To be really annoyed and disappointed with Dh views on this

[fleec]

Dh just said to me that the gender pay gap doesn't really exist. He said that women choose lower paid jobs because it suits them . Also that women choose to slow down their careers because of children and that women have less assertive personalities meaning that they are generally suited to less senior roles.

I am fuming with him. I cannot believe that he thinks this . AIBU to think that we are all different and that you can't generalise in this way! I am not one who generally holds very strong feminist views but this has really got to me.

My DH employs about 300 people in an IT environment consisting of a fairly even split between men and women, however, there are no women in the board of directors and never have been. He admits this is an issue in the organisation, but says that women just don't apply.

Once in the car, my son (14) once told me that I come from the "olden days" (I'm 40) when women weren't encouraged to work . DH told him that there are biological reasons for this - that women have to factor in children in a way that men don't and that's a fact if life. I can't really argue with that because it's something I've seen in my generation since we left uni - most of us are either long-term SAHMs like me, or working very part-time, even though we all left uni with the same qualifications as our DHs. I think there must be biological differences or at least a different mentality, otherwise the situation couldn't persist in the way it does. Or maybe it's because men don't see that they have any other option or role in life but to work /earn money, whereas women feel they can opt out of this to a greater or lesser extent?

TIRF - the flaw in your argument is that you pretend there is some kind of science behind some people having more market value than others. However, a lot of it is history and how things have been valued in the past, and a lot just who is the most greedy.

We want to free ourselves from the tiresome essential stuff which uses up lots of emotional energy so that we can entertain ourselves and make our lives more comfortable. To do this with a clear conscience, we tell ourselves that the huge amount of emotional and physical effort involved in caring and nurturing is ten a penny and could be done by anyone, because then we can create a system where that work is done by "inferiors" (not people with skills in that direction - oh no...). In reality, we still need so many of these "inferiors" that we can't afford to pay them what the good ones are worth, hencenthe pretence about the lack of a need for any kind of skill. We don't even pay our great scientists much, despite their rare skills, because they don't necessarily know how to play this exploitation game - so the people making the amazing advances in science are not the ones making the dosh, either, despite the rarity of their skills...

I think there must be biological differences or at least a different mentality, otherwise the situation couldn't persist in the way it does. Or maybe it's because men don't see that they have any other option or role in life but to work /earn money, whereas women feel they can opt out of this to a greater or lesser extent?

Or maybe it's because men like your DH teach their sons that women have to factor in children in a way that men don't, and nobody challenges them on that? How will things ever change if boys are brought up to believe that childrearing is a woman's responsibility?

Ps TIRF - I have travelled extensively, in Africa, Asia, North, Central and South America, Australasia, and Europe.

Broken - but childrearing has to be a woman's responsibility for the first six months at least if you are bf. If you have several children even the minimum maternity leaves add up to a lot of disruption. There is no getting round that really, any more than the physical impact of pregnancy.

If you agree that raising children isn't of value to society, did your own parents do nothing of value in having/raising you? Are you doing nothing of value when you raise your own children? Did Stephen Hawking's/Rosa Parks'/Marie Curie's parents do nothing of value to society?

My parents did something of value for me. I am not sure what anyone who doesn't know me got out of it.

odd point about Hawking etc.

I find the idea that something is of value only if you have to incentivise people to do it really odd.

in fact, the point is the opposite. Things have value independent of whether you need to incentivize them. So, for the things of value that people will do anyways, we don't need to incentivize them. For everything else, we need to charge 5p (dropped plastic bag use by 90% apparently).

If I look after my elderly neighbour but there's no official incentive for me to do it, I just do it because I think it's the right thing to do, is that worth nothing to society?

that has enormous value for your neighbour and his/her family. It probably has some value to you, and to your neighbours. Everyone else? I'd say it has some value, but marginal. This is not me being an heartless, but I probably wouldn't even notice if you did't take care of your neighbour. if you think that isn't the common sentiment, we go along quite happily when people in parts of the world don't have any clean water.

Give men the same paternity rights as women get for maternity.

That would equalise things a lot

Yes, of course there is disruption, but it's entirely possible to share that disruption with the father, and if both men and women both work more flexibly, there is no reason why this can't be done. FWIW, I continued to breastfeed for more than two years after returning to work full time, it didn't hamper my career.

But what is the point of men being at home in the early months if they can't feed the baby? I guess it's different if you bottle feed, but otherwise they're just like a spare part really. Not all jobs are flexible either. I also don't think men are as "tuned in" to babies in the early months. I get that some women struggle with this too, but I don't think men have the same instinct in the first place. My DH never lay awake at night listening to whether the baby was still breathing. He couldn't anticipate when the baby was waking up or too hot or whatever. Maybe he could have learned, but it certainly didn't come naturally to him and that's not making excuses, it's being honest.

We don't even pay our great scientists much, despite their rare skills, because they don't necessarily know how to play this exploitation game - so the people making the amazing advances in science are not the ones making the dosh, either, despite the rarity of their skills...

Scarcity is only half the equation here - the other, of course is self-interest (or greed if you like).

@roundaboutthetown

"if all the world's footballers died tomorrow, there would be loads of people happy to replace them"

Yes, fat, bald men from pubs. Happy to replace and able to replace aren't the same. Plus you'd need all the footballers to die tomorrow before they can be replaced. You aren't getting it, are you.

"the flaw in your argument is that you pretend there is some kind of science behind some people having more market value than others."

There is. The most basic economic theory of supply and demand. Ever wondered why platinum has more market value than air? Or why saffron costs more than mint. Or why electricians are paid more than road sweepers or JK Rowling made a killing or ... well, you get the picture.

I have no idea what you do but I suspect you earn less than a Man U footballer and I bet you're much more easily replaced than Beckham or Ronaldo.

"and a lot just who is the most greedy."

Everyone is greedy. We all try to get as much as we can. It's just some have skills that are worth more.

"so the people making the amazing advances in science are not the ones making the dosh, either, despite the rarity of their skills..."

Yes. You have to monetise a skill to make money from it. Hawking did well as did Dyson. Bill Gates will get by OK.

I guess the ability to monetise is a very valuable skill. I don't have it.

I had an idea for an app about 10 years ago. It would have needed £2.5m investment just to get it off the ground. I even went to the bank and spoke about loans as well as potential private investors. Business isn't my forte so I backed down. The app now exists and the makers are worth a fortune. Such is life.

Lots of people think like this when they haven't personally encountered the problems that working mums face, or the problems that assertive women face. If you experience sexism or some other kind of discrimination, tell him about it. He's not going to get to experience it personally. The only way he might understand is if it happens to somebody he knows is a good person.

Greed at the moment, because the amount of the differential between the wealthiest and everyone else is getting to the point where it is in nobody's long term self-interest. Differences are good and should be acknowledged. Enlightened self-interest seems to be sadly lacking at this point in history. Human beings appear to need nasty and prolonged shocks, like world wars and diseases, to stop greed becoming an unhealthy factor in the equation. Does it really have to be boom, bust, depression, then war every time?!

@roundaboutthetown

Oh, and "ponce off". Did the last 30 years not happen to you?

Have you run out of actual arguments, TIRF?

One post full of actual arguments (as opposed to notional arguments?) and one pulling you up on your homophobic comment.

It was not a homophobic comment. It means "to get something you want by asking someone else for it instead of providing it or paying for it yourself." (Macmillan Dictionary)

Use a dictionary held in higher regard and you'll get very different meanings. Even Mirriam-Webster would be better. OED if you can.

I'm going to mince away like a poof* now.

*that means make sausages really quickly

So, you choose to interpret a phrase in an offensive way in a thread entirely unrelated to homosexuality?!

But just before I do, the meaning you've found doesn't fit with your usage.

"force it on those who can't ponce off to do something far less essential"

The phrasal verb (that's a verb and preposition dependently linked) in the context you used fits the notion of movement, not of taking.

Cowardice is even worse than homophobia.

It is offensive and then you tried to lie about the usage.

This thread isn't about vaginas but you still seem like a *t.

Yes, I see you have run out of sensible arguments, TIRF. If you really think I was referring to effeminate men in my argument, you have taken leave of your senses. Use it as an excuse to make personal remarks about me ifmyou want - it just shows you up to be a bully.

"bully"?

You actually made me lol.

"use superior strength or influence to intimidate"

Perhaps you have a point ...

Yawn.

OK TIRF I'll bite (I may regret this; the clue is in your username after all)...

Nonsense. You're just making things up

Nice bit of rational argument there.

Historically, clerks were male, and paid quite well. Once women started getting into clerical roles (for various complicated demographic reasons, mainly to do with wartime impact on labour supply) and proved that they were good in these roles, the pay and status went down. In Soviet Russia when women qualified as doctors in similar numbers to men, the pay and status went down. See also examples of PPs citing obstetrics and gynaecology in the US, and in a neat example of the reverse process, shutting women aggressively out of the fledgling software industry just as the status of programming went up. (Of course I may be imagining all this because that's what women do all the time.)

With regard to 'soft skills' my contention is not that everyone can do them. The ability to care for people is not as ubiquitous as you might think. The problem is that there is currently no agreed way to measure people skills in the way you would academic and practical skills, and they don't lend themselves to quantifying as you would with finance. So they tend to disappear in the swamp of general stuff-that-everyone-thinks-everyone-can-do, otherwise known as invisible labour.

I really shouldn't waste any more time on this. I have some invisible labour to do. You know, the stuff that doesn't really exist because everyone knows how to cook dinner and it takes no time at all from the overtime we should be putting in.