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.

YABU, the 2 quotes you posted are her opinion and she isn't suggesting they are facts.

If we want an open discussion, then we need to drop the idea that women choose to take less pay and promotions because they are happy with it. Yes we all want to spend more time with our children, but in most cases it is because that is what is expected of us. We do the childcare, it is our jobs that suffer.

Men simply do not have that expectation of them. So long hours away from the home is rewarded. Rewarded but not necessary if there was an equal balance of childcare responsibility. You can say it's a choice but in reality, whether it sits well or not, this is a choice that is made for women, not by women. Generations of gender division and stereotypes have paved the way for this to be true.

And there is nothing wrong with a decent work-life balance wherein the work is well and equally paid. In fact that's what we should be seeking for everyone, not just women. Why should wanting a work-life balance have to mean settling for a shitter deal? Yes, if you work fewer hours you should expect a smaller income but only proportionally.

@Holstein

Girls are conditioned from birth to be nice, be passive, be submissive, be kind, generous etc. If course we grow up to be undemanding in the workplace, including when it comes to pay reviews. Sadly many of us think we're not worth it.

I agree with you Holstein.

Caitlin Moran was right when she said (paraphrasing badly) employers show they value you with money. If they really value you they show it by paying you more money.

For me that is very much at the crux of the matter. If a person works flexibly, or from home or part time or whatever "concession" is made, they still have to deliver as per the job description, the same as anyone else. And if they are delivering they deserve to be paid the same (hourly rate) as anyone else doing that same job.

Until we stop paying people for the things we perceive they do and who they are and start paying them for what they actually do, we will always have a gender pay gap.

Things like "oh he's got 5 years more experience" elicit a "so what?" response from me, unless it can be demonstrated those extra 5 years experience make one jot of difference.

Employers should pay for what the work is, not who the worker is.

Justine I am also a bit upset by this partly because you are seen as a kind of mouthpiece of MN.

I can see the valid points in what you wrote but there is a major misunderstanding/misrepresentation of women in there that unfortunately actively encourages discrimination.

It would be great to write a follow-up article addressing that point in the light of what MNers have said to you about it.

@ThisFenceIsComfy

If we want an open discussion, then we need to drop the idea that women choose to take less pay and promotions because they are happy with it. Yes we all want to spend more time with our children, but in most cases it is because that is what is expected of us. We do the childcare, it is our jobs that suffer.

Men simply do not have that expectation of them. So long hours away from the home is rewarded. Rewarded but not necessary if there was an equal balance of childcare responsibility. You can say it's a choice but in reality, whether it sits well or not, this is a choice that is made for women, not by women. Generations of gender division and stereotypes have paved the way for this to be true.

I agree with all this too. I certainly don't think we've ended up in a place that is at all fair.

@GreenPotato

Justine I am also a bit upset by this partly because you are seen as a kind of mouthpiece of MN.

I can see the valid points in what you wrote but there is a major misunderstanding/misrepresentation of women in there that unfortunately actively encourages discrimination.

It would be great to write a follow-up article addressing that point in the light of what MNers have said to you about it.

I don't agree that's it's a misrepresentation.

This article in the Harvard Business Review was very interesting and closely related: [https://hbr.org/2013/08/why-do-so-many-incompetent-men Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?]]

About the fact that the qualities most likely cause a promotion don't match the qualities needed to actually do the job.

Interestingly, my brother's employer did an internal study which bore this out. When asked to list from cold the qualities of a good manager, people choose one set of descriptors. When asked to point at a good manager they had worked with, and describe why they were good, the descriptors were entirely different.

meh, fixed link
Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?

@GreenPotato

And there is nothing wrong with a decent work-life balance wherein the work is well and equally paid. In fact that's what we should be seeking for everyone, not just women. Why should wanting a work-life balance have to mean settling for a shitter deal? Yes, if you work fewer hours you should expect a smaller income but only proportionally.

Completely agree. Was what I was trying to say viz: "So, now we are working for no pay for the rest of the year, let us from today think about dismantling a model of work whose dysfunction is increasingly apparent."

"women just do not seem to care as much as men do about salaries and promotion."

They certainly "seem to" to me. OK there is space for some semantic confusion as you may mean "they do care, but it doesn't look like that to their employers". But it can also be read as "Meh, look at women, they're just not that arsed about money really".

It would be good to be really clear that women do desperately care about being paid properly.

The discrimination is that men will be rewarded for "laser like focus on their own projects." Meanwhile, women will be told that they are not team players if they do the same.

In a nutshell: women fall behind because they don't act like men. If they do act like men, they will have that same behaviour framed in a negative way because they are women.

This us my lived experience as a woman in a major UK company sitting at the table negotiating bonus pools, making hiring, firing and promoting decisions.

A lot of this could be reigned in by narrowing salary bands. A role in a big organisation will be graded at a certain level. That level will attract particular benefits and salary. This would all be fine, if the range of salary possibilities within the same level weren't so great. For instance, a single grade within an organisation might have a base pay of £50 to £90k/year! Not so fair really. Narrowing that to £60 to £75k for people at the same job level would help.

In a nutshell: women fall behind because they don't act like men. If they do act like men, they will have that same behaviour framed in a negative way because they are women.

Exactly, and brilliantly put.

I agree with thisfenceiscomfy

A lot of this could be reigned in by narrowing salary bands.

Or just paying for the work, not the worker.

@GreenPotato

"women just do not seem to care as much as men do about salaries and promotion."

They certainly "seem to" to me. OK there is space for some semantic confusion as you may mean "they do care, but it doesn't look like that to their employers". But it can also be read as "Meh, look at women, they're just not that arsed about money really".

It would be good to be really clear that women do desperately care about being paid properly.

Yes women care about being paid properly, of course they do, but the evidence suggests that they also care more than men about a set of other things too - which leads them to sacrifice pay for some of those other things, like work-life balance.

My contention is there are lots of reasons for this to do with complicated factors like societal expectations, caring responsibilities, confidence etc. But what would help is if that employment practices were more flexible and men did more of their fair share.

What I don't think is helpful is just refusing to acknowledge that women often have a slightly different set of priorities (that's just burying your head in the sand imo).

I really disagree with women caring less about promotion.

In my early twenties I was very ambitious and working for a large insurance brokers. I mistakenly thought by working through illness, injury, harder than anyone else and not partaking in office gossip this would be reflected in my pay and job title.

I had the highest renewal retention in branch, dealt with all office admin, answered the most incoming calls and made the post outgoing calls and was often shipped to other branches when others were behind in their work.

A long with this I was also helping train new employees so to say it was a slap in the face to find out I was earning £2000 pa less than the male colleague I was training is an understatement.

I was brought up that if you diligent and behaved with dignity and grace you would get where you wanted to be. I'm bringing dd up to not shy away from your achievements and make sure your superiors know dam well how valuable you are.

That felt good to get off my chest

What I don't think is helpful is just refusing to acknowledge that women often have a slightly different set of priorities (that's just burying your head in the sand imo).

But women have those priorities because they have taken maternity leave which for a very long time could not be shared, because they by dint of their biology have to take at least some maternity leave which often results in a status quo of mother as child carer.

Women have different priorities not as a result of conscious choice but as a result of decisions made by others. Decisions about what paid leave is available after the birth of a child; the lack of affordable childcare; historical and societal obligations of men as breadwinner and woman as home maker and child carer.

This HAS to change with employers offering EQUAL paid leave to both their male and female employees when they have a baby. Employers conducting blind recruitment and assessment of their employees. Employers conducting blind pay reviews and equal pay audits. Government legislating so that families where fathers are self employed get paid leave after the birth of a baby EQUAL to that of women.

What I don't think is helpful is just refusing to acknowledge that women often have a slightly different set of priorities (that's just burying your head in the sand imo).

Completely agree with you Justine.

^^this.

(Ahhh, screw the report I am supposed to write.)

I don't know it's about "caring" about promotion - I know it's only anecdata, but I could reel off example after example where highly qualified women I know haven't applied for senior jobs they'd be fab at, because they don't tick every box on the requirement list, whereas men who tick far fewer boxes on the requirement list are breezily confident about applying, and accepting those senior jobs because they think they are so fab. The women I know want to do right by the job, the men want to do right by themselves.

And in actual studies, there's that famous one which found that the easiest way to make more highly-qualified women apply for very senior jobs was to drop the starting salary.

We've been trained for so long to believe that we're worth less than men, that some of it has stuck.

(And on the original OP: I understand that the OP may be doing this with good intent, but when all is said and done he's just a bloke coming on a majority-women board to tell the woman who runs this board to shut up. This I am not keen on.)

Equal paid parental leave has the side effect of discriminating against women who want to breastfeed. And yes, I know you can express...I also know it's a total faff. DH wanted to share my maternity leave with both kids, but I wasn't prepared to leave them at circa 5/6 months and express.

If a woman doesn't want to go back to work early, she shouldn't be penalised.

I don't even mean "child" carer. Just carer. Expected to look after everybody and put their needs before our own.

Well fuck that. If I'm going to be doing the bulk of the drudge bits of life I want to have bloody chosen them, not have them forced upon me by circumstance. Paying me less for my work is forcing that upon me by making it "an economical decision".

I had to stay at home because we just couldn't afford the childcare on my salary.

I had to give up my job because my partner earns more. It was purely an economical reason.

What we don't hear is the reasons WHY women earn less which are discrimination and sexism. Let's be really clear about that and own it.