To wonder if others are affected by this hidden form of sexism

[Bornonsunday]

I have recently returned to work full time with 3 teenagers and one younger kid, having been a sahm for years. My husband also works full time - both office based roles.

He is getting a lot of push back when he asks to work from home whereas the women in his team don't. He's recently been criticised by a female team member for working from home - he only does it once a week whereas one woman in a similar role does at least 3 days.

This sexism - that men don't need allowances due to childcare has a knock-on impact on me as i need to work from home more. Its really stressful juggling everything.

In a previous role he slightly dropped his hours (like 2 hours less per week) and his boss kept asking when he was coming back full time, whereas other women in his team were permanently part time.

YABU I have not encountered this - men find it just as easy to get flexible working agreed
YANBU men find it harder to get flexible working agreed and this has a knock-on impact on women

I work in an industry where it’s historically been difficult for men to request parental leave due to employers not being supportive - although my current employer isn’t one of those, and industry attitudes are changing. However, I’ve also heard plenty of examples of men telling their partners that they’ve been refused flexible working or that it will negatively affect their job if they try to negotiate it because their employer isn’t very supportive when they simply don’t actually want to do childcare and use “work says no” as the get out clause.

YANBU many seem to be ignorant to the facts that for women to achieve equality in the workplace men will need it in place too, as something has got to give when it comes to childcare.

Their policy needs to be equal across the board, and whether staff are male or female should be completely irrelevant.

He needs to ask why there appears to be one rule for some, and a different rule for others.

YANBU - but its irrelevant why it happens - what he needs to do is get the refusals documented in writing when he asks to WFH.

If he receives criticism for WFH request - ask them to put it in writing; ask for reasons why he cant but female co-worker can?

Then ask for the WFH policy detailing that females can WFH and males can't?

People tend to be a lot more reluctant when they have to detail their bigotry in writing.

Also thoigh how much has your husband pushed it? If it’s just comments? As a person who needs to wfh/ flexibility you just have to let them go over your head don’t you?

or has he listened to those informal comments (presumably as surely they’d be discrimination) and stopped with asking for any flexibility Nd then it’s fallen to you?

He needs to speak up and not accept unfair treatment. Your new job should definitely not be impacted by this.

Not exactly the same, in my previous job it was always assumed that any male employee with children must have a woman in their lives (wife, partner, mother, friend) who could do all the child-care, including dropping everything if the child was ill/Dad wanted to work late etc. The few men who did their share of drop offs/pick-ups/emergency child-care were treated as being lazy/not committed enough to the work and asked why their wives etc couldn't handle it. The knock on impact for female staff was that once we had children it was assumed that we would be unreliable and dashing off to look after children all the time (for clarity, I don't think working mothers are unreliable, but this was their perception). It also means the partners of most of the men there will have been under pressure to do most of the child-care.

As a pp said, I truly don't think we can have an equal workforce until it's normal that mothers and fathers both take on equal responsibility for child-care. I suspect of we ever get to that point large employers will do more to help provide affordable and convenient child-care options.

It's interesting to see others have had similar experiences. Ir's just comments but there shouldn't really be any and when it's your boss it impacts appraisals, pay etc. It's really hard to bring these things up in his industry as you're seen as a troublemaker. Hopefully things will gradually improve as a younger generation starts to take charge.

@Bornonsunday but your DH is in that position now so he needs to stand up for himself and you. If he doesn’t it’s going to have an impact on your appraisals, pay and you will be seen as a troublemaker. You both need to view your work situation as important as his. He can’t just wait for the next generation to deal with it whilst your career is suffering. You are both contributing to the problem by allowing this to happen because he gets comments.

He's recently been criticised by a female team member for working from home - he only does it once a week whereas one woman in a similar role does at least 3 days
Similar but not the same and the small difference might be what makes working from home not convenient for the business.

Childcare is not a good reason for expecting to be able to work from home. Maybe she has other reasons to have been granted it.

As it stands, nothing to indicate it's sexism.

I don't think it's fair to say we're contributing to the problem when he was the only man working part time in his previous company. And he's considering going part time again once we can afford it.

@Bornonsunday but you said that it has a knock-on effect on you because you then need to work from home more and it add stress to your situation. If his colleague can work from home 3 days a week and he can only do one day he needs to address it with his employer. If his colleague does it for childcare reasons he needs to be able to do the same.

His job isn’t more important than yours. It happens all the time to women that the men claim they can’t pull their weight when it comes to things like being at home with sick kids because their work pays more/is more important/their boss doesn’t allow it. The problem then is that the woman then sends a message to their employer that their job isn’t important and they miss out on advancing/pay rise etc.

You are entitled to fulfil your work commitments to the same degree as him.

Yes not me but brother was greeted with disbelief when he decided to go down to 4 days for childcare reasons (SIL did the same so they got one day a week each at home), also his work have been less flexible about WFH and last minute time off for emergency childcare