To feel a bit put out that 70% of spending is controlled by women but ...

[alicatte]

To feel a bit put out that if 70% of spending is controlled by women why is 80% of our choice of product made by men? I was really shocked at how few women are at board level
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/320000/bis-women-on-boards-2014.pdf

I can't help feeling that experienced women should get to make the CHOICE, rather than just being in a focus group.

treacle sometimes they don't. I have got jobs where I don't meet all the criteria. That's where a good cv and cover letter come in. Often that can get you and interview. From an interview the company may decide that while you lack in some areas you are still the best person for the job.

Have you ever handled CVs, for first line / middle manager roles?
I pick those because I don't have experience of higher level myself.

But I've recruited first line managers.

Firstly, if you haven't you might be surprised at how much dross you get! I don't just mean hopeful and well written just not qualified / experienced - but baaaaad.

But we're not only talking about specific technical qualifications.

Say the advert says "2 years management experience".
A man with 18 months experienced applies. A woman with the same doesn't.
You would otherwise love both CVs.
You'd interview him anyway - 18 months is 18 months!
But she never even sent hers in.
Women "play by the rules" more.

Even something like technical qualifications.

You might specify Level 4 in something. He has Level 3, he takes a punt.

You like the CV, and think - actually, we can train him, there's not that much more to Level 4, let's call him in.

Maybe you just got your new budget and a Level 3 is all you can afford. His punt paid off!

I have seen plenty of people get interviewed because "I like the sound of him" (sometimes down to cricket as an interest!)

It's like my on line dating profile.
I want someone 35+. But if you're 34 and play squash? The squash will get you a reply!

Cabrinha - yes it's true that women are unlikely to apply if they don't fulfill all the criteria. Unfortunately it's also been shown that men are recruited based on their potential, women on what they have already done.
The logic of 50% in at grad level will mean 50% board isn't true either. There are plenty of professions that have had high levels of women grads (law, medicine) for 20+ years but the attrition rate, lack of opportunity etc means at the higher levels its still mostly men.

hmmm that isnt always the case Spartan.... I do work for a large company though with a large portfolio of products so it may well be different elsewhere.

When I was reading the last couple of posts, my two children (girls) were playing with an app on my phone and the bigger one (6) had to tell the app a story.

She took a deep breath and started with "Once upon a time there was a little girl who was..." and I froze, hoping to God that whatever she said didn't completely show me up in the context of this thread "... an astronaut, so she built her own spaceship and was an astronaut." Phew!!

toby yes that's why I didn't say they always do. I am of the opinion, they should have something to do with what products are made and sold.

All our products go through our board (which includes), the same happens at the companies I work with. The company direction should have input from the board. But that is only my opinion.

Mine's letting the side down watching some simpering Disney shite. Oh no - it's a fan fiction type thing on YouTube, Anna (Frozen) is taking her son to the hospital with a constipated child.
So - mum's doing childcare.
I'll give you one guess which gender doll is the doctor fixing it all?

Which is fine, if 50% of that time it's the Barbie not Ken playing the doctor.

Ah: live update. Ken said he was going off shift, and said the next doctor would do it.

For one joyful moment, I was overjoyed it was Barbie!

But even as I prepared to dust the chip off my shoulder, Anna shouted "nooooooo! "

Because the female doctor is not to be trusted

The logic of 50% in at grad level will mean 50% board isn't true either. There are plenty of professions that have had high levels of women grads (law, medicine) for 20+ years but the attrition rate, lack of opportunity etc means at the higher levels its still mostly men. Yes - this is sadly true.

Although maybe we're fighting on the wrong battle lines.

Look at it another way: Men are exploited. Young men go into grad roles at BCG and work a million hours a week. They put up with it for years and progress well in roles. Young women say "fuck this shit" and when they get a little older they actively start looking for roles that they anticipate will be more suited to family life (not all, but surely a LOT). Then when we have children, we take the max maternity leave, and many return to flexible roles or don't return at all.

These routes are all but shut off to men. They put up with shocking levels of exploitation in lots of industries - especially hospital medicine - and have practially no paternity leave, and if they do have the option of paternity leave, they are considered to be a bit funny/lazy/a chancer if they take it. I have heard of men being told out straight by their bosses that taking paternity leave will give off a strong message about their lack of dedication to the role.

Obv. these men were then not going to take the leave, let alone say "My wife and I earn equal, respectable, amounts. To make this work now that we are parents, we are both going to go down to 4 days a week with our respective employers".

If paternity leave was 6 months + and strongly encouraged/required, and MEN were offered, and encouraged/required to share flexi time arrangements with the mothers of their children, then the playing field would be levelled a bit.

It's like the thing that's been in the news recently about how air con temperatures in US offices is determined by male core body temperature. Our modern working patterns are determined by an outdated model where men work full time and women are at home handling everything else. We don't HAVE anybody at home handling everything else any more (unless we are lucky enough to have stay at home husbands!), so employers of MEN have to start routinely offering the same flexibility of leave and hours to men as they do women, and the stigma, if any, of men taking up these benefits has to be removed.

I think recruitment is all different where I am (N Ireland). When they specify a set criteria they really do mean that you have to meet that criteria. It is quite common to see a job readvertised a month later saying that it has been readvertised and previous applicants need not reply. They also rarely accept covering letters and cvs, it is almost always a set application form (unless it's through a recruitment agency).

I've got a really well written cv (got help from a really successful friend, who is also a marketing professional) and can write good application forms but it's once in a blue moon that I get an interview even when I do meet the advertised criteria because there are usually enhanced critera that aren't mentioned in the ad. I've honestly never known anyone to get an interview here for a job where they don't meet the criteria. It's all very rigid.

I don't understand the Barbie's Dreamhouse thing. Apart from the fact that I can see my children's IQ's actively ticking down while they watch it (rare occasions where they get their hands on Netflix) I don't understand who it is aimed at. The whole subplot about Ken's homosexuality for starters? Is it designed to give parents a laugh, so that we don't switch it off the moment it comes on?

I remember there use to be a "brain twister" or whatever they are that went like this:

A man and his son are driving home from school when they are in a terrible car crash. The son is gravely injured and they are taken to hospital. The son is prepped for surgery and the surgeon comes in to operate to save his life but stops in horror and says - "I can't operate on this patient! He's my son!".

How can this be possible?? Everyone thinks and thinks and thinks, but can't come up with the answer.

Well, yes - the surgeon is the child's MOTHER. Ho ho ho. Who would ever have thought of such a thing.

I was about to make the same point. 30 years ago 50% of my intake (law) were female. 30 years only only 20% of us are in the high earning/leading roles. Obviously plenty hvae no children at all whether male or female so we cannot entirely blame families but I know a good lawyer who married at 40, no children (neither was keen and it didn't happen) and then quickly went part time because her lawyer husband was happy with that so that was a lifestyle choice probably born of innate sexism - I bet had her husband asked her if she could increase her hours and support him she might not have even accepted the marriage proposal - sadly.

Then some women are subject to discrimination.

Others just don't ask for more pay. One of my daughters (20 something lawyer like her sister) often calls to discuss these issues (and I am glad one her favourite books is Lean In and yes both girls had fairly neutral and feminist childhoods) often calls to discuss these issues. Someone was just hired (male lawyer ) that she knows who had zero experience in the field needed. He is bright. He will be trained up but I bet some women in his position would not have applied. So we need to get women more confident. I have always thought I was pretty good (because I am). So where does that come from and how do you breed it into women? Where does love of your work and ambition come from? Is it something simple like I have fairly high testosterone levels and some women don't? Is it having feminist parents (and grandparents) as I had? Both my girls have ended up in a sector related to financial services and they love it and the money is better than had they gone off to work for a charity or something like that. (Not that I am saying men and women should not work for charities of course).

On the point just above I was talking to the daughter recently who said there is a huge divide at work in all companies she's worked for between men with a housewife at home (she hates them 0 they are so so sexist and awful) and men whose wives work full time and often out earn the men these days who are much better to work with and I suspect she's right.

My problem with Cabrinha's post (08:06 today, and 99% of what Xenia says about why women have less prestige & money): is that the generalisations about what you think causes the ambition-deficit which you lament, are all very false assumptions about my background even though I am certainly a low-ambition person. If your assumptions are so false for me, I can't help but suspect they're rather false assumptions for many women. I don't have answers to your questions, maybe because I don't pretend to understand most other people, or I'm not seeing an enormous problem that needs fixing, anyway.

I'm not seeing an enormous problem that needs fixing, anyway.

You don't see a problem in the fact that the vast majority of the highly paid, decision-making roles at every level of our society - the roles that design everything you do or use, from your tax credits and interest rates to your car and ironing board, are occupied by men?

This isn't so much a debate about whether the person actually drawing up the plans for the next ironing board/Bloxham fund has a penis or a vagina, as the fact the DECISION-MAKERS pretty much all have penises.

There IS an ambition-deficit, and while certainly there are people with low ambitions (men and women alike) it is a very worthwhile practice to examine what the underlying causes are, if any.

Not every low-earning woman of 42 with 2 children actually wants to be low-earning, and the range of forces at work are vast so we need to pull apart which ones are down to the fact that being a part time nursery worker (or whatever) has always been her fondest ambition and which ones are because she was brought up and educated, however subtly, to believe that she couldn't do anything else or because conducted her career in an environment in which unqualified men were promoted above her because they asked to be.

You might be happy, but just because you are doesn't mean we should assume that every low-ambition woman is, because that would make us like the men of the last century who felt that if they had put a roof over our heads and didn't beat us, their work was done.

Which bit in 08:06 don't you agree with Trout?

That women are already the lower earning partner in a relationship even before kids?

Maybe it's a generational thing. I'm in my 40s and anecdotally it's very very true in couples I know.

And honestly, reading MN (which tbf is a self selecting limited demographic) it seems to be the majority situation.

I certainly don't think my opinions apply to EVERY woman. And beyond my opinions, the FACTS don't apply to everyone.

But where generalisations are true, it's worth understanding why, and if it creates a problem for some (either gender) addressing it.

I'm not seeing an enormous problem that needs fixing, anyway.

I started reading the thread with a similar predisposition. One of, 'that women seem to generally invent less than men- which would probably explain why the majority of stuff appears to be created by men.'

I'm not sure the connection of %stuff created by gender to %bought by gender matters, as the product will/should survive on it's own merit.

There's very few things/products I can think of that I know were created solely by women, There's plenty of designers of clothes, buildings, books I can easily think of. But female designers of actual products? not so much... does it matter? I thought not.

Reading Nann's rebuttal post made me question something though.
If the reason of a design's success is due to the 'best being successful' then no-one should care if even 100% of designs were by either sex. You'd have to be sexist to disagree...

I'm not seeing an enormous problem that needs fixing, anyway.
But if those 'best' designs are never getting to be formed initially because of a disparity in the way design ideas get aired/considered/passed/produced then that is an enormous problem. Because no-one cares where a good idea comes from as long as it arrives...

Quantum Redshift, iirc was created by a group of glaswegian girls and remains one of the bast racing games imo..
off to google inventors now...

Plenty of women would like to reverse tha so 80% of us hav the positions of power and men only 20%. The fact it is not even 50/50 is an enormous problem. We want to be the power not the power behind the throne.

Secondly if people disagree with our attempt to find reasons for women's poor pay then why would you not want to try to work out your own theory for it given so many women on mumsnet day in day out are short of money, on credit crunch threads, shafted by men on divorce, going to pay day lenders, wanting the weekly shop to cost less - there is a massiv eproblem in low pay for women which also has a big impact on children. So even if you're a fluffy socialist who wants to do good surely people can see that getting women into higher pay is a huge good? In Africa they tend to give money as loans to women for a business rather than gifts to men as women spend it wisely and on their children and mess piss it up the wall (which I accept could be a sexist generalisation about some men but tends to be true). The more money we can get into female hands the better.

I think the reason we are talking ironin boards etc, is because the OPs point is that if women make most of the purchasing decisions, then they should be the one making the products.

Just for clarity and my own self esteem, I did not ever say that. I talked about choice of product and market strategy decisions. I feel we should choose at board level not be gendered designers.

Here is my original post
To feel a bit put out that if 70% of spending is controlled by women why is 80% of our choice of product made by men? I was really shocked at how few women are at board level
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/320000/bis-women-on-boards-2014.pdf

I can't help feeling that experienced women should get to make the CHOICE, rather than just being in a focus group.

But to a certain extent, they DO have a choice.
And they choose not to be on boards.

Sometimes they make that choice actively and willingly - I'm in that camp, I have compromised career for family, with my eyes open. And also because I'm not good enough or tough enough for a board position actually - but I'm damn good enough to reach the level below in time, if I make the right moves. But I'm not (currently) making them.

But I took my decision to stall and treadwater career rise after a seniority pay point and seniority point. So my money in the meantime is good, as are my prospects for picking it all up again in a few years if I want to.
Lots of women don't make it to the board because of their own choices, like me.

But I think other women make that choice blindly, when at 24 they decide that their 28 year old partner who earns £5K more should press on whilst they go part time. And it works for many families. But for many more, the women are fucked when the divorce comes - and not always because a bloke has been an arse, marriages simply fail - and they're left working part time on little money with 3 kids limiting their job choices.

You read it ALL the time on here. Often in the horrible scenario of want to leave but can't afford to.

It's not simply a patriarchal conspiracy. Women are already making choices that keep them out of the board room. And women have to take responsibility for that.

I'm on lots of boards and on almost all of them I'm the only woman.

I can't talk for every industry, and mine is particularly male dominated, but if I look at the departments across the companies, a lot of the women who work there have no desire to be on the board. They want to have kids and want a no responsibility out of normal working hours job. I have no issue with that at all. Everyone has different ambitions.

Ironically, given the marketing theme of this thread, marketing and HR tend to have the most senior women in their departments.

The issue isn't the lack of women on boards imo. The issue is whether there are women who want to be on boards but can't get there - that is something to get concerned about.

Meanwhile, women continue to be trailblazers in setting up their own companies and doing extremely well. Where there is a will there's a way!

I suspect a lot of women opt out of the corporate lifestyle - I can't really blame them. It's very hard going with kids. Very hard.

Yes, I'm not on a board at the moment but I have been. I like being alone but I don't think that's a gender issue, it's just some humans are like me and I make quite a lot o0f money through my marketing but avoid the constant business generation of parties, client events and the like as I need a lot of time in slience every day. It is certainly the case that you can generate through women only networks and mixed events business and I do take the opportunity to go on the radio even if it's a car sent for me to go on the Today programme at 6am in part because women don't do enough of that - they don't take the risk, they don't want the stress, they don't want to have to find childcare from 6am etc etc The more of us who can do that the better. I also speak at lots of conferences and I do try to find women to do it when I can. I tried to fix a 100% female one earlier last year or this and I managed 50% in the end even though I started by only asking women.

At the time I posted, I was musing over the figures and the disparity. I was referring to the ability to direct, not whether you choose to be a sahp or to prioritise your career.

I made that sort of choice when I found I didn't want to be away from my children so found other ways to make a difference through volunteering, community and charity work but know quite a few women who tried to continue and found themselves sidelined.

But having read all this and musing over it again it seems more like Hobson's choice if you are a mother and want to continue. So good on those of you who have moderated your ambitions and started your own business or, in many cases, become self employed.

All female Hedge Fund anyone?

I said assumptions are false about my background. I don't understand people I don't know or barely know so I don't try to explain them.

At the time I birthed DC1 I was not the lower earning partner.

(Carinha) There also seems to be a common differential in ages.

I am 7 yrs older than DH.

is it also because she didn't actively chase her career?...[women don't apply unless] they meet all the must have criteria

er, no, I just don't like the senior duties associated with my job area. Don't want to ruin my job, by becoming more senior. I know a few blokes who declined to go up the ladder for same reason.

I think the factors contributing to the decision that the woman is the SAHP begins way before TTC.

I always thought I'd go back to work FT, it was inconceivable not to. At 34 weeks I suddenly thought "Wow, I don't have to go back FT, that's so neat I have the choice!" (unlike my mother who was the main earner). I was a SAHP for 8 yrs, now working FT again. So glad I had the choice.

(RDR) Others just don't ask for more pay.

Coz I already earn enough, don't want the extra pressure that comes with more pay either.

huge divide at work in all companies she's worked for between men with a housewife at home ...

I was born in '67 & as a child I could count on one hand the number of families I knew like that. EVERYBODY Worked in my background. And still does. Everyone had two parents who were both doctors-lawyers or teachers at my school. Now the parents at DC school are more ordinary & I can only think of one true SAHM. I can think of TWO SAHDs though...

Is it having feminist parents (and grandparents) as I had?

yeah I used to Pour over Our Bodies Ourselves, I knew the words by heart to Helen Ready songs in the 1970s, we went on social activist marches. The childbirth pictures are kind of gory. Didn't make me a more ambitious person.

Normally RDR comes on this thread to talk about how great it is when a Mother can afford staff. I grew up with a housekeeper. This did not make me ambitious either.

DD is wildly ambitious in spite of eight yrs living with a gormless SAHM. It came from within herself.

Of course there are plenty of relationships where the woman is older, but my anecdotal experience is it's more often the other way.
It's not a massive point, but I think it does contribute in part to why the man is sometimes the higher earner at the point of having children. And that then has an impact on who stays home.

I don't know for sure, I'd be interested to analyse the statistics actually - age and salary. Are there more younger mothers than fathers, is there salary gap at point of pregnancy purely a factor of age, etc?