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.

"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"

Why in your world is all the onus on women to ensure that the men they live with don't exploit them, Deo? If you live with a man who isn't a sexist, he won't need a kick up the bottom, he'll know it's his job to do the management of the household as much as it is that of the woman he lives with. And if the man you live with needs that kick up the bottom because he's a sexist, it's not a woman's fault that she isn't good enough at kicking him, it's his fault that he isn't good enough not to be a sexist.

Oooh yes WWW I think we'd all enjoy that.

Slightly off topic but still relevant I think.

I'm a member of my Son's school PTA. We have 25 members. 23 are women and 2 are men. The person "in charge" is male (coincidence perhaps?) He is quite a nice man (as in I have got nothing against him personally) but I know that many people think he is amazing for giving his precious time to the PTA (he is retired) unlike the rest of us doing the donkey work and it really annoys me

Before anyone asks-yes I do pull people up on it if they comment about him and how we should be grateful for all he does but I always think it makes ME sound really bitchy and I don't mean to

fascicle - I never negotiated a pay rise ever. I just got offered them. I accepted them. I am a man. I was worth it.

The problem here is not that employers offer men a pay rise when they think they are worth it - the problem is that women get turned down for a pay rise when they are worth it. Women are not trying to solve discrimination in pay and promotion by reducing what men get, just trying to get the same.

It would be nice to think there was a 'Mummy bonus' too.

Slightly off topic - but I am reminded of it by the story about Hero PTA guy - the headteacher at my dcs' primary school is so BLATANTLY a beneficiary of the glass elevator.

I think he is about 35 (guess) - maybe younger. Nearly all the other staff are women (there is one other male teacher). He has never, not for a second, demonstrated to me anything that makes him remotely as good as, let alone better than, the women in the other jobs. He has less gravitas, less charisma, he is a terrible communicator (both grumpily off-putting and unclear), he is somehow quite narky without being at all assertive. Projects (building projects etc) undertaken under his aegis seem to go on for ever and spiral into confusion. I can't rate his actual teaching as I haven't known him do any as HT, but in terms of leadership, he's a dismal failure. No personality, no strength, no power, no getting-shit-done, no star quality.

the other teachers in the school have all that in spades.

I actually am starting to personally loathe him as if he actively deprived some woman of that job by skulduggery or something. He might as well have done.

There shouldn't be any kind of parent bonus. You should get rewarded for what you deliver and /or given opportunities because of potential.

The problem is, those things are defined differently depending on who is measuring them, even when steps are taken to make them objective. I know someone who is works to live and doesn't play the corporate game. They are brilliant - laser-like in their thinking, saving and making the company masses of money over the years because they cut through the crap. They should be lauded and rewarded above all the desk jockeys. Are they? No. And, yes, she's setting up on her own shortly. And the desk jockeys? Guess which sex are paid and promoted better?

I was picked up on earlier about my comment about mediocre men being in senior positions. I don't think commenting on something I observe on a weekly basis is in the least bit sexist. When my junior admin staff are running things passed me in a "Just checking because I'm not sure this is quite right" way in an area in which the blokes are highly paid (supposedly) for their competence are and my staff are bang on the money, too right I'm going to notice. I often wonder for which skills they are being rewarded, if it's not their supposed specialism. Perhaps there is a general lack of ability in the sector in which we work?

Oh, and DG, I know nothing will cause you to reflect on your position (I've long seen you about on this and other boards), but your "marry a non-sexist man" thing is bizarre, given that your ex fucked off, never to be seen again, once he had your money and whilst your youngest were still little! How is he non-sexist when he didn't finish the job of raising the children and left you to it?!

Not enough time. Yup it's the same here the head of the pta at my children's school always seems to be a man whilst the women put in all the work.

I can't personally moan as I do little to help out (it's fallen into the something has to give category along with ironing the children's school uniforms).

However it does strike me as representative of a lot of organisations.

SoftDriftedSnow
I was picked up on earlier about my comment about mediocre men being in senior positions. I don't think commenting on something I observe on a weekly basis is in the least bit sexist.

That was me. Talking about 'mediocre men being in senior positions' would not on its own be worthy of comment. It was that remark, coupled with your follow-up sentence and the negative assumptions and stereotyping within it - that mediocre men at work would be 'equally shit at the home stuff'.

AskBasil My question was about who or what you consider responsible for sexist practices in the workplace and an unequal division of labour at home - men, men and women, society and culture? And how far are these things done wittingly or unwittingly? You've talked about the workplace not being structured for women - is it the case that the workplace is simply not evolving sufficiently to offer truly equal opportunities and fair treatment of women? Or does the workplace continue to be designed in a way that purposefully marginalises women?

FreeWorker
fascicle - I never negotiated a pay rise ever. I just got offered them. I accepted them. I am a man. I was worth it.

You've dodged the daddy bonus question! It wasn't about negotiating a payrise. You said:

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

So would you have accepted a bonus that was discriminatory and not based on merit? If you had been offered it, or told one was coming your way, would it have been hard to decline?

fascicle - the 'Daddy bonus' is a normal pay rise that occurs in the normal pay round. It is statistically measurable and can be shown that men tend on average to get paid a premium to childless men (and women).

It is not paid out as a special named payment, for example like a pay rise that happens when employees pass a professional exam. There is not an actual payment called a 'Daddy bonus' its just a statistical trend.

That said, even though I never got paid a 'Daddy bonus' I did get the 'man bonus' and I did accept those although of course it is never called a 'man bonus' just a level of pay reflecting my perceived worth. The problem here is that organisations almost never 'perceive' women to be of the same worth as men - not that men get paid what they get paid.

See my earlier post. I have never had to ask for a pay rise. That's the real problem. Women have to ask and get turned down more often than men. There is always a reason why men get paid more on average, be it the 'Daddy bonus', 'better negotiation skills', 'leaning in', 'more laser like focus', 'caring less about work life balance'. It all rot. These reasons are just another name for discrimination.

As a teacher I'm finding all the stuff about pay rises and bonuses fascinating, because that isn't an issue in our line of work - we all get paid equally craply. But then you can say that is because it is a profession dominated by women so we can get paid less, and also of course looking at who gets the promotions, headships etc, the sexism is still there IMO. Not even with who gets it but with who chooses to go for them, knowing the impossibly long hours if you have dcs.

iggi - this backs up what you say. TES article.

Very eloquently put FreeWorker1. I got to the stage a while ago where I was worth far more to myself and family than an outsider could afford to pay me, which is why I am not in paid employment.

I wanted to pick up on "leaning in" and employers paying when they need you more than you need them. My Gran was part of the post war generation of mothers who were begged to go back to teaching. She did and employed daily domestic help and educated her son privately. My Mum took 10 years out of the workplace when her DC were young and returned to a school hours post at her previous level in the depths of the late 70s recession.

Labour market participation for women is now higher than it has ever been. However the gender pay gap persists and from my own family experience I would say that flexibility and choice for women balancing career and family is worse than it has ever been. I think a deal of "leaning out" and less government subsidy for childcare might well be a better way forward in demonstrating women's worth in the workplace.

Women have to ask and get turned down more often than men. There is always a reason why men get paid more on average, be it the 'Daddy bonus', 'better negotiation skills', 'leaning in', 'more laser like focus', 'caring less about work life balance'. It all rot. These reasons are just another name for discrimination.

Quite. It all comes down to WHO is paying. You can't make an employer pay you more or less - they choose, so Justine your article is fundamentally wrong in its premise.

I am interested in these studies mentioned above where they advertised jobs at a fraction of the value to get more women to apply. Not because I am particularly interested in who is applying, but because I want to know what did the employer end up actually paying? Did they say "we evaluated the job at a pay grade of C which has a salary band of £50,000-£70,000 [eugh, I HATE stupidly wide salary bands! Licence to discriminate there] but Jane only wanted circa £30,000 when she applied so we will pay her £32,000 and she'll be happy" or did they say "we evaluated the job at a pay grade of C which has a salary band of £50,000-£70,000 so we will give Jane £50,000 because she only wanted £30,000 but the job is worth more than that and we'll lose the budget if we drop it down." or did they say "we evaluated the job at a pay grade of C which has a salary band of £50,000-£70,000 and we bench marked Jane's skills and experience as being above the average pay of £62,000 for the role so we are going to offer her £64,500 to reflect that.". I know which one I'd put my 85% of men's aggregate earnings on.

Now I realise the piece Justine wrote is in the recruitment section of the FT and I would say (bearing in mind all my other numerous posts on this thread!) that as someone who works in HR and more specifically recruitment and promoting talent, the problems that occur at recruitment stage are small fry compared to on-the-job discrimination - because there is often better oversight of recruitment and the recruitment budget.

Discrimination tends to occur (in my experience) more at internal pay review, promotions and performance linked consolidated bonuses. Basically anywhere where people are asked "how much should each person get" and subjective opinion comes into play rather than objective and fair evaluation. Some things I've seen include asking the management team to vote how much each person should get in teams of people they have never met and where they have not reviewed the evidence "put your hand up if you think Mary is right to give Jennifer 3% this year?" and when asked for opinions about pay "well I think Jeff does a bloody good job so he deserves his 5%. Jane seems to do a good job but I've not known her that long [she's been on maternity leave] so it's hard to say... just give her 2%. That seems fair. She can always get more next year.".

Discrimination is not always overt (as Justine does point out indirectly in her article and later clarifies). But that does not make it right or acceptable. There are many, many things employers can do to fix or mitigate that innate bias [listed up thread but includes gender pay gap analysis; blind pay reviews; setting clear performance objectives and measuring against those objectives; robust HR practices; effective over sight of processes relating to performance evaluation and reward; narrow salary bands; paying for the work, not the worker; changing processes to make them more objective and fair etc. etc.] but many choose not to do so because to admit it means you have to either spend money putting it right or ignore it which becomes active discrimination and that makes people uncomfortable. Better to pretend there's no issue and hope it all goes away...

AllTheToastIsGone

I know-it's bloody annoying

Moving, that was a great post.

The other issue with discrimination on-the-job is that it is a vicious circle. What happens to the person who is working hard but not getting rewarded - getting subtly put down or snubbed without actually getting criticism that can be worked with - repeatedly treated as not valuable or important or worth rewarding? - well this is going to take place probably in a context where they don't have management processes to address her personal development, so she doesn't even have anyone to talk to about "what did I go wrong?" "why not that promotion for me this year?" "ok so why not this year? When?" and so on - what happens is that she will internalise the subtly expressed views of those around her that she is pretty talentless and unimportant, and the fight to improve or progress will go. You end up with a loss of confidence and loss of motivation.

There are so many studies done on how people respond to how they are treated and the non-verbal cues that inform them what is expected of them. As an unusual individual you can in theory transcend the constant "you're rubbish" messages (being invited to meetings in a half-arsed way and arriving to find that there isn't a copy of the information for you; being sent out to fetch things in meetings, when someone forgot to bring something, and then coming back to find you have missed half an important conversation about your primary job function; and so on) but it is hard to do when there isn't really anyone to talk to about it and have some context for it all and some sort of moral support.

Freeworker
You provided a very specific, seemingly overt example of the 'daddy bonus', as observed by your wife:

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'.

You also said that sadly, you left salaried employment before you could be paid a 'daddy bonus'. (Which may just be a humorous comment.)

So my question was really along the lines of - if you were the male employee in that position, and knew/were told you were being given a bonus because you were a new father, rather than on merit, and if you knew this would affect the dispersal of the pay pot, to the detriment of others - what would you have said and done, if anything?

I don't understand this question you have for freeworker, fascicle. You don't seem to understand the spirit in which the "daddy bonus" is given and explained, and it's post facto, collective recognition by third party commentators as a "daddy bonus".

I understand perfectly, LockTheTaskBar, that the 'daddy bonus' might generally work in a subtle, insidious way. In this specific example, the manager verbalised his reason for the bonus - he said the man deserved a pay rise because his wife had just had a baby. It's not beyond a stretch to imagine that he mentioned his reasoning to the recipient.

Slugg I need a big fat like thumbs up button for the guest post - I'm with the women of Iceland.

We were aware of the "husband" bonus operating in the City and this is the reason my DH has a wedding ring. Conversely I know plenty women who take off their rings for interviews and Miss is better as a job title than Mrs or Ms, but still way behind Mr.

fascicle - I don't know if the man in question knew he was getting a 'Daddy bonus'. He asked for a pay rise in the annual appraisal, pay, bonus round and he got what he asked for or at least some of it.

The manger involved post-rationalised it by saying the man had had a baby and 'needed' the pay rise. This is an example of how men get paid more when women in exactly the same position don't.

I have never been in the position of getting a 'Daddy bonus' but I have already given the example of being in the position where as a man I strongly suspected I was getting more pay than two equivalent women and I did tell my boss I thought he was being unfair to the women. I told the two women I thought they were being discriminated against and they both left the organisation and so did I. One of the women subsequently recruited me to assist her.

Men have to negotiate their own pay, they cant know what other people are negotiating and until very recently many employment contracts specifically made it forbidden to discuss pay. In my view complete pay transparency is the main reason discrimination goes undetected and introducing complete transparency would be huge help to closing the pay gap.

Just to balance it out I chair a volutnary thing I am on not any of the men. I chair the conference I am at later this month. My daughter has the biggest bonus of anyhone (most male) at her level in the firm. Many of us are working very hard to advance female pay. Keep at it. It can work if you really are the best and do the best and tell everyone you are the best. I reject work every day that is not paid enough. I reject it gracefully and suggest someone cheaper who can do it.

We just have to keep at it.

I don't think women should tolerate even a day of a sexist man at home. My family have been feminists for generations and none of those ancestors would have either but that does not mean I blame women, If your mother is a housewife and serves your father it's not surprising if you want to perpetutate that model.

The person choice is actually fairly political. Don't con yourselves that a personal choice has no wider famifications. Even woman who goes part time damages other women.

Glosswitches blog post is great and I agree it would have made a better FT article.

Especially noted the point about women possibility not negotiating because they fear the consequences.

I rather wonder if the two threads ought to be merged.