To talk about gender pay gap?

[chopc]

My DD (12) is having a debate after Easter and she has to argue the motion "the world is biased towards men"

Discussing things with her got me interested and I just listened to a podcast about gender pay gap in Uber drivers. as per this women uber drivers earn less than men because they do less unsocial hours etc

The talk implied women want more flexible working/ less pressure etc than men

So should women get paid the same if they CHOOSE a different lifestyle

This is outside having time off for having a baby. It is difficult because some women are not able to breastfeed and are not able to pump so there will be discrimination between women if this was allowed to happen

However if an employee has a year off each time they have a baby, is it right they get paid the same as the male counterpart? This I am not so sure

I know this is in AIBU for traffic but would love to start a discussion on this topic as I think I have a lot to learn

@TigerBeetle

OP have you seen the social experiment when a group of adults are brought into a classroom and the kids are asked who does which job? Even at a young age they guess a female nurse or nanny and a male engineer or computer programmer. The gendered expectations are present from a very young age.

... and continue through onto mumsnet.

How many threads have you seen on mumsnet saying...
A van driver did this...
My builder won't do that...
My cleaner wants to...
Would you let your nanny...

...and the OP assumes you know the sex of the person they are talking about, and we all make the assumption OP wants.

[quote chopc]@TomHardyAndMe actually I am not dumb. I have two STEM degrees from a world renowned university

Your data is out of date - there is a higher proportion of female medical students these days. Agree about nursing

[[https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk/public/assets/pdf/Evidence-based]]actionssforemployers.pdf

[/quote]
These days? Great. That’s only students though. We still have all the male doctors from the last 2-3 generations in the system though. Earning mega bucks so widening the pay gap. Male doctors still tend to go straight through to consultant without years out for child rearing that the women do. So it’s not completely fixed.

@nicegerbil I agree having children is often a choice. But it is a choice made (in a hetero relationship) between a male and female. In that scenario why should the mother be penalised and not the father because of their biological differences? Maternity leave is not a holiday- it is time for mothers to recover physically amongst other things. I do think that fathers should take more time off as well.

In society in general I am surprised at you implying that women have a lot privileges. I see it often in our daily lives where this is not the case. I won't list it here but male privilege is a real thing. There are things that men don't have to think about and women have to that affects their career and family life.

I was taking the piss in case anyone missed it.

The idea that maternity leave is a nice paid holiday for women who choose to have children is awful.

Because obviously no men ever want children, and giving birth and caring for a baby is always a total piece of piss you don't even notice they're there and you can go off traveling with this unnecessary paid sabattical or do anything you fancy. No responsibilities see.

The idea that maternity leave is a nice paid holiday for women who choose to have children is awful.

I completely agree. My ex thought this.... one of the many reasons he's an ex!!

@NiceGerbil apologies I clearly missed it!

Hmm. My DC are 22 and 25. I do not recall either of their schools following a trajectory of boy jobs or girl jobs. I am 60. I have never felt discriminated against.

I do believe there is a disconnect on this thread between equal pay for the same job and the gender pay gap.

I've found out I'm being paid significantly less than the men on my team in two jobs. In one I was paid less than the man I was training.

My industry is around 30% pay gap. We have very few back office/ shop floor type roles (the reasons companies usually give for pay gap , that most of the low paid roles are done by women).

I was really surprised, my sector is generally 'family friendly' and IME men take advantage of that as much as women.

So that's my experience.

My current role is in a different but related sector. 90% male. It's a really friendly pleasant office but still some sexist stuff comes out sometimes in what is said.

In the UK we generally find it impolite to know or share what we earn so everyone is left guessing really. The times I have found out in the past it's not been good.

I have had contracts where you weren't allowed to disclose (think this is illegal now).

Very interesting topic and I am being a female in male dominated industry think about it a lot. I think solution can not be done quickly and rather we need many changes to happen to help this. 1. Cultural change to stop assigning boss or technical or doctor jobs to females. Make sure at schools kids get treated equally. 2. Make it more conventional to have a maternity leave. Optional at salary below 100k and mandatory after. 6 months. Healthy kids and involved fathers. 3. Make work more flexible and mandate not working over hours, otherwise it’s impossible to compete if all you can put in is 8 hours but someone else doing 16 hours. But what really puzzles me why there are male and female tournaments in chess separate. Like seriously how do we change that or maybe we are actually biologically different?))

maybe we just need to pay woman for giving birth, they bring to this world future tax payers so we should actually pay women for giving birth. And then pay to whoever raises kids. You can use money yourself or pay for nursery or nanny. ))

Or give men more paternity leave.

Honestly, it hardly seems like a coincidence that the countries with the most generous paternity leave are also those with the smallest pay gap.

Equal pay - a legal requirement that within an organisation, male and female staff members who are engaged in equal or similar work or work of equal value must receive equal pay and other workplace benefits.

Gender pay gap is a broader measure of the difference in the average earnings of men and women—regardless of the nature of their work—across an organisation, a business sector, an entire industry or the economy as a whole..

From here - which explains things clearly www.everywoman.com/news-insight/equal-pay-vs-gender-pay-gap.

A big factor is that it is proven that women wait until they feel they can meet all the new requirements before applying for a promotion, men are more likely to take a punt before they are "ready" in terms of meeting the job requirements on paper. That is deep seated, cultural and hard to change.

But what really puzzles me why there are male and female tournaments in chess separate. Like seriously how do we change that or maybe we are actually biologically different?))

Yes this is interesting but I would say it’s almost completely about stereotype threat, a phenomenon which has been proven with many studies. I don’t know if you are familiar so will summarise it:

• a group of people is about to take a test in an activity/subject that is traditionally stereotyped as being for men. If the group is reminded of that stereotype prior to the test then the women will perform worse than the control group of women who are not reminded of the stereotype.

• the more the woman personally identifies with that so-called masculine trait (eg. being good at Maths) the more stereotype threat affects her negatively.

Chess would be a perfect example of both these points. It is dominated by men, it is based on logic which is overwhelmingly seen as being a masculine trait. Any girl or woman entering that world has to grapple internally with the idea of her biological sex and come with some theory as to why she is different.

Also add to that the fact that traditionally fathers have very rarely played chess with their daughters.

Imagine if girls grew up in an environment where they were told constantly that they could be great chess players, where their father encouraged and played with them from an early age as fathers of great male chess players do, and what would you get? The Polgar sisters!

'Honestly, it hardly seems like a coincidence that the countries with the most generous paternity leave are also those with the smallest pay gap.'

Or vice versa.

[quote chopc]@TheJerkStore so I could basically be an absent employee for several years and I should be able to not lose out in any pay increments and perks even though my male counterpart has not had the privilege of the same leave or time away from work? How is this fair on the men?

And having had three kids I have to say that once pass the first 2-3 months , my maternity leave was a "holiday" from work

I suppose it could work if they are able to take similar time off the job in later years without "penalty"? [/quote]
I don't think you should get paid less than a man because you've had multiple maternity leave, on the other hand if you come back to work and the man who has been at work at that time has now got more experience/training then he is more likely to get a promotion and get more pay that way.

I do think it is reasonable that unsocial hours pay should go to people who do unsocial hours but women shouldn't be stopped from working unsocial hours because someone thinks men should have the opportunity to earn more.

For me it isn't as simple as it sounds.

When I went to a mother and baby group in the 90s we had two dads who attended. It was nice that there were two as I think they found it quite tough coming along at first but they were made really welcome. I don't know what their wives did but I assumed they were earning more so the dads gave up work to be the main carer.

I posted upthread about this

'I had a female colleague who said that a woman with 28 years experience being paid 30% less than a man with 30 years experience because she took 2 mat leaves 15 years ago was perfectly fair.'

Amazed at this attitude on here tbh!

'
And having had three kids I have to say that once pass the first 2-3 months , my maternity leave was a "holiday" from work

I suppose it could work if they are able to take similar time off the job in later years without "penalty"?'

First part. It was a holiday for you. For many women it's not, not at all. Women who develop MH problems, situations where the baby is not well, situations where the mother has long term injury or damage.

To generalise using your own experience is short sighted I think.

On the second part, you are suggesting that men (even if they have taken advantage of shared leave??) should get a year off paid in the same way? Women without children too probably.
Couple questions.
When can they take it and how many times? Men are fertile for a long time. If they take this on the basis they haven't had kids and have missed out, what happens if and when they do?
And of course being responsible for a baby is not the same as time to do whatever you want. You can't exactly dump the baby and go exploring South America by yourself can you.

I'm having trouble following the thinking on lots of posts.

Seems to go.

Women unilaterally choose to have babies. They then want lots of time off even though it's a holiday after a couple months. Women getting free holiday from something they do on their own as a lifestyle choice is not fair on men. Men should all get paid time off work as well (but without the being pregnant, giving birth, having a baby to look after stuff).

Am I missing something?

If a job is in a fixed amount like my DH then they all get the same. Irrespective of mat leave/ pat leave/ time off due to sickness/ etc etc

If it's performance based then probably the woman will fall behind so yay I think to the PPs.

But what really puzzles me why there are male and female tournaments in chess separate. Like seriously how do we change that or maybe we are actually biologically different?

I think the idea here is to build up female talent in a more welcoming space. So if we changed that, it could actually turn off a lot of promising girls. That’s what I’m told anyway

It's about catching up. Happens in a lot of stuff that was (is) heavily make dominated.

The networks, clubs, mentoring all the way are set up for men and boys (in this case, could be women for other stuff).

The girls and women's games have not been supported/ structured/ talent found and taken forward etc.

The idea that girls should and could access the things already in place for boys is good in theory but in practice there's often a whole load of subtle or overt pressure from all angles not to bother.

And if the structures to find talent, support, mentor, train, enter competitions etc aren't there then the standard is not so high- leading to oh well see they're not so good anyway- and back to square one.

This has been seen with (I think, I just read it, others may know more) women's football. Once the backing etc was in place they just got better and better.

That's the kind of idea. It would be nice of course if boys and girls and men and women were welcomed into everything with open arms and no bias but in a world where that isn't the case, the ones who have been at a disadvantage can do with a bit of extra help.

Why would it turn off promising girls? It's fine in tennis etc, the having separate sex stuff.

Anyway my other point with this is that chess at a world level really isn't friendly to women. I read this a couple years back it was in the news at the time.

Saudi
www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/12/28/chess-champion-refuses-to-defend-titles-in-saudi-arabia-to-protest-treatment-of-women/

And came across this as well had forgotten
Iran
www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-37559853

Of course much of the debate was around whether the boycotts would help or harm the women's game. The rights and wrongs etc.

In the end though holding a tournament in Saudi when the women would have to wear X, be chaperoned to go outside. Something I read at the time said they ran the risk of being arrested for spending time alone with a male coach.

All that sort of thing. The men don't have this sort of stuff on them. And it really is a bit of a two fingers up to the women in the circuit.

So yes a lot to think about.

Maybe women need to become better at negotiating wages? I can imagine a male and female going for a job for 20k, woman may be happy with that wage but man may have negotiated and said they wanted more?

In recent years I've been trying to think more like a man when it came to applying for jobs. I once read that if a woman didn't meet all criteria then she wouldn't apply but a man would still apply if he only met half of it. Well I got the job I didn't think I was qualified for and doing really well at it. (pay is equal in the company I work for)

Maybe women need to become better at negotiating wages? I can imagine a male and female going for a job for 20k, woman may be happy with that wage but man may have negotiated and said they wanted more?

Oh yes. It's women's fault yet again 🙄