To think that on International Women's Day the last thing I need is "inspiration" from someone with wraparound childcare and a lucky career?

[toomuchtooold]

I'm not going to point to specific examples (as I don't want to get outed and fired) but I'm sure there are many of you out there today logging on to your computers, seeing the corporate intranet landing page load up and on it there is an interview with some high up in your company talking about how she got to be so successful. I'm going to guess that the article somewhere mentions

• "you can do whatever you want if you set your mind to it"
• "mentors are so important/so and so was such an inspiration to me"
• "being an example to my son/daughter"

What they never seem to mention is

• being in maybe the top 1% of earners and therefore having the means to pay for wraparound childcare
• never having been made redundant, despite often working for companies that go through restructuring on a regular basis

AIBU to think that these success stories of the highly privileged are just big business doing a bit of victim blaming, implying that we could all be captains of industry with lovely lives if ony we had a bit of aspiration and hard work, when in actual fact these interviews depict the lives of a privileged few, and most companies' business models would be bust if we all expected to be earning at that level?

I'm not raging at anyone for having wraparound childcare. What I am doing is complaining about only ever seeing, in the paper, on the corporate intranet at my current and previous jobs, profiles of women who have wraparound childcare and who are in a position (as board members in hierarchical organisations, as a pp eloquently put it) that not everyone can be in. I think they are mostly irrelevant. I'm sure most of the women who are profiled do it for the best reasons, but they are very over-represented, to the point where I can't remember the last time I heard someone near my own pay grade talk about this stuff. It creates an impression that the way to get women to have successful careers is for them all to strive to get to the boardroom. Not everyone wants that, not everyone will get it, and the problems of people at that level are likely IMO to be quite different to the problems of the majority.

It sounds like if your mum was ever profiled in this way it would be a refreshing change actually. Most of the ones I ever read start with "read law/PPE at Harvard/Cambridge/Oxford" and go on from there. I mean, fair play to those women but you would expect them to be reasonably successful with a start like that.

I really wish people would stop telling me I sound bitter. I'm not! Maybe I'm just very literal minded but when I see someone being interviewed for Women's Day and it's like "Ms X, head of legal at xyz massive international corporation" and they go "you can do what I did" I think, no, you're that, they only need the one...

I think I know what you mean OP. Not everyone can or wants to be at the top, so the advice seems irrelevant or disingenuous to those of us on lower rungs.

I read a piece about part time senior women in my industry, they all said how hard it was and how they basically ended up working on their days off. I want to hear about real people making part-time work in demanding industries actually work for them and their career. About real work-life balance for people in good careers and how they achieved it. And mostly I want to see more employers offer real flexibility to people so that the hideous, stressful juggling act working parents (mostly mothers, let's face it) have to perform can be slightly less hideous.

toomuch you are posting all this from a strange and dichotomous position.

On the one hand you are slagging off the Corporate Machine for their white-washed orchestrated interviews which paint top women in a particular way. Of course PR is involved, you know that's how Big-Co works! Why should those women have to divulge the finer details of their private life, they will talk in general terms within the limitations of a 10 min interview.

What doesn't ring true, and undermines your position, is that you are happy to take the pay check and the benefits from the very Corporate Machine you are so scathing of. You have availed yourself of every opportunity, Grad Scheme, the works - you've pulled all the strings, got yourself a job by networking, all that. In short you've done everything that the women you seem to find so distasteful have done. And you have reaped the rewards. So why not take on a mentoring role (if you haven't already) with some new graduate associates, and channel your energies positively ( like countless top women do!)

You are hardly talking from the position of an administrator who knows they can never hope to get beyond their current pay Grade!

Come to think of it, maybe you can inspire some administrators to move upwards, you can give them the insider view you feel is missing from the corporate froth.

In my organisation, there are several gifted admins with transferrable skills that got them into project roles which have more opportunities for advancement.

daisy do you mean that because I work for a large corporate I'm not allowed to criticise them? I need to work somewhere. Lentil weaving cooperatives tend not to have much use for my skillset I've worked in places that were more or less accomodating to people with a life outside of work, none were brilliant and all could have done better, but at the end of the day I'm not independently wealthy so I've just got on with it.

I don't find these women "distasteful" - probably many of them started off in a similar position to me, as you are trying to point out. I just think they are unrepresentative. My old company took on 40 graduates a year. It has a board of around 10 people, add maybe another 20 or so senior positions that might be worthy of getting you featured as a Good Example on the corporate intranet. Most of the graduates are not going to end up in those top positions. Most of the graduates, men and women, are going to do perfectly well by getting one or two promotions and then go and have a life and have kids and hobbies and stuff. Most will manage all this on a salary that is not several multiples of the national average. We will never hear about how that life is, because they will never get profiled on the work's intranet.

I used to do a lot of mentoring and tutoring for kids from "deprived" backgrounds (like my own as it happens) and one of the things I often ran into was that they were all going to study science and have their own research lab, or study business and be the next Richard Branson, study drama and go to Hollywood etc etc. We really lack representation of ordinary people and we miss out by this because it is so powerful to come across someone who's done something similar to you. Most women don't want to be on the board. Hell, most men don't want to be on the board. So why are the top flight supposed to be our inspiration?

YANBU.

Lots of cognitive dissonance on this thread! Of course highflying careers are not all about hard work. That's why the vast majority of people in very high paid positions are privately-educated, often Oxbridge- educated, men, predominantly middle and upper-middle class, with RP accents and often substantial family money. I work with lots of people at the very top of lucrative careers; and I assure you loads of them got where they are because (a) they are men of a certain class, and (b) they were lucky/well-connected. The sheer amount of mediocrity in "top" jobs is astounding - why do you think our financial, business and political system is so messed up? It's like it is because getting to the top is not actually about hard work for the most part at all.

If I had a pound for every mediocre middle-aged white man I've met who has gently floated in life up to a nice not particularly hard-work job as Ambassador/CEO/civil service mandarin/professor/top military brass etc. I would be very rich indeed. (The exceptions are lawyers, doctors and accountants who to be honest do work pretty hard; but they don't tend to be underprivileged to start with either.) The fact that a few women are up there with them through working hard doesn't mean that everyone at the top has done so, or that anyone else could do the same.

Yes but companies NEED more women on their boards! Sure, most of the graduate trainees are not going to end up on the board, but companies need and want to inspire the best and brightest to aim for leadership.

And what's wrong with the kids you mentor aiming 'high'? Should everyone just aim for an 'ordinary' job? Is it only the already wealthy who can afford wraparound childcare who should aspire to leadership positions?

I just can't understand your position.

It's not luck to maintain your job throughout constant restructuring it comes down to hard work and exceptional talent
Unless you're lucky because it's mummy or daddy's company.

Of course the OP's happy to take the 'pay check'- what are you proposing, that she leaves her position due to her unwillingness to become a corporate drone?

These women are a tiny minority and it should be a 'given' in 2015 that women hold such positions anyway! The fact that it is exceptional, is what the corporations and other organisations should concern themselves with- that's where the real 'story' lies. Not this patronising bull shit- personal tales of brilliance, that shifts the responsibility on to the individual rather than identifying and addressing the many barriers that limit women in their careers.

Thank you toddlerwrangling and Goldenbear for making my arguments far more eloquently than I have managed!

toddler I think that is an extraordinary perspective.

I am well aware that many people (men and women) have easier careers due to their privilege but to dismiss so many successful individuals as mediocre smacks of bitterness.

I can honestly say that whilst I meet many arseholes (of both genders) I rarely come across top level execs who are not exceptional in some way, whether it be intelligence, charisma or sheer bloody mindedness

I think you've put it very eloquently toomuchtooold. In fact I'm not sure 'why' people cannot comprehend that women shouldn't have to go that 'extra mile' to have a career and family- men don't!

bonkersLFDT20 you don't happen to work on a campus in South Cambs, do you?? We had a series of talks by women who had made it to the top - all had either rich partners, or SAHPs, or family money. The Director had a part time post in the 1970s which would be impossible now.

PastPerfect I think you're perpetuating the myth that such positions are unattainable to most because of their personal characteristics- this is simply not true. Power and influence is mostly held by the privileged and connected in this country and that is backed up by statistics. It is the 'pretence' that this is 'not' the case that is holding women back.

they are very over-represented, to the point where I can't remember the last time I heard someone near my own pay grade talk about this stuff

being constructive here .... isn't it time for you to do what Ghandi said:

"Be the change you want to see"

If you feel people at your pay grade aren't getting your voice heard, can't you contact your Corporation Communications department and ask them to do some interviews of women like you for International Women's Day?

I'm going to work on Monday wearing purple for Women's Day. OK, it's "corporate", its toeing the line, but I'd rather do something constructive than minimise women's major achievements as being largely down to luck and privilege.

Golden I believe that you can be a senior exec if you are intelligent (or at least bright), work hard, are driven, make sacrifices and have at least a degree of EQ. If you don't have those personal qualities then it is going to be extremely hard.

I was also going to make the point that daisy made. OP you give the impression that you are relatively senior - surely you can drive the agenda you want

Interesting thread, toomuch, thanks.

I don't think you sound bitter in the slightest, just smart and clear headed. :)

Yes, it's the Sheryl Sandberg thing of 'every woman can be like me! Just be born wealthy and go to Harvard and have a world famous economist as a mentor and you too can reach the top! Lean in!' when most women are struggling to pay for childcare abd are one kids bout of flu anyway from losing their job (especially here in the US where sick leave is not always paid).

Most of that stuff is corporate guff that businesses put out there to just tick their diversity boxes. I try not to pay much attention to it. It is hard though when you are made to feel like a failure for not 'leaning in' enough when you might want to lean in but just have a lot of family commitments.

Having worked in corporate communications, I'm guessing your company probably features numerous profiles about the high-flying men in your organisation.

One day a year, they decide to focus on a woman as a sop to International Woman's Day and you're complaining about it I find it really churlish to complain about one woman being recognised in what is probably a sea of male profiles every other day of the year.

You do sound bitter. Their profile is hardly going to include details of their personal circumstances just so you can feel they deserve their day on the corporate website

You've made massive assumptions about the lifestyle (how do you know their childcare arrangements?) and work ethics of the women profiled. You've made sweeping generalisations about how helpful their comments could be to anyone else as though inspirational quotes can only be provided by someone working at the exact same level of attainment as you or just slightly higher and oddly have equated this with the DCs you mentored aiming as high as they could possibly imagine.

Do women need to be more fairly represented in all of business? Yes. I just don't see how you achieve that by bitching about the one day that one of them is recognised in your business.

I find this need to belittle women's achievements really distasteful.

Is this what 'equality' looks like then- 'hey look women, you can have all what men have if you reach the dizzy heights of these senior posts, in the meantime we're going to completely overlook the barriers that prevent women from having a career in our organisation let alone a senior one, we will be at pains to stress it is a priority to us but in reality we don't see this as a business critical issue!'

Pastperfect really you must not know enough members of our illustrious Establishment - I can assure you that many of them are resoundingly thick, and managed to coast effortlessnessly upwards in the fifties and sixties (usually via minor public schools and a mediocre 2:2) on a tide of unearned privilege, wifework done by someone else and good connections. For every Sheryl Sandberg, Adair Turner or Brenda Hale, there are ten not very bright but well-connected, confident and privileged white upper middle class men. To pretend that's not the case is a bit delusional, I'm afraid!