DHs reaction to sharing job is bothering me

[Alllthatsmine]

DH is a teacher at a private secondary school, he's worked there for 10 years, loves the school and is great at his job. He works 4 days a week as he is trying to write his own book.
Recently his department head retired, the competition for new department head has been tough both internally and externally but he's put his all in.
Recently it was announced he would be the joint head of department, his co-head would be a relatively young teacher from another school, this will be just her 6th year of teaching.
They explained the reasons are that they both work over 4 days (though DH did make it clear if he was given department head he would be willing to go up to 5 if successful) and that they felt their skill sets were complimentary. DH asked more on what they meant, and the effectively said he has the experience and leadership skills but she has the fresh ideas, innovation and drive.
Now DHs reaction has been immature and really bothered me. He effectively saying he doesn't want to do it if he has to share, he thinks it will lead to fall out and he doesn't want to be forced into untested new ideas. He's also made several comments that have bothered me after they met up this week for the first time.

1. He told me that she is newly married and he asked if kids were on the cards soon (I've told him how wrong it is to ask this), she replied with in the next couple of years yes. So now he is complaining that it is a joint role but he will end up doing it alone while she's on maternity leave (confused as I thought that would make him happy!)
2. They discussed pay (again fear DH may have been the one to bring this up!), turns out they are getting the exact same pay and benefits. He thinks this is an insult to his experience. I said I think it's fair as they will be doing the same job and should be paid the same amount accordingly
3. He has made several comments of "have to comprise with a woman at home and now at work too"

AIBU to be really bothered by this reaction and to think it's disgusting. It's actually making me question everything!! Or is it fair to be annoyed?

His sexist comments are horrible and suggest he isn’t fit for a leadership role anywhere, though I assume he knows better than to say this sort of stuff at school.

However, I would be very nervous to take the offer. A promotion where, instead of being prepared to mentor in the weak areas, an employer wants to split the job with a less experienced external candidate is worrying. That screams of them wanting him to mentor their rising star while being the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong. I think I’d be inclined to turn them down and look for a leadership role elsewhere.

I agree with you that it's a bit of a weird idea from the school - so presumably they will be paying 1.8x a department head wage (if new woman is doing the role full time and DH is doing it 4 days a week) rather than just x1 - seems like a complete waste of money!

Sounds like a great deal for the teachers for me - as they will be splitting the workload they'll essentially only be doing half the dept head role each but will be getting paid full time.

But yes his attitude stinks - seems like he is resentful of a younger woman essentially doing better in her role than him, as she's already at the same level as him despite being younger and newer in post.

Brave post, especially on MN but this is exactly what happened in a school where I taught but of course it isn't politically correct to mention it!

it was in the NHS not teaching but I have done jobshare HOD jobs twice and a project and clinical job also as a jobshare. 3 different partners and each post went well for the teams and we got on well as joint job holders. There does have to be the will to make it work and mutual respect which seems to be lacking on your husband's side? It can be a very useful tool to develop a promising younger candidate and/or to supplement gaps in the strengths of one or both candidates. In the vernacular of MN I think your husband should give his head a wobble....or you could do it for him with a frying pan 🙂 edit: two of the jobs were with complete strangers and one was with someone I had known for many years.

If he doesn't want to share he should step back and let her to do the job on her own.

To be honest it sounds like they want her and they only offered the share to keep him happy rather than actually wanting him. If he expresses these antiquated views at work then I suspect he will be sidelined going forward for fear of discrimation claims being made against him.

She’s not bloody pregnant what should we do, stop women of child bearing age progressing. Christ. I assume you’re all men.

There is posters on here supporting him, assuming they are men, but there are women out there who hate other women and prefer men to get ahead , ahead of them,

In all honesty, they should have chosen a HoD and Deputy HoD, especially as they have said the two of them are very different. Expecting people who don’t know each other to definitely work well as equal partners is unreasonable. The school has created a mess.

I’m sorry but he has no place in a leadership role given his comments/views

@godmum56 is it the norm in the NHS? I'm just commenting on teaching which is the job here, and I've never known a HOD jobshare in 15 years of teaching. Some people might have experience of it, which doesn't necessarily mean it worked that well or was desirable. Some big departments in this sort of school might have a second in department who is junior. So this really to me suggests a weak headteacher who can't make a decision/didn't want to upset someone.

I don't know if its the norm across the NHS, its a big organisation and varies massively. I also can't say how well it works or doesn't overall, only tell you my experience. AsI have said it seemed to be used for all kinds of purposes at my level (mid to senior management) to complement skills and experience, to get suitable women into management or part management roles who were unable or unwilling to do full time hours, to enlarge the skill mix, eg one job share I was in we had very different clinical specialities. All the jobshares i did had an expectation that we would not take annual leave at the same time and although we did not increase our hours to cover we would make ourselves available by phone or text during the times when the partner was on holiday or off sick. We didn't cover each other's clinical work which, I imagine would be comparable to not taking each other's classes. I will say clearly that NONE of the people I jobshared with were weak decision makers (nor am I ha!) or afraid of upsetting people. I would say to the contrary, that a successful jobshare requires two positive strongminded people who can respect and rely on each other to a high degree and who go into the share committed to making it work and to be open to the necessary give and take. From the POV of people who, for whatever reason, are not able to commit to full time hours but who have the skills and drive to move into more senior roles, it can be a winner for both the people and the organisation. Again in two cases i went into the share with people I didn't know at all well or at all, the other one was with someone I had known for years in many varying roles.

He shouldn't be asking her about pregnancy and he won't have to cope. If she goes on maternity it's the schools responsibility to sort out cover.

As for...
He has made several comments of "have to comprise with a woman at home and now at work too"
I suspect he's right, it sounds as if he can't talk about his feelings with you. Perhaps he needs to stop talking to you about how he feels. Tell him you've been discussing him on mumsnet, couldn't be a bigger red flag in existence. He needs to reappraise your relationship. When I was working I used to unload all my frustration and annoyance on OH and he knew it wasn't me just the emotion and once it was out normal service was resumed.

It's almost unbelievable some of the posts on here critical of a woman's right to have a baby and a job.

As someone who has done multiple successful jobshares, I have a thought that may or may notbe relevant.....I think for it to succeed the sharers MUST have a feeling of confidence about their own abilities.....not batshit "I aaaaam the greatest" but that calm through snd through feeling that you can do your job well, that you know what you bring to the partnership.....if the OP's husband is perhaps feeling a bit insecure, that might explain his reaction?

You posted a thread giving limited info and inviting people to speculate on two people they don't know and didn't interview. I'm not sure what you expect?

From the info in the OP, he has leadership skills and she is bringing new ideas but not a huge amount of experience (i.e. she is lacking in leadership skills/ experience).

Whilst new ideas are obviously very valuable, a large amount of the day to day work of a head of department involves leadership and management.

I'm not disagreeing that she'll bring a lot to the role, but she is a less experienced external candidate. From the info given in the OP, he will be mentoring/ supporting her quite a lot by the very nature of it. He should be paid more.

For all his experience and leadership skill he’s showing a pretty poor grasp of concepts around discrimination and equality of opportunity,

Not really behaving like a leader atm is he? Remains to be seen whether he’ll get over himself and step up or whether she’ll leave him behind in a hole he’s dug for himself.

She will also be mentoring him on innovation and being brave enough to try new things. She should be paid more.
See how that works? You can twist it to suit whichever way you want and you seem hell bent on labelling this man as the mentor, the lead role, the best. He isn’t. Or he’d have got the job alone. Neither is she or she would have got the job alone. They are on a level playing field.

And his attitude is absolutely disgusting so I hope she reports his questioning over her reproductive choices and I hope he makes more nasty comments so he gets demoted.

@godmum56 , thank you. I do think it's a weakness in teaching that it's very difficult to progress in part time hours. If I wanted to work 3 days rather than 4 I'd have to give up my HOD job and wouldn't be eligible for any form of further promotion.

To be clear I didn't mean at all that job shares led to weak decision making. I meant that the headteacher who gave the husband the job share was a weak decision maker as they probably just wanted to give the woman the job, but instead gave it to both of them as a job share to avoid upsetting the bloke! And now neither of them will be happy anyway.

Well I don't think he's cut out for leadership purely on the basis of asking a woman whether kids are on the cards soon.

He'll have a grievance against him in no time if he carries on...

If we are generous, we can understand the humiliation.
Male primary school teachers are generally very quick to acknowledge that they are favoured as there are so few of them. Schools are anxious to have at least one male teacher. Implicitly, this feels like they do not think he is up to the job but they are throwing him a bone. He knows this and his colleagues will know this.

Alternatively, he feels entitled to the treatment above, or is oblivious to inadequacies. In this case, he is the problem.

If he is not happy, he should decide which of these it is and work on that. If it means moving on, do so, he should be able to move school easily.

That's not how job share works...the clue is in the name, you SHARE the job equally. the sharer's skills must be seen to be of equal value and valued equally, not least by the sharers. The OP's husbands reac tion of "wah not doing it if I have to share" sounds more like a schoolchild than a leader and the "compromising with a woman thing" makes me wonder whether he is the right person to be any kind of HOD or indeed husband. We only know what we are told of course, but all the experience of jobshares that I have had have been clearly identified as possible jobshares dsuring the recruitment process and long before any announcement has been made, which makes me think its been handled badly.

its not a primary school, its a secondary.

@Alllthatsmine wouldn’t care for his sexist comments, but I do get where he’s coming from on a lot of it. I’d probably be thinking all kinds of what-ifs? It would be quite unsettling. One thing’s for sure, it will require 100% commitment to sharing and being open. It can’t work if one party tries to keep stuff to themselves or hide things and so on. And how do they know who’s doing better? Will it be a trial basis? I’d be excited and daunted all at once. But in a job share you’d have to be on the same package - both starting at the same point.

Ah! Sorry, then I wrote nonsense. Sorry.