Overlooked for promotion because I'm pregnant

[NotAWhaleOmeletteInSight]

Very long time poster with a new username as I couldn't get my password reset to work.

I'm on holiday at the moment but back at work in a week. I've been with my organisation for 10 years and am very experienced in my field. I have an excellent track record and performance management history etc. A couple of years ago my manager was talking about my career progression and where I could be in a year or 2, if I wanted.

Immediately after this conversation I became pregnant and now have a 1 year old. I'm back at work part time.

A role came up recently that would have been a step up for me and which I could have job shared part time. It's the sort of thing that comes up very very rarely. I expressed an interest and presented a case about how I could do it with a colleague (who also expressed an interest) as a job share. We're both part time. Management seemed very positive. A week later I found out I was pregnant again and let my boss know. I said I intended to come back again and that I was still interested in the role.

I then found out a few weeks ago that a new starter has been given the role. This was just casually announced in the morning meeting for all staff. He'll be full time. He's got 3 years experience and a similar track record to me, only less of it obviously.

Am I being unreasonable to feel overlooked because of being pregnant? I've always intended to keep working and kept in touch on my previous maternity leave. I've worked really hard for years and until my first pregnancy I felt that my career was taken seriously.

Now it's like I've hit a glass ceiling. I like the new starter and think he'll be good in the role, but I don't like how it was handled. Should I ask for an explanation when I get back or just let it go? Feel free to tell me to get a grip!

Interesting thread, sorry for place marking

Rain, I agree that priorities are personal but if someone values time and home and wants to go pt or job share, they cannot possibly be of equal value to an employer as someone who prioritises work and goes ft. The laws protect against discrimination all things being equal but things are not equal when comparing a ft to a pt employee unless the business need is for a pt employee.

Yes and that makes it easier for thsoe of us who love work and want to minimise time spent changing nappies or cleaning the floor. Might feel unfair on those who want to maximise their time doing dull domestic stuff but there you are.....

It also depends on the work. If someone is just typing data into a screen it may not matter if in the morning it's Janice and after 2pm June as no one knows. If instead Janice is slicing up your brain during surgery you might not want her to knock off at 2 and let June take over.

What I want is to ensure young women realise that life is not some indulgent bed of roses out there where everyone puts work in aspic preserved for 4 days whilst you are home or doing flexi time. That won't happen in most jobs so as long as you know there might be a detriment if you get yourself lumbered with the duller domestic jobs at home whilst your husband earns the money and has some muggins at home cleaning his house and you know that your children won't thank you for doing 20 cycles of their washing a week rather than 2 but they mgiht well thank you for funding their university years through your high salary, then that's fine. It's all about making informed choices. It is not for no reason that some sexist men go on about never being able to do what their housewife does. They really mean I'm wise enough to leave that awful stuff to her but I'll pretend it's a wonderful higher calling to serve me and clean up after me and then she'll be conned into making my life easier.

Something I have experienced and seen many times is an underlying assumption that when a woman has a child that her career will somehow become less important and that she wont be so invested in her career than she was pre-children.

At the same time when a man has a child there is an underlying assumption that he will be more serious about his career now that he has a family to provide for.

I have seen and experienced this when there has been no actual reason for making that assumption in the individual case.

It is never anything you can put your finger on to say 'this is discrimination' it is just a subtle shift in communication, opportunities, assumptions about availability for this or that which may be career enhancing in the long run.

I wonder if this is the subtext to what the OP is experiencing.

Gnome, the reason for that assumption is that more often than not, a woman will ask for pt or reduced hours or flexible working after coming back from maternity leave, if they come back at all especially after more than one child. It is not an unreasonable assumption.

The cure is for more men to take longer paternity leave and apply for pt posts after they have a baby or for more women to continue working ft after maternity leave.

Rain- I am not over-invested in your posts. Please don't patronise me. I have repeatedly answered your points whereas you pick and choose what suits your argument and you do so using inaccurate evidence from my posts.bYou ignore the rest.

I really hate it when, as women, we mis-use hard-won rights which are supposed to protect us, and then mouth off turning it into an emotive issue and refusing to allow any honest discussion without accusing people of being discriminatory.

It is a small-minded, pathetic way to behave and demeans us as women to say things like
Do you think pg women shouldn't have risk assessments?
simply because I have presented experiences it does not suit your argument to hear about. I said no such thing, nor suggested it. You implied I did because that is how women like you operate- don't allow honset discussion, believe women who work flexibly deserve no scrutiny, anyone who disagrees with you is immediately presented as not supporting women. You do women no favours with your behaviour and attitudes. Infact you make it harder for the ones who do their absolute best and are judged like the ones who take the piss and make life harder for all of us. Just you keep defending them - right on!

The examples I have given are not about performance issues . RTFT properly. They are about a school that is put in a ridiculous position by some women requesting flexible working and thinking their request should be prioritised over the needs of the school, students and other staff. When it isn't they go straight to unions and complain and bugger the impact it might have on anyone else. My view is and remains that their requests should only be met of they a) meet the needs of the school and b) are not adversely affecting anyone else's life or provision.

If we pretend flexible working has no adverse impacts we are acting like fools and it does us no favours. Employers simply find other reasons not to employ women to avoid the issue.

My Head is dealing with one at the moment- Head of a core dept. who insists (for the last 5 years) her day off is the day we have staff meetings or CPD one week and dept meetings the next. She expects everything to work around that - wants to hold her dept meetings on a night to suit her (10 other staff in the dept who do not want to do that). She expects the school to send her on expensive CPD of her choice when she should be teaching because she can not attend our fantastic CPD programme. The Head has suggested her day off is moved to another day but she has refused.

He gave her required notice and has moved it and she is furious. The union have backed down and she is saying she will resign her HOD role. Her choice I think. Then we'll face her whining and grumbling about us to anyone who will listen. But, hey, let's pretend she is reasonable and we are unreasonable and I should not be critical of her beacuse I am a woman should be championing her. That attitude, which you have, and her behaviours do women no favours at all.

blueshoes the problem is that this assumption is made not just in general but also in particular. So even when there are two people, one male & one female both with children and both in all particulars (working ft, having appropriate childcare, available for travel etc) it is the man who will get the career enhancing opportunity.

Gnome that's the mummy-track for you. One issue I see with how to change it is that it is important for more men to work flexibly etc, in order to improve how women are regarded at work. BUT more men will not be willing to work flexibly if they view it as the death knell of their career. So how do we get out of the vicious circle?
I thought Blueshoes' point about priorities was interesting, that a p-t worker values time and home and a f-t worker priorities work. When I am at work I am flat-out and absolutely prioritise work. To say I don't (as in, p-t workers don't) is to me like saying at the weekend or holidays a full time worker isn't prioritising work - well of course they aren't as its their own time. I do not short change my employers and I think they get pretty good value out of me. I love my job, most days anyway!

So I believe women who work flexibly deserve no scrutiny, according to Lulu. Yet in my last post I said "you have dealt with some right chancers" and "of course some employees take the piss".

As for the label women like you Lulu well there are some good mumsnet retorts to that kind of rudeness but I am trying to be a better person. Must be the wine

Yes, that's why women going on to the mommyu track part time etc do damage other women. It is not just a personal decision to put housework and low pay and serving a husband above your career. It is a political deision to do other women down, to taint them all as it were.

That is why I have always said when asked about children and work and how do I manage - that the more children you have the harder you need to work to keep them. that puts the sexists pigs in their place who assume men earn to keep families and women earn pin or no money and serve men. We just need a much bigger cohort of full time working women hammering this message home. We dont' want more time for housework. We want full time very high paid work and to outearn men in all careers. If more tidying up of the house needs to be done men can do it. If men think a toddler needs someone genetically related to it at home all day then here's the mop being handed to the man - if it's such fun staying home men would be rushing to do it.

showme what I have said in the posts is that we have so many women working flexibly now- the vast majority inflexibly if I may say so, with only 1 saying any day off the school can best manage will be fine and the others demanding the day off that they want and going to unions if they can't have it- that we simply can not manage any more.There is already someone in the department in which I teach who has Monday ad Friday off. My asking would make the department timetable impossible to write in any way that was right for children.

In addition, my job means I lead CPD in the school so have to be there that day- it would hardly be fair if I wasn't and I am not about to ask the whole school to change CPD nights to suit me.

I also have to be at SLT meetings which are on the other two days so I am stuffed really.

We could afford for me to not work and it has its appeals but really that would be career on SLT over at my age if I had 5 years out. I love what I do.

If the point comes where I can't do it properly, I will not expect the school to compromise or give me an easier ride than other staff. I will resign. If I can't do the job I am being paid to do I should not be doing it. It is not fair to other staff if they have to do more or to students if they do not get the best deal.

I think anyone should have the right to ask for flexible working but askng should not mean their request is met unless it suits the needs of whatever business they work for. Employers are not charities. They exist to meet needs of users/clients not to suit staff.

God Janet I am all for men doing the mopping etc - and for women having fantastic careers if that's what they want - but what the hell makes you think looking after kids is all nappy changing and cleaning the floor?

Being in practical charge of the development if your kids is much more than that. I'd rather the political point was that childcare and v early years education should be more valued whether it's care you pay someone else for or not. I don't think feminism is pouring oneself and ones kids into the particular mould you, Janet, think we should all fit into.

I've never had someone place mark on one of my threads before - thank you Stealth (bows excitedly).

I agree - looking after my dc on my non working days is not all mopping floors and general domestic drudgery! Somehow, the house work more or less gets done. It has to fit around the far more fun and enriching things I'm doing with my dc though. I absolutely agree that there should be more value placed on early education and child development.

Something I have experienced and seen many times is an underlying assumption that when a woman has a child that her career will somehow become less important and that she wont be so invested in her career than she was pre-children.

The thing is that for many women this is the fact. I've lost count of the number of part-timers over the years who flat out refuse to do anything outside of their hours, won't help with school plays, fetes, do anything extra curricular. They moan when there is a PD day not scheduled based around their hours, or when meetings are held on different days. One even bitched because someone's birthday lunch was on a day they didn't work. They actually wanted to be paid to come in for lunch! Not all women are like this of course, but the problem is that after a string of bad ones, employers can become very wary.

But the utter frustration is when a sweeping generalisation is applied by your own line manager who knows you.

Mary: 'Why did you ask Bob go to XYZ conference on Saturday instead of me?'
Manager: 'I didnt think you would want to be bothered and I thought you would be busy at weekends'

Now Bob is the departmental expert on XYZ. The line manager thinks they have done a kind thing by not bothering Mary with a weekend conference. They are not then happy when Mary says she would have wanted to go. They then resolve to offer the next thing to Mary whether it is appropriate or not.

Having been Mary in this situation I have ended up feeling obliged to say 'yes' to everything knowing full well that the second I say 'no' my line manager will assume that my head is stuffed with domestic concerns.

At an intellectual level the line manager knows that Mary wants to progress but rather than talking to Mary and listening to her replies the line manager jumps to an assumption.

Gnome

The thing is though that "Bob" is equally as pissed of because he feels put upon that "Mary" never does anything (due to not being asked) outside of 'normal' work hours. (apologies for the many quote marks)

Boney but in my experience Bob gets to say 'no' without there being assumptions made that he isnt committed to his career

Gnome mine have been have been the opposite, especially when single.

I hasn't to add that that is a whole different thread, (although linked to this one)