf are you only a good role model to your DC if you are in paid employment?
Why does someone only be valid in society if they earn?
Why should I work only to pay someone else do a job to look after my DC? wtaf is the logic in that?
ffs

I find the Mrs Rochester-like laughter from the laptop a bit disturbing too laptop, I'm surprised Xenia hasn't had a note pushed through her door.

Xenia has not been 'outed' because although it's been clear on a number of threads that people, especially lawyers, know who she is, no-one has said her name or posted details about her that she hasn't previously posted herself.

I think scottishmummy is spot on about tongue in cheek. It seems to me that Xenia likes to cause controversy and also that she looks down a long intellectual nose on all MNers without exception, failing to allow for the fact that some will have worked at the same firms, been to better unis, juggled just as many children, sustained happy marriages and all the rest. That is the biggest single indicator that Xenia is less clever than she thinks.

Arrogance rather than intelligence then Yellowstone

yellow I had to report a couple of posts on a few days ago where some twat posted Xenia's RL name.

And on another thread someone posted her daughter's name whilst haveing some pop or other at her.

Some posters (or perhpas more worryingly, one obssessed poster) have no boundaries.

I don't think truly intelligent people are arrogant, not those right at the top of the tree.

Agree that's way out of order word and very unfair.

In a weird way though, I think xenia is unaware of her own attributes. She without fail says women should and can do exactly as she does. She doesn't see that as unachievable at all.

Which is oddly endearing.

I often really hope that Xenia doesn't continue on her path to the top and start running the country or something. We'd all be living in a dictatorship! People in top positions or positions of power should be able to see things from others perspectives. I find it scary that she can not.

I wish Xenia would use her considerable clout to address the factors that stop women returning to work after having a baby. Childcare, flexible working etc

I don't like her opinions (although much is tongue in cheek, I suspect) but I do respect her as a woman at the top of her game. She really has achieved alot and I don't blame her for wanting to shout about it.

Riven, you are on great form.....

I've bundled the self important bitch in a car and sent her to Saudi...to dirve.

sorry, drive and learn to spell.

The Xenia Effect is easily done though. I come from a very humble background, but passed 11+ and went to Grammar School. I have been very guilty in the past of seeing things from MY POV. Work hard and you won't be discriminated against, will have a wonderful career etc, can look down on people on benefits a bit . The difference is that I LEARNT and understand that life is not so black and white as all that....

And also that SHIT HAPPENS - even to the cleverest/most hardworking people.

One of the biggest things holding women back is tolerating sexist men though. Childcare is not a woman's issue at all and as soon as you suggest it is then you make things harder for women. Men have to arrnage childcare. It's not something only women do. If women said to the man I'll do the night feeds for 3 months but you are 100% in charge of all washing and finding hring and keeping a nanny that would be a good start (and indeed plenty do and those are the ones who tend to do well).

Nor is flexible working the answer. Quite the contrary, As sooin as you shunt yourself into the domestic ghetto of that awful flexible working you are sayign to a man I'm female, I'll earn pin money and I will wash your shirts and you can go out there and do the full time job.

So the things mentioned as "helping women " above actually could be a massive knife in their side. What might h elp them is men not women getting extra paternity leave. Other women asking their friend's husbands which nights he puts the children to bed, how he found the nanny etc etc

SIOnwe people must not be very bright to extrapolate above
"xenia
So you think that it's only the unintelligent women who chose give up work for a while to raise their children?!"

Read my lips.. I said on the whole the women who are less clever and less likely to be earning much become housewives. How could anyone other than a housewife with a chip on her shoulder riven with her own inadequacies take from my statement the suggesting that it's only unintelligent women who give up work?

We are talking on average here, not that every woman who works is bright and those who do not are not.

"on the whole" - definition is in most instances or cases; as a rule.

I disagree with you about flexible working Xenia. I think that's the way to go to achieve equality in the workplace - but only if men take advantage of it as well. Having two full-time working parents when children are small makes for a stressful life, far better if both parents cut down, say, to 75% FTE, so they both equally take a hit career wise and equally spend time on childcare. I'd love to see more men working flexibly and doing their fair share of childcare.

I agree that for many couples both parents working , say, 75% of the time would work out well. The problem with one parent ,nearly always dad , doing full time plus probably overtime these days to pay the bills, and other parent not earning at all is that its all or nothing. The woman is probably as well qualified as her husband, may even have been doing the same job 'pre children and earning power the same. It seems eminently sensible to both be able to continue in those roles and each to have some time having sole care of the child, that way each parent gets a bit of both rather than all or nothing.

So I disagree with xenia over flexible working. I do think Xenias strength is challenging perceptions and the status quo though. I don't agree with everything she says by a long chalk but I do think shes a good anti dote to the people who whine about not having things handed to them on a plate. Some people put up barriers as to why they cant achieve x y and z and she definitely challenges that wallowing in self pity.

I am at the stuff about disabled people and its a shame she posted that as people will now jump on that rather than her positive points. I do think some of it is about shock value and is only said because its Internet and in real life she may be very different

I can see both sides of the argument about flexible working to be honest.

On the one hand it makes more sense in theory if both partners work flexibly and both are responsible for childcare and domestic duties.

However, not all jobs are doable in that way.

DH is curretly working flat out on a deal that is price sensitive so has to be done as quickly and as secretly as possible. There is no way he could have finished early last night because it was his turn.

DD1 and her long term boyfriend both have Training Contracts at Magic Circle firms. Same university, same college, same degree. Both like the idea of children (already). How do you see that one being made workable Xenia (or word).

Yellowstone - it's perfectly workable as long as your DD1 and her boyfriend/father of her children don't mind outsourcing childcare. IMO that is the real crunch for high-earning professionals: whether or not you mind not seeing much of your children, since you would have the cash to pay for high-quality nannies and housekeepers to keep your domestic show on the road.