To think Justine Roberts should not have written this in the FT

[FreeWorker]

Justine writes a comment column in the Recruitment section of the Financial Times section which most MNetters will not have seen as it is behind a paywall.

In her most recent article of yesterday she writes on the gender pay gap and I was astonished to read the following sentences:

"As far as I have seen, then, the gender pay gap has very little to do with discriminatory practices or policies against women."

"The second big problem is that women just do not seem to care as much as men do about salaries and promotion."

One commentator under the FT article called Ezra sums up how I feel.

"Some valid observations - but to say that the gender pay gap has nothing to do with discrimination is frankly delusional."

For those who want to see the full article you may be able to read it via the following link if you search for it via Google and answer a few online questions:

For the rest of the year your pay will be zero

The Financial Times is an extremely influential newspaper in business and Government circles and Justine is also extremely influential as an opinion former because of MN.

AIBU to think that the views Justine has expressed in this article do not reflect the daily experience of women at work? AIBU to think it also contradicts the thousands of posts about unfair treatment at work by women on MN that show discrimination is rampant and that women DO care about salary and promotion?

I have name changed for this post but am a long time male poster on MN and have had male bosses throughout my career who openly and routinely made discriminatory comments in meetings when no women were around to hear them. They knowingly paid women less and passed them over for promotion. I worked in an industry where virtually no women make it to senior positions.

The gender pay gap is always about discrimination in my experience.

Incidentally, I recall reading an authoritative study of the workplace effectiveness of men after their DW/DP had had a baby. This was in the 1990s.

In my recollection men did not regain their full productivity until 6 months after the baby was born.

I don't believe a woman either can be effective at work just 2 weeks after having given birth. I know from my own experience it took me several months, especially with broken sleep to be anything like productive - even though I was obviously not the one giving birth and breast feeding.

Telling women to give birth in their annual holiday and return to work two weeks later is not the answer. Many women suffer significant pre and post natal illness, trauma and mental health issues. Almost all find it a physically and mentally draining experience (a random draw of threads on this site tells us that) and I cannot believe any organisation benefits from having male or female employees sat around partly functional. Indeed in some circumstances it could be highly dangerous or lead to significant financial loss through errors.

Shared maternity and paternity leave is actually good for employers but they never see it that way.

freeworker, have you come across the concept of the fatherhood bonus? NY Times article here.

Lean in until you fall over

AskBasil
if men did as much domestic work and childcare as women do, capitalism would have restructured its workplace by now, and if women had not been systematically excluded from shaping the workplace, it would not have been shaped in the way it has been.

nobody tells men that they can't expect to take time out of the workplace and never function again within the workplace structures. The reason women are being told this, is not because it's inevitable and fair and reasonable, it's because , duh, sexism.

Two quotes from separate posts. In terms of men not doing as much domestic work/childcare as women; women being 'systematically excluded from shaping the workplace' and the difference in attitude to time off work, which you highlight in the second quote and attribute to sexism, who/what do you think is responsible for these attitudes and behaviours?

Basil I agree with everything you said in your reply to me, and to be honest I don't think your reply is at odds with anything I said today or earlier on in the thread - because it's exactly how I feel. For me, neither DG nor myself has behaved 'like a man' because we have both had to do more 'same destination, different routes' stuff than similar men (or men with less whatever - skills, qualifications, gumption...) would have had, and have had, to do. And that's just plain wrong. It's discriminatory but it's also mad - because so many women can get lost or diverted on the way and that's not good for society or for their ex or potential employers either. And it's not good for them.

When I consider the discrimination I have face in my working life, it is quite tricky to work out how much of it has been because I'm a woman and how much of it has been because I have particular challenges (dyspraxic and slightly AS). I've certainly known men with AS have a rougher end of the stick than I have too, and I do suspect that while I have certainly suffered from discrimination both direct and indirect (systemic) that I have also to a certain extent benefitted from reverse discrimination - I clearly (these days, not at the beginning of my career) 'get away' with some things now because I'm a woman, whereas men with similar issues/challenges might not get that 'leeway'. Now, I don't doubt that the reason I get the benefit of the doubt over some of my quirks is because some of my colleagues expect women to be 'odd' (which is, whatever way you cut it, sexist) and some of my colleagues (more) bend over backwards to be accommodating because they have some muddled sense of how hard it must have been for me to get where I am. And the quirky men, they don't get that. So once I got to a certain point, being a woman helped me, I think. And that's not right either, really. I often get annoyed with the 'what about the menz' crowd but I can't deny that sometimes they have a point too, when I look at things through the prism of disability.

As for the last kingdom - yes the Telly version is great, innit? but as always - the books were better.

slug I still beg to differ. You read my post and compared 7 years to 10. I read it as 5 years against 13. I don't agree that a year of half time experience in a progressive career structure is the same as a year of full time. 8 years less experience would make just as much difference to either sex.

However I also agree with Basil and love the analogy with dragons. This is all the more pertinent because women are being sent on roundabout routes while also managing a biological clock.

I completely agree with Buffy regarding who decides on what work is of value. This is one of the many reasons I choose not to outsource my homelife and why I do not support onesided tax and benefit policies which favour 2 salaried worker families.

I also love Basil's analogue. I was thinking yesterday of something similar and kept calling to mind that quote about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire: "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." and that's how I feel. Notionally I am doing the same job, except I'm not because I'm have the millstones of domestic life and caring responsibilities to manage too.

I have no scorn for lower earners. That is words being put into my mouth which are not there.

I agree that over a long career a few months tending your sick mother or crossing China on foot or whatever or having time to be on paternity (or maternity ) leave may be no big deal but that isn't what happens. Instead it is the start of a long period of sexism in most marriage where the women gets the paid maternity leave and right from the start of having babies is the one who the husband sees as the expert at all things baby When she returns to work full time that pattern of woman as organiser and domestic person continues if she isn't good enough at giving him a kick up the bottom to take over complete charge of washing and cooking now she's working; or she goes back part time and there begins decades of sexism within their relationship and low pay for her.

Also in most careers you have a key period to make it (I am not saying that should be the case and indeed I hope my next few years between 50 and 60 will be my most productive of my life actually) and if you duck out of full time work then you tend to miss the boat for life so if someone has to be the mug at home doing the dishes let the man do it. If it were such fun at home men would be queuing up to do it.

*SlipperyJack - thank you for the NYT link.

Yes there is very much a 'Daddy bonus' and the reason is very clear. Older men who are likely to be both fathers and also senior managers will empathise with younger men whose wife has just had a child, especially a first child, and recognise the additional responsibility and financial burden that man faces and readily agree to a pay rise.

My wife, who has by the way assiduously been reading this thread, saw a real life example of this some years ago. She became aware that a manager had awarded a pay rise to a man in the office whose wife had just had their first baby. He had said the man deserved a pay rise because his wife had just had a baby. In the same pay round a single childless woman at the same comparative rank and identical in every other way complained that she had not got a pay rise. In effect the fixed pay pot had been divided their manager in favour of the man because of the 'Daddy bonus' and away from the childless woman because 'she didn't need it'.

The manager had rationalised it simply by saying the man was now a father. It absolutely does happen.

Sadly I had quit salaried employment by the time our first baby was born so I did not benefit from the 'Daddy bonus'.

It'd be interesting to hear from those who work at MNHQ regarding Justine's article. Is this how it works there?

I once had a friend that worked for a startup in Silicon Valley. She found out that she was getting paid well below average for her experience and skills and fought all her instincts (she came from a country and culture of extreme deference to me ) and asked her boss for a pay rise.

Her boss interrogated her: "Do you have kids?" (no) "Do you support a partner?" (no) "How much do you pay in rent?" "What are your bills like?" and concluded that since she didn't have family obligations (read, a wife and/or kids) she didn't need a pay rise.

Now, before some of you come and tell me that she should have sued the hell out of his ass, do check Ellen Pao's case, the illusion of meritocracy in the tech world, and what happens to your career after you succeed in a pay discrimination case. Some of us may be strong enough to go ahead, but we aren't all superheroes.

(extreme deference to men)

At risk of diverting this thread, this in the Grauniad today: Chef Watkins was back at work 2 days after leaving hospital post-birth, and she says she has "more of a balance" now. It works for her - great. Will it work for others? Like fuck it will.

I do hours of domestic work. I was moaning to one of the teenagers this morning about using my bare hands to remove rubbish. I said a large part of my life was family refuse collector. Working men and women do a lot of cleaning. It doesn't mean we have to like it though or suggest it is some sanctified higher calling women are lucky enough to devote entire lives to......

I am sure that over 31 years as a mother albeit working full time I have done more cleanig and child care than most stay at home mother mumsnetters who have a child under 5 actually. I need the medal for most childcare and cleaning done by a poster -despite working full time.

On the pay anecdotes my chidren's father once asked for a pay rise and was refused because I earned too much.

Oh sure, they are both anecdotes. I'm sure the data is on my side though

You need to delegate Deo. Taking out the rubbish is what I keep my teenagers for. They believe the hourly rate for domestic duties should be higher.

I did give DD1 a violin lesson today which would have cost her £40 from an outsider.

MNHQ? I think you will find they have other issues to consider.

It will be available when the market requires it. Money tends to determine most social changes - we needed women during WWII to work so nurseries opened. We didn't need them when the men came home so nurseries closed. When there is sufficient shortage of workers that the only way to get them is have two part timers that is then recruited.
Someone who does some work for me moved abroad, had a second baby etc and all that still works - she's good and does the work so am happy to work around that; whereas if someone is worse than useless you are delighted when they leave. It's not rocket science. Lean in and you tend to do well. lean out and expect to do well and you're kidding yourself.

By all means seek a revolution where by people work shorter hours but Harold Wilson back when I was a child talked about the white heat of technology meaning we would only have to work a few hours a day and that has not come to pass as instead we want more and more things like holiday and meals out which people didn't used to even know they wanted.

The bottom line is that websites need publicity. Ih ave advised hundreds of them and the hardest hing of all is getting and keeping critical mass. For that you need them mentioned in the press. Thus every press comment JR does means the company's employees are more likely to keep their jobs. The publicity is good. Too many women don't publish, don't speak out, worry about hurting someone's feelings or someone having different views. Instead they should just press on and speak out.

FreeWorker
Sadly I had quit salaried employment by the time our first baby was born so I did not benefit from the 'Daddy bonus'.

If you had been offered one, would you have accepted or declined?

I wouldn't necessarily agree that 'the publicity is good' DG.

Because when the owner of a website whose content is user generated, mainly by women, decides to tell the FT that "...the gender pay gap has very little to do with discriminatory practices" and "...women don't care as much as men about pay..." it sets us all back. And it pisses some of us off. So that ain't 'good publicity'. It's poor business, potentially. And it lets men and organisations off the hook! "It's not them, poor loves, it's that women just don't care as much about cold hard cash."

As previous posters have pointed out, maybe some companies don't actively set out to discriminate but it doesn't change the fact that there IS a gender pay gap (and the piece was written because women effectively work the rest of the year free, so pause for hollow laughter) and that it isn't because women aren't as good as men, it just isn't. It's not a level playing field, never has been.

Justine is entitled to her opinion but I think it's really disappointing.

"AskBasil
if men did as much domestic work and childcare as women do, capitalism would have restructured its workplace by now, and if women had not been systematically excluded from shaping the workplace, it would not have been shaped in the way it has been.

nobody tells men that they can't expect to take time out of the workplace and never function again within the workplace structures. The reason women are being told this, is not because it's inevitable and fair and reasonable, it's because , duh, sexism.

Two quotes from separate posts. In terms of men not doing as much domestic work/childcare as women; women being 'systematically excluded from shaping the workplace' and the difference in attitude to time off work, which you highlight in the second quote and attribute to sexism, who/what do you think is responsible for these attitudes and behaviours?"

I'd like you to rephrase that because I'm not quite sure what you are asking.

But I agree that women should speak out

I hope one of the MN journalists writes a rebuttal