AIBU to be disappointed that the new CEO of the NCT is a man?

[ArcheryAnnie]

The new CEO of the NCT is due to start work shortly - a man, Nick Wilkie.

The NCT's mission is to support parents during pregnancy, birth and early childhood. Their line re the new CEO is that men can be parents, but my line is that it's only women who get pregnant and give birth.

There are many, many senior, suitably qualified women in the UK who could perform this role. Furthermore, from my experience with the NCT, all the events I went to, it was women who do most of the work. I'm tired of organisations where women make up the majority of the volunteers, or the workers, but where a man is the CEO. I didn't expect it of the NCT.

AIBU to feel massively disappointed that the NCT are putting a man in charge?

Fraggle, she is now chair of the Fawcett Society which is a joke as she wasn't exactly know for treating her female employees well. The whole organisation had a toxic management culture, so I normally would be saying YADNBU to Annie, having known what it's like I would be more than willing to give the new guy a go.

A 'but' missing there before 'having known'!

Just to be clear: I've got no objection to men working for the NCT, or volunteering. In fact, I'd love to see them doing more of the low-paid and unpaid grunt work that women usually do. But I really object to the messages that putting a man in charge of mostly volunteer women, working for a charity whose purpose is to focus on women, sends.

For a start no need to be nervous WRT you're first AIBU. No-one's going to stand outside your house with a pitchfork.

I personally think women-quotas pose more harm than good. Obviously there are many women who'd be qualified for the position but they chose the candidate they saw fit for the post.

Nick Wilkie hasn't just fallen from the sky, he has extensive relevant experience in working for Save the Children and working in community-based projects aimed at families and children.

Tbh, I'd find it rather patronising if they specifically sought to hire a woman based on the notion that only women know and understand the ethos of NCT.

I think YABU. We can't say that it's "better" to have a woman in the role...you just can't. Men can be midwives, parents, child advocates....it's not on to suggest they shouldn't be in positions of power because they can't birth a baby.

But Sansarya it's not a simple choice between her and him. There are other very senior women about. It would not have been impossible to find a good woman who wasn't her.

I don't know much about NCT to be honest

But by your logic OP, would you be just as upset if it were a childless female CEO?

I mean do you really have to experience pregnancy and birth first hand, in order to be suitable for the job?

would you feel the same if a women had been made the CEO of a typical male trade.

Yanbu. Perhaps they read THIS

I'm actually more impressed by his background then hers - I wonder what their reasoning was behind employing a marketing manager and NHS manager? His values, skills and experience seem much more in line with their ethos.

What's a "male trade", Piper?

OP Are you saying that men should not have been allowed to apply - or that the panel should have decided that come what may they would appoint the best qualified female applicant - or that they must have been wrong in deciding that Mr Wilkie was the best qualified applicant?

I have sat on appointment and promotion panels and occasionally we have been troubled by the gender imbalance (in one direction or the other) or the ethnic imbalance in the applications we get, and wondered what if anything we had done wrong. But you can't make people apply and you can't extend the application period because you don't like the pool. You have to accept the applications you get and appoint the best qualified, making a good faith attempt to ignore gender, race, and other irrelevant factors.

Just looked at their website and the home page is all about fathers. Childbirth is about women. It is women who give birth

I'm trying to think of what might be a reverse of this and the only one I can think of is that the CEO of the Terence Higgins Trust, a charity focusing mainly on gay men's sexual health, is a straight woman.

Male CEOs are the norm across all industries. There are so few organisations where you would assume there to be a female CEO but the NCT is one of them. That's why it seems odd to me.

Childbirth isn't a trade. It's something which by definition only women can do, and which has been hijacked, fetishised, restricted and meddled about with by men for millennia.

I don't know much about NCT but my understanding was they tried to empower women and give them alternatives to the traditionally male-obstetrician-driven practices in hospitals.

I too would be suspicious of this. I does smack of a man appropriating a space carved out by women for women. And yeah, I think a parent would be better as CEO of this organisation.

Do you seriously think, Andrew, that no suitable women applied? or if they did not, then that wouldn't indicate that there was a serious problem with either the application process, the work environment, or the organisation itself?

Applications don't happen in some mystical way that the people hiring have no control over.

Sansarya agree re. Terence Higgins Trust.

Is there any parallel with Rachel Dolezal representing black interests and her not being black?
Strictly speaking ethically and legally we can't mind. But I do; the NCT is about childbirth, we have a huge problem historically of men colonising birth and bending it to their will. Symbolically and intuitively this appointment sends a bad signal to me, it may be strictly speaking, arguablbut keep men out of child birth.

There's suitable - and then there's the best for the job.

Unless you're saying that you think there are certain organisations for which that doesn't apply, and they should always employ a woman, regardless of who was the best for the job?

Crap grammar there, but you get my drift

So am I reading this wrong, or are a few of you saying that no infertile/childless women should be CEO either?

Or is it just men and the not being pregnant/giving birth thing that matters?

YY Revolting peasant - we are not talking about the equivalent of women traders getting into investment banking, or Engineering, or other traditionally male dominated workplaces here, where they have been traditionally excluded - we're talking about something that only happens to women - pregnancy and childbirth.

So we're saying that if something can only happen to one gender then the other gender should not be employed in a role linked to that something?

I don't know what percentage of companies and charities in the UK have a make CEO but I'm sure it's quite a high number. They aren't all there because there just wasn't a female applicant who was up to the job.