To think the idea of “passion careers” has ruined work culture for a lot of women?

[MellowOliveOtter]

Women especially are told to “follow your passion” - often into underpaid, emotionally exhausting roles. Meanwhile, men are more often encouraged to follow profit.

AIBU to think that the obsession with “doing what you love” has made it easier to underpay and overwork women?

I think women are expected to work and look after the family so choose roles that fit around that more than roles they are passionate about.

I wouldn’t have chosen my job role if I’d had any choice in the world but it worked for me as a single parent.

I've never heard this phrase and find it quite bizarre. I would always encourage my children to do what they wanted to do, but I do remember finishing University and being quite shocked at the difference between pay in different professions, it had never been something I had considered when choosing a career, maybe I should have?

I agree OP. As part of my job I occasionally go into sixth forms and talk about career choices. I always tell the girls that there's nothing wrong at all with wanting a good salary.

What underpaid, emotionally exhausting roles are women calling their passion? Genuinely curious.

I don't think men are told to follow profit, I think they feel responsibility to provide

I've told my daughter to follow the money, then let that pay for her passions.

Her immediate friendship group consists of 5 girls and they're all going after the money.

It also helps that their school alumnae and mothers have some pretty impressive jobs.

Can't women think for themselves? Are they stumbling into underpaid, thankless jobs or choosing that route?

Hadn’t thought of it that way.

In my own case I had a pretty rude awakening when I realised that my passion would not cover the rent to stay in london (and I had no family support). It does seem as if that’s worsened even more now - with arts, media, humanities internships etc v rare and v v underpaid - but not sure if there’s a gender split there.

I do think that women at disproportionately expected to do caring / nurturing type jobs, which don’t get the financial rewards they deserve. But I’m not sure those would be passions - possibly marketed as ‘vocations’ which isn’t quite the same thing, perhaps?

No but I think caring roles are more ‘traditional’ female careers and so tend to attract more women but are then paid badly.

In all the careers advice I got at school, no one ever laid the numbers out for us. I think that would be helpful to do for people making career choices.

You’re spot on with this and I didn’t notice until recently. I work in a girls secondary school and now I spend time with teenagers googling to show them salaries and explaining what life looks like depending on what you earn. Money does matter.

I do sometimes wish I’d just got a “good job”.

I work in the arts. It’s flexible, but it doesn’t pay.

Friends with office jobs go on holiday. Own a house.

Young girls can't necessarily think for themselves, no?

On the other hand, I don't think there's an easy answer
Do something you hate that brings in the money? Horrible.
Do something you like and be poor? Also not good.

It doesn't really matter what the job is. Once it becomes 'feminised' the pay goes down. This is well documented.

Yes, but I bet they're bored to death half the time.

They love hearing stories about my work / life.
They all hate their jobs. But are on a treadmill.

I encouraged my son to follow his passion. He was academic at a top school and could’ve gone into a highly paying career. My thinking was even though there’s a cap financially on his chosen path, if he’s passionate he can reach the top or even switch to something better paying.. but his mental health trumps everything for me. Hopefully we’ll be able to help him out with a flat deposit one day.

I work in a creative industry where the word passion is used 17 thousand times a day. It’s lost all meaning.

I am too old for it to have been around when I was starting out - but I do think my generation of girls were focused on ‘interesting / fulfilling / socially useful / creative’ careers without much thought as to how much money they’d bring in.

I don’t really regret my choices and I decently well financially, but I wish generally I’d thought more about how to maximise earning when I was younger. Some girls did of course, but from my experience it was a given for boys (which comes with its own problems, of course).

Exactly. Plus and minuses to every choice.

Teaching for one

Absolutely agree. I fell for this one. All I heard was "follow your passions! What do you think you'd enjoy?" No one mentioned how hard work and depressing it is struggling to pay rent on a small and shitty house and having to choose between things you enjoy because you can only afford one or two, while your friends live a much nicer life.

Can't women think for themselves?

The thing is, you get started on the path to a career when you're choosing your A levels/college course at the age of 16. I don't think many young people in their late teens and early 20s, male or female, really have much idea about the world of work (with exceptions of course), so yes, I think they do rely a lot on advice, guidance and general attitudes and impressions from older people.

See this is what my male peers were told, and I don’t think that’s great either, because if it’s not what you want it will make you utterly miserable - if you really have a passion, you don’t want it to be a hobby unless there is really no decent salary to be had.

But I would have liked there to be much more discussion about what pays well full stop, what pays if you get to the top, and what doesn’t pay a whole bunch - that allows people to make more informed choices and to switch quickly rather than hang on if they made a bad one.

Her ultimate passion is dance, but she has absolutely no desire to pursue that as a career.

I highly doubt she'll be utterly miserable though, as she's narrowed hers down to three careers that pay well.

1. Law - she thinks this would e interesting, but is a maybe.

1. Finance- She plans to study Maths and FM at A Levels, so could enjoy this for a period, it will pay very well and she's set a time limit and plan to 'get out' if it gets too much.

1. Medicine - her ideal preference and the one she'd pursue if she had a trust fund

. She's decided it would take a while to start making money and 'according to her', she doesnt have that time.

I've encouraged her to go go finance, then she can pay to fill any gaps or change careers when she's filled her boots.
Her father has helped her map a path to financial freedom by 30, so if all works according to plan, she can mitigate the misery for a few years.

I wish my parents had the knowledge/experience to guide me in a similar fashion.

I followed by passion and became a fashion designer. It was all I had wanted to do since the age of 11. I remember seeing the careers advisor in school who told me to be realistic and think about teaching instead. I dont have any regrets, it was my dream job in my 20s but now in my late 30s I do find the salary, hours and culture a bit depressing. Most of my fashion friends/former colleagues have either been made redundant or changed career. My starting salary was 16k in 2010 and I only made enough to survive in London. I plateaued at Senior Designer level on 60k and took 4 years off as a SAHM. But have recently started freelancing remotely and expecting to earn 60-80K. It's not as much as my friends who have worked full time and pursued careers in finance, law. I did go back to uni and retrain a couple of years ago but missed fashion too much. But I really don't have any regrets. You only get one life, best to do something you love, but you need to be really good at it and if it's in the arts side you need to be really committed, a bit of luck helps too. I barely went out at university, worked my socks off, had a part time job working 25 hours per week to cover my materials & extra courses & got lucky getting a job straight after uni. I was the only 1 in my uni year. Others did get jobs in London eventually but only after doing unpaid internships which meant only the wealthy grads were able to afford that. I'm not sure now with the fees at 9k per year I'd do it again.

At school kids should be educated on what different job types pay.

Dance - no that is a financial dead end, I would agree. I have only one friend who was one, and he refers to himself as having ‘danced his way into poverty’.

Although.. I have a fair few city friends, many of whom said they would go hell for leather till 30 and then get out and do something less soul destroying after that, but they got caught by the lifestyle/spending spiral and never got out. On the bright side, it’s a golden cage of course, but at least a couple of them do wish they’d found a middle ground - which could be medicine of course.

Sounds about right 😃