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?

Descriptions like "resoundingly thick" do little to further the cause for women.

So now the attainment of a "mediocre" 2:2 and attendance at a "minor" public schools are not acceptable either .... or is that just to underscore their resounding thick-ness?

-Being absolutely serious though, it's a very common experience for those who are mid-career in particular in high-flying career paths to feel frustrated by the fact that upward career paths are blocked by less competent and less well-qualified people who got into their role or profession in a less pressured age, and who wouldn't be competitive for their own jobs now.

And it is undoubtedly the case that you often find that the exceptions (eg. in the cases of women and other minority groups who have made it to the top) have often done so through luck, lots of family support, good connections, money - they aren't the norm.

Otherwise, if hard work was the only criterion for success, why aren't high flyers more representative of the population at large? Unless you genuinely believe that white wealthy middle-class men somehow work much harder than anyone else? We all know that isn't the case, surely?

Daisy, do you honestly believe that the top 1% of earners/people in senior positions got there solely though hard work? If so, I'm not sure anything I can say will convince you otherwise. I am regularly in a position to look at the CVs of people in those kinds of positions and to speak to them in depth. I can assure you many are neither particularly well-qualified nor particularly intelligent or hard-working. Many have had wives and secretaries all their lives to do the kind of work young professionals are now routinely expected to do for themselves.

I always find those kind of profiles of women interesting even if they are a long way above me in the career ladder. Presumably the point is that you can chat to women who are at the lower levels anyway so you don't really need profiles of them?

toomuch - what sort of profile would you like to see, out of interest?

I have what you might think of as a successful career, I have DC, I have wrap-around childcare, and a husband who works.

I got there through bloody hard slog.. I'm not sure I would want to share the 'warts and all' story though.. maybe there are many like me who are private and want just to display their corporate lives, not their private lives?

Goldenbear we don't have equality. Women are under-represented and underpaid. I don't see anyone disputing that.

Even if you use Caitlin Moran's simple definition of 'would it happen to a man' then this thread is a perfect example of how far we have to go. How many male forums are discussing the fact a male corporate executive got a profile on a website? And complaining about his childcare arrangements? Precisely zero, I'd guess but God forbid you focus on a successful woman because then her background, education and childcare are all open to criticism.

toddler I have a fairly broad experience of numerous industries and maintain that most success stories deserve their status - I'm sorry if that doesn't suit your agenda

The reality is for every Sandberg or Horlick there is a woman who says I don't want to make those sacrifices - I the same way there is a man who would rather be at home at 6 to do kids tea.

I kind of know what you mean op.
I am in my early twenties and had a relatively bottom of the rung promotion to a supervisor for cleaning and then again offered an amazing promotion with massive career potential.
I turned it down and without regret as I wouldnt sacrifice more time away from my dc to have this career.
My choice and not one alot of people understand.

I have not a single qualification and pretty much left education at 13 but I must have something that brought these opportunities my way.

I expect this kind of opportunity wont come around again but you never know.

International women's day should be more than about a womens abilty to make alot of money or rather lots of money isnt the only meaning of success.

I have a friend who is inspirational and self employed single mum I can see its not easy for her but she is driven.

OP, I get what you're saying.

I successfully managed to get an inspirational talk like this targeted at woman on how to "flex your life" rearranged at my big financial firm...as they'd scheduled it for 6.30pm on a weekday with 3 days notice...

However, I have worked PT for several years and had great support

toddler it's difficult to tell someone's intelligence from browsing their CV - Richard Branson and Alan Sugar would have fallen at the first hurdle, they've only got a couple of O'Levels between them .

I'm assuming the people you have in-depth conversations with are captains of industry (they must be CEO/FD/CIO in Blue-Chip companies, or similar to be in the top 1% earning bracket) the likelihood they will across as unintelligent or 'resoundingly thick' seems implausible. But hey, you must have good reason for feeling they are undeserving of their seniority.

I don't have access to people's CVs at work, but I work closely with a representative mix of senior people from diverse backgrounds and mixed opportunities. Maybe a combo of the economic environment and successive reorgs has had a Darwinian effect on our company, they seem pretty switched-on to me

Daisy and PastPerfect, why do you think women, ethnic minorities and people from less privileged backgrounds are underrepresented in senior positions? Do they just not work hard enough or do they intrinsically and naturally just not measure up to the innate talents of privileged white men with stay-at-home wives?

Honestly, you really really need to see some of the chairs of the nation's finest quangos and land management companies in action before you claim that success is richly deserved through merit

As I said, exempting the more traditionally middle-class occupations like medicine and (most of the high-paying bits of) the law, where you do need intellectual skill, there are plenty of people (largely men) washing about in senior positions in the public and third sectors, in property, minor financial services, local government, the military and the civil service (and plenty more), who are stonkingly mediocre and siphoning off wholly unjustified levels of salary.

Why do you think we ended up in a financial crisis with the banks, business and other financial institutions? Because most CEOs genuinely do not understand much about economics, about the products they sell, or about their own organisations. There is a nice merry-go-round of senior consulting and board-level positions where people who make little difference shuffle about collecting large salaries for very little input. Even statistical analysis of highly-paid financial market traders and fund managers has shown that there is a huge positive cognitive bias to what they do which is largely unjustified - ie. in the long run they tend not to perform any better than random chance, but there is a great deal of investment in believing that their personal skill makes a difference.
It's the same at the top of many businesses and organisations.

It's why I despair when people say they don't want quotas for women on boards because mediocre women might be promoted above talented men. Honestly, you should see how many mediocre men there are on company boards via connections and nothing to do with talent. A few mediocre women would be only fair!

Excellent post, Toddlerwrangling.

Fab post, OP! Sadly, yadnbu.

Toddler you can keep repeating "honestly" and "you should see" ad infinitum, but I, and others on this thread have seen and do know. You are not the only person in the world to have met a CEO and it is laughable for you to dismiss the experiences of other women in such an egotistical fashion.

The reasons why women can struggle to get "to the top" are broad and complex. Harmful concepts around capabilities and direction become embedded during formal education; childcare and care of parents remain problematic for many and no one is denying that sexism is endemic in corporate culture.

However belittling women who have been successful on the basis that they must have been lucky is just as harmful as overlooking a woman for promotion on the basis that she has children. It also smacks of small minded envy

My employer have been exceptionally supportive. I handed in my notice today because my son has a speech delay and is now having an hour of therapy 5 days a week. They came straight back and said I can either take 16 weeks at 20% pay or six months at zero pay. My choice, let me know my March 18th what you want to do.

I have two mentors, both are partners who made it while working part time. Both have tried to help me and they have wholly supported me. I just can't catch a break and it doesn't help that DH is the breadwinner. On my 75% schedule I work to pay daycare. Promotion is a long way off too.

I am however very impressed with my employer for supporting me. I won't make partner but it's up to me to carve out my niche. There are plenty of opportunities.

APlaceInTheWinter it seems like you're saying that out of solidarity for other women, I shouldn't criticise individuals. But what if the individuals are being profiled in this way specifically to try and reconcile the rest of us to a system that doesn't do any favours?

It's been done before. Stakhanov Select the most successful from your oppressed class and lionise them for the edification of the others. In the DDR too - they even gave them medals! These guys, exceptional workers, were held up as an example and an inspiration to the others of what they could do within the system if they only set their mind to it.

toomuch what is it you want to see more of? Woman who have struggled to get to the top or profiles of women who are not at the top but to whom you can relate because they have the same issues you might?

Pastperfect you are just determined to make a positive out of the negative aren't you? Every day an opportunity to learn...

If International Women's Day is something a company wants to mark by profiling their employees, what would be nice would be to see a variety of women with different lives, full time, part time, people with and without kids, at different levels in the organisation. It would be useful to be able to showcase family friendly policies while being careful not to imply that family friendly is only for women or that it is a concern for all women. It would be REALLY nice for a company to show that it was proud of its employees at lower levels, if that didn't bring the whole system to its knees by destroying the fiction that all anyone wants, really, is to be promoted.

Want2b that's good to hear about your employer. This is part of what people are getting at here - support for women at work when they are in a difficult place.

Where I used to work I was the lowest paid woman with children, I was the only one who did not take 'baby day', the only one without any family support, I also didn't have access to early starting breakfast clubs or any after school clubs, I dont have access to nice affordable holiday clubs because I live in a deprived area. Most of the higher up women in the company had cleaners and in some cases nannies. Many of them worked from home if their child was ill etc, but I was told that I couldn't. Most of them have high earning partners, I dont. I left in the end and Im self employed and temping at the moment, we now have probably less than a quarter of most of their household income. Will I ever be able to achieve anything like they have, unlikely and given the odds still against me no. I for one would feel that more relevant profiles would be better, holding those up just looks like a kick in the teeth for people like me who are educated but through one thing and another never got and never will get the chances some on them did, however hard we work.

toomuch I'm saying you don't know the individuals that you're criticising. I'm also saying that just because it doesn't seem inspirational to you, it doesn't mean that it isn't inspiring for other people. Look at the market research concerning the types of profiles that people want to read. Your argument that the profiles are to reconcile people to their place in the system requires a considerable degree of double-think ie 'the profile is telling me that a woman can be succesful but reallly they want me to think that means I have to stay exactly where I am'

As I said I'm not disputing that women are under-represented. I'm not disputing that we can't all be at the top when it's a hierarchical structure. I am disputing that the best way to address that is to complain about the few women who are featured and to question their integrity in a way that you simply wouldn't if it was a male executive being profiled. How many threads have you started questioning the education and childcare arrangements for men who have been profiled?

If what you're saying is that actually you want to encourage your organisation to be more representative of the contribution that everyone makes then contact your communications/website team and ask them to carry on from International Women's Day with a year of features on women throughout the organisation at every level. But, don't be surprised if not everyone on that list wants to share that actually they came from a deprived background; they were the first in their family to go to university; they've dealt with poverty, childcare and illness to get to where they are and sometimes their child getting sick can throw everything up in the air as they scrabble round trying to get to work. That level of disclosure wouldn't be demanded from a man.

Luck doesn't fall into people's laps. You have to look for it, be available to take advantage of it, and recognise it when it is staring you in the face.

^^ it's like landing on FB. Inspirational quote of the day.