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.

Come to think of it, all of my job moves have been because I've considered my salary too low and wanted a higher one. I had absolutely no idea that this was in some way considered rare or highly unusual, since almost every woman in my profession has the same or similar experiences.

My profession (law) is hard whatever level you are at. If you get things wrong, the consequences can be quite catastrophic and you also risk professional negligence. Stress and pressure is normal in every job, whether its lower paid or not, so you might as well progress and be better paid for more senior, higher quality work. If you're lucky, that better paid higher quality work might also be slightly lower volume.

It is also an increasingly female dominated profession. There are a surprising number of difficult, low paid jobs out there which you will see advertised and which actually go unfilled for years at a time. There are also some lower paid jobs (35-40k) in the public sector that I suppose are marginally easier because they don't expect the long hours working culture, but which are not part time. Some of those jobs do attract women with children, but they still seem to be male dominated, or at least half filled by men.

Maybe lawyers are just a greedy, grabbing bunch to expect to be well paid for what they do and not want to work for peanuts. But at least we don't leave it only for the men!

Yes Scremersford, it seems that law and medicine and even accounting have more and more women in them. I've been reflecting on this. It must be in part because these professions require diligent academic work, and girls seem to mature faster than boys and are beating them in terms of university admissions. I also wondered, if the individual accountability in these professions make them attractive to smart women. Individual accountability makes it easier to objectively see one's value and therefor for women "to fight their corner" more effectively.

Contrast this with corporate jobs where everything is done in teams and as an organisation. Who contributed what to the task can be much more difficult to tease out and becomes a much more subjective measure.

We still have a problem in law. 50% of my entry 30 years ago was female but only 20% of us are now in senior high paid positions in law firms (and even I don't count in that as I earn quite a bit but work for myself). However it's getting better. In law to an extent you are only as good as your last deal and some clients follow people not firms (although that is by no means universal) so a good woman (or man) may find it easier to shine although I still exhort women to move jobs and keep asking for higher pay as my 2 daughters seem pretty good at doing so far.

JR is right to make the point that women should ask for more pay and the fact some of them are not so good at that holds them back. It is also about risk. I think I earn a fair bit because I am happy to take some risks - working for myself etc etc. It is erasier to take risks if you have huge confidence in your own abilities which I do. Now why is that? Am I a deluded fool? Was it because my parents sent me to a school where I was just about the brightest in the school? Was it because I am pretty good anyway? It may be as simple as the fact I am the oldest child - they always tend to do best. Who knows but all interesting stuff. I imagine some of it goes back to being brought up in an equal way in a feminist home and being loved. If you're loved as a child unconditionally you tend to feel confidence. I hope I have managed to pass that to the children too.

DG the numbers profile for accountancy is very similar to law. (I started work 25 years ago). However the bald numbers, for accountancy at least, mask the fact that senior high paid male accountants are generally earning far more than senior high paid female accountants.

I think being the brightest in the school did help me and this is one of the reasons I am happy to send mine to the local comp. I think the strongest factor is, as you say, having 2 feminist parents who love and have the same expectations of their boys and girls.

I am very surprised, in this day and age, that so many women do not feel they are in an equal negotiating position with their DH. Perhaps this was not an issue for me as I always earned far more than my DH. DH and I had been happily living on his lower earnings for about 5 years before we had DC and therefore had substantial savings from my earnings to fund our future. This gave us a lot of choice. I think changes to the cost of housing, relative salaries and student financing have made a difference. The pressure I felt was from DH's family who thought it selfish of me to elect to give up such a high salary to look after the DC. My Mum would have liked me to have the opportunity to take a 10 year career break, as she did.

Actually, the more I think about the second comment in particular, the more I am aggrieved.

I was discriminated against in my very first job, as a paralegal, not a proper trainee. I didn't know at first, I was delighted to join another 3 recent graduates and actually have a relevant job, to work up from. And then one of the others (all male) graduates mentioned what point on the salary scale he was paid. It was the second highest of 5. I was on the lowest, and had been told at the interview "You're all right with that, aren't you? Because we can't justify paying inexperienced people any more than that".

Male graduate colleague immediately realised he had said something wrong, but in fairness he obviously felt guilty about it, and the other male graduate colleague confirmed that he too was paid on the higher point of the salary scale. Incidentally they both had 2:2s compared to my 2:1. They were as shocked at the disparity as me, and so was another more senior colleague. But by this time I was a more desirable proposition in the employment market, applied for and got a much better job at, if I remember rightly, a salary increase of £4k pa. I told them why I was leaving in the exit interview, they were dismissive and evasive.

So am I now to think that there was something about me, something less that I cannot quantify, that made me somehow deserve a lower salary than my colleagues? Perhaps my unknown faults are so bad that its not worth my time working at all. Thanks, Justine.

And I don't know how many times that has happened to me during my career, because people keep their salaries secret. All I will say is that money, and a really big salary, are a massive motivating factor, and I'm not surprised if people don't push themselves if they are denied that when they actually deserve it.

Money, and a really big salary, are a massive motivating factor, and I'm not surprised if people don't push themselves if they are denied that when they actually deserve it.

this ^

The discussion has moved on, but I was reflecting on moonbells post.

DH insists he can't work and do school runs, even when he is contracted nearby. He can't possibly go in later or negotiate flexi-time. The whole school run (and indeed DS's school choice) is built round the assumption that I do it, and if I can't then DH has to take a day off. Inadvertent sexism? He argues that because he contracts and doesn't know from month to month where he'll be, he can't commit to the school run. Yet I am expected to? I can't change jobs and get a promotion until DS can take himself to school?! Would a man in my position have held himself back?

I don't think you should either if you don't want to; if you are both working, then part of your income needs to go to paying someone to take on the tasks you can't. Who is saying that a parent needs to do the school run? You? him? Society? It costs more to have in-home childcare, but it solves these issues.

All this rot conspires to make a woman's professional life harder. And I consider myself a well-paid successful knackered professional with a DH who encourages me to not take rubbish from folk at work. Double standards

No, it is not double standards, it is a continuation of the same standard - if you are seen to be taking rubbish from folk at work in his view, this is why you are knackered and over-worked, not because you are doing more at home. Simple. He sees the pressure as your job not the inequality in your relationship. It may well be both, if you have boundary issues, but he is locating the problem outside your home and undermining your professional capacity to deal with it at the same time.

There's another bit of sexism. If I were single I'd end with all of the work all of the time expect probably the odd weekend. Not only do a lot of women stay in jobs where they don't want to rock the boat for fear of losing their positions let alone getting a raise, they also stay in relationships beyond their sell-by date because their lives would get even harder if they left. The Relationships board is full of the fallout

Well, to be frank, the relationships board is not where I would go for marital advice - there are clearly some cases where LTB is the appropriate response, others where it is not. I would like to know how many of those doling out that advice have walked that walk themselves. But that is besides the point.

Having walked the walk, life is in some ways easier. Put simply, yes, I have all the work (I did anyway) but without the expectation that there should be someone there to help me (and everyone thinking there was!) and consequent resentment. My life looks like it is, if that makes sense. Mostly, men get away with inequality because they know on some level that women are not willing to take the gamble that things will get worse instead of better and call them to account - and in truth, most single parent families do suffer a drop in income. If you separate, you at least don't have the (unhelpful) husband with their own needs who doesn't recognise yours to contend with; and your time and space is your own. But emotionally, of course being able to sort things out is a better solution - question is how you do that if someone doesn't listen or put words into action.

None of it is clear cut. I don't think it is helpful to say women should do x. y or z in their personal circumstances when we know the structural constraints. At the same time, I do have some sympathy for the view that the only way to change structural constraints is bit by bit; to challenge them to fit your own circumstances, needs and values, and if at all possible, to do that collectively with those around you, regardless of sex, to take into account their circumstances, needs and values. This pre-supposes an equal negotiating position, though, and an ethos of mutual support...

Romii I agree with most of what you say. Just to say in our case, we chose to spend our pooled money on DS's education rather than a nanny/CM. I do not regret that decision. Would be nice to have enough £ to do both, but we don't. Many don't have enough £ to do either. I think us fortunate.

Timely article in the paper this week.

And another.

Just to add another. I love this Canadian blogger. She is sassy, insightful and down to earth.

sewingontheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/high-performance-womanhood.html

On Romi's point I think part of my success is being happy to delegate, to believe my husband or someone else like our nanny could do school picks ups or childcare as well as I could, if not better. I didn't have that huge internal view some women have that they are somehow the best person on the planet to change the 20 nappies a day rather than just 3. In a sense I'd say it was my "humility wot done it" as I didn't need to be mother God at home, the only one competent to do XYZ domestically and more than happy to develop my learned helplessness of things domestic - a very useful skill.

One of my daughters is giving a talk at a work/life balance conference -she sent me her profile for it today. It is a shame 30 years on though that women are still the ones mostly just talking about that. If more men than women attend I will be more than glad. I am certainly happy she's speaking as women do need to put themselves forward to spek.

Freeworker just read the conservative woman link. You are correct in thinking I don't agree with the top part - see earlier posts.

However she is very forcefully making 2 points I do agree with.

1. Raising children is not a non-job, or something that can or should be costlessly handed over to the State.
2. Working reduced hours is not the same as working FT. In my profession 60 hours a week are required and normal to progress and maintain. This is only compatible with homecare responsibilities if you delegate them, which is what I would have done had I stayed employed.

moonbells I find it quite telling that the articles you link to talk about "work related" stress due to women's home life responsibilities. This sounds like "home related" stress to me. Another example of society not costing home responsibilities properly.

Settlingin I love that link.

I am the DM who has teenagers to do my housework for me. I rarely bake as they like to experiment and my Mum brings the soup at the weekend. I am that woman who regularly gets mixed up over the school holidays because I don't keep track of dates. I even took off to dinner and a rock concert and left the brood to fend for itself last night.

I do get the urge to share my slovenly lifestyle to counter those who recoil in horror because their experience of SAHP is maternity leave which is a sleep deprived feeding and nappy changing haze. In my defence I have never cost an employer maternity or parental leave and despite my lacksadasical attitude my DC are all high achievers.

My own mother came to visit after DD2 was born. She looked around and said, "What are all these standards you young women are trying meet? Who's setting them? Clean the house once a week and forget about it! Let the DC entertain themselves and who cares if they watch a little TV?"

I think we sometimes make rods for our own backs.

Here is a more serious link:

You’ll hear all kinds of defenses, but if they really want women and minorities as employees and leaders, why aren’t their numbers higher? Either they don’t really want them or they are incompetent. You shouldn’t work for them either way. If you have the option, run.

Article about former Reddit CEO, Ellen Pao, who's lost patience with the tech industry.

If I were single I'd end with all of the work all of the time expect probably the odd weekend.

Why? I am single, but they could fuck right off if they expected me to do any more weekend/overnight/on-call than is my fair share. That's fair share as in 5 people available for this sort of work, so each gets a fifth of the joy. In any case, I have heard male colleagues use it as an excuse not to take part in their share of the weekend parenting, particularly if it means they get out of an activity they haven't chosen.

Romii I agree with most of what you say. Just to say in our case, we chose to spend our pooled money on DS's education rather than a nanny/CM. I do not regret that decision. Would be nice to have enough £ to do both, but we don't. Many don't have enough £ to do either. I think us fortunate

It sounds like there is enough communication in your marriage to work out what you both feel in the best interests of your child; but it is falling to you in practice to make that best work. Whenever the next school transition is, then it would be a case of knowing that one parent making it work is not a tenable solution (or maybe it is one you accept to maintain the status quo for your DH and DC); and thinking about school runs and other related costs in your budgeting.

I'm guessing it is always a balance - whether the fact that you are able to work in a field you want to as oppose to possibly earning money elsewhere to cover increased costs etc. But I think it is a fair point about whether it is all external/partner pressure or whether we also internalise these expectations and strive to meet them at the expense of our own health and well-being, professional advancement etc.

As it turned out for me with DS 2, I was the best person to care for him (and the only one he would stay with without getting unbelievably distressed), so I had a huge balancing act till I worked out a way to organise my working life better. Now that my working life is better organised to work flexibly and locally; and DS is also older and I have in-home childcare (with a very experienced lady who can work with DS), then I feel more able to think about my professional advancement again, but it is still shaped by what is do-able. But yes, there was absolutely a point 2 - 3 years ago where I thought the children need to come before what I wanted to achieve professionally and that was hard, but that wasn't because I didn't care about my profession or my promotion chances, it was because the landscape I was navigating looked so different than that male peers were in. Which is before you even get to the structural work place differences.

Is there a mother martyr, only I can do it, pile everything on my enormous shoulders issue with some women (not me - more than happy to illustrate my incompetence at washing and cooking around here - hence the teenage boys do all their own cooking)?

If so why so? Men have arms. Men have brains. They can equally load a washing machine and are just as good at holding a screaming baby for 3 hours. Let them do it.

Lke the Pao quote above though I did run. I ran off to earn more money on my own and it's really good. If you work 6 hours on a Sunday and keep £x an hour, all the money, that's very different from hours of unpaid thankless over time because above all you have that control. It is what can come from having a lot of money and a career where people want and need you.

Those in equal feminist marriages never have a different domestic landscape from men of course. If the child is sick and needs someone to rush it to hospital then it is just as likely to be the father as the mother.

If women have more stress at work than men that might be because men are being sexist at home. Perhaps offer to take the chidlren to nursery and their father collect them each day for example. Make it fair. Don't make female careers come second best. Your children never thank you when they are 25 because you changed 15 nappies a day when they were 1 rather than 5. They do thank you if you've earned enough to buy them the latest trainers, paid their school fees, bought their nice holidays and funded them through university and to the purchase of their first properties. Dont' assume devoting hours to domestic life is some kind of moral good or best for children. Often it isn't. So stay home for your own sake because you love it but don't assume it is better for children.

Its notable that the thread has now moved on to discussing the issue of how men at home are not taking their fair share of the domestic burden that a woman with a career needs.

Hmm... maybe the attitude men show to their female DP/DW at home has a more than casual link to how male managers treat women at work.

I have never had a male manager who didn't have a full time SAHM bringing up his children, cleaning cooking, pressing his shirts and generally supporting his stellar career. I have never had a manager who had a professional woman as a DP/DW who was his equal.

I say again what I said up thread. It is managers (almost always men) who make discriminatory decisions. Not organisations. If a man has a SAHM at home who is not a woman with a professional career who does everything required to keep home and children - what chance has he of seeing a woman in front of him as equal to his male employees.

One point that I think is getting missed here is that in professional corporate/city life where roles often don't have fixed pay or even fixed bands, employers will often pay what they can get away with. And in my experience this particularly shows when this is pay review time.

It is no secret that it is hard to get decent professional city jobs on anything bar a full time basis with the "normal" hours. So if an employee (and it is typically a woman with young children) has been able to negotiate their way to another arrangement (often post mat leave) that gives their existing job a sort of scarcity value that they wouldn't easily be able to recreate if they moved to another employer. So come pay round, it tends to be the full time employees who have been making noises about being a flight risk if better money is available else where. Yet for those who aren't FT or who have other flexible working arrangements (and that flex can sometimes be quite small but important to them), it generally takes a lot bigger of a gap before people are motivated to leave because they will often lose the non financial benefit of their working arrangements. And it takes a strong, very ethically minded boss to ensure that those not on the traditional working pattern don't get taken advantage of in these situations.

Yes but unless she has been quoted out of context, she is referring to all women, not just women with children.

And not all women with children will care less about salaries and promotion than men.

So take away the number of women who don't have children, and also those women who do care very much about salary and promotion. What percentage then is she actually talking about and does the other 50 or 60 or 70% or whatever not matter? And then of those remaining women, if it was within their grasp to earn 100k pa working full time, how many of those would grasp the opportunity out of those who wouldn't do the same for 25k?

And can you imagine an employer saying to an employment tribunal on equal pay for equal work "Well I paid women less because women just do not seem to care as much as men do about salaries and promotion".

It would be utter nonsense, the employer would lose the case and the tribunal and everyone else would be laughing at him.

This is really not helpful.

Yet all the time in business people will charge one customer more than another because that customer's buyer is useless at negotiating. I have to advise on that at times when the company selling is supposed in very rare cases to treat customers in a non discriminatory way. There is nothing wrong with selling goods to customer A at £10 because A is bad at negotiating and at £2 to customer B because B has the person who is good at driving a hard bargain. In those gender neutral company to company bargaining positions you very very often have big price differences simply based on who is good at negotiating and who is not.

The other point on JR's article is that you get a limited word count. I write things all the time and it's very frustrating - you hvae about 5x more to write about but you have to limit it and only write about one issue as that is all the space allowed (not a problem with the internet of course).

I don't think limited word count is an excuse in this case. If you have too much to say then simplify the central message and take out some of the muddying nuance surely?

I tend to agree with Free worker. In my opinion women get paid less not because they are not as good as negotiation but because the people they are negotiating with are sexist.

For an individual woman I think that improving negotiation skills could be a useful strategy. That way perhaps they might get paid the same as a bloke who is rubbish at it.