to not be insistant that the sexes are equal?

[elmoandella]

why do we have to be equal in all aspect of life??

we are not the same.

women are better at some of life's tasks. men are better at others.

obviously there are exceptions to this.(women with high levels of testerone for eg. tend to have a more "male" attitude and way of doing things)

i was raised by a liberal mother who did everything for herself. raised 5 kids while running a business. with no childcare and as a single parent for the most of that time we were growing up.

i was encouraged to do follow lead and be successful.

however, it seemed a very unhappy life.

i have to ponder the idea that perhaps she would have had a much more satisfactory life if she hadn't been so determined to be equal and get her own way.

is it really so terrible to just accept women may sometimes, in certain fields of work, get paid less.

I also dont see why so many women strive to equal there partner in pay.

what is wrong with your other half being the greater earner. it is half the battle then when you go for maternity leave. you will be able to relax a little and enjoy it. than worrying that the main salary is cut drastically as the female is the higher earner.

i know a few on here will want to flame me. but i would actually like to see a reasonable debate on why so many women are so determined to do everything.

tell me why you want equality so badly.

convert me!!

Not read all this, but I agree with OP. Both sexes are equally important but I don't want a mans life or to work all hours, I am much more maternal than DH and yes I think alot of that is biological and not merely social conditioning. I like being a housewife and mum and that is enough for me, for now anyway.

absolutely spicemonster - flexible working should not be allowed to happen if it will be negative in any way at all.

jellybeans - I'm glad you're more maternal than your DH - I am more maternal than mine, though he is more paternal so it kind of evens out

Not sure what 'a man's life' means. I wouldn't want to work all hours either - but I love being a mum and working.

jellybeans, I'm glad that you are happy with your life "for now anyway", but don't you think it's a good thing that if you were not happy with it, you would be free to choose to work fulltime? Isn't it a good thing that you have the right to choose that life? That's what equality gives you. It doesn't force you to work all hours because some men choose to do so. But it equally doesn't force you to fulfill a "woman's role" whether or not you want it.

LOL at you personalising again "Do you really think that those of us who combine motherhood with management really haven't tried out new systems? Or networked with other people to find out what works for them? Tried new ways of looking at things?"

I have no idea. Some of us have, some of us haven't. As I said, I'm not attacking you or your profession, I ahve no idea why you keep talking as if I'm attacking you.

If you say you've examined all angles and found some didn't work for you, I believe you. But you are in the minority. Many employers won't pro-actively do that, they have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards any reform, any time, all the while protesting that they'll go out of business if this new piece of legislation gets passed. And they will come up with a list of reasons why it won't work, without even thinking of how they can overcome the barriers. And then as you say, when they implement crap flexible working that doesn't work, they then blame the whole concept of flexible working, instead of examining why this particular model won't work in this particular instance, and finding out what will work instead. They'll just go back to the old ways and when asked, will say "oh we tried that and it didn't work".

LB - I have no idea on what basis you are attacking employers as you now admit you have no idea whether managers/employers have tried out new systems.

Which employers have to be 'dragged kicking and screaming' towards any reform?

The only person I know of who thinks everyone should work their asses off 24/7 is Xenia, and she doesn't employ anybody cos she does it all so brilliantly herself!!

Bella i think you are talking nonsense in that last post. You are making a huge generalisation about employers their flexible working decisions. How on earth could you know anything about an employers decisions for sure? You can't unless you have physically been in their shoes. I think you are going on the big, bad, boss generalisation that so many ignorantly adopt.

"flexible working should not be allowed to happen if it will be negative in any way at all."

How about
"The implementation of child labour legislation should not be allowed to hapeen if it will be negative in any way at all"

or

"The forty hours week should not be allowed ot happen if it will be negative in any way at all"

or "Equal Opportunities legislation should not be allowed to happen if it will be negative in any way at all"

or "The miminum wage should not be allowed... " bla blah, you get my point.

The point about change, is that it is always going to have some negative impact on some people. Transition is a difficult thing. Saying that any negativity at all should be avoided in employment law, is unrealistic. It sounds exactly like the unions who used to say that if one job was lost because of new more efficient working practices, then those practices should not be allowed to be introduced. It simply wasn't reasonable.

Of course I'm making huge generalisations. How can you only argue on the basis of individual cases? You would have to list and list and list and we would all switch off.

I'm not saying all employers make decisisons like that. Just some. I've definitely met a few.

There is, quite rightly, legislation regarding flexible working requests which detail quite clearly the criteria the request has to meet in order for flexible working to be granted, precisely to avoid the negative impact on clients, service, other employees etc.

True, true

And the danger of making huge generalisations without evidence as back up is that what you're saying is essentially your opinion and not necessarily the reality.

Yes that is a danger but I think the number of cases which go before industrial tribunals dealing with just this sort of thing gives us some indication of the lie of the land. But please don't ask me the numbers, I ahve no idea but I'm sure the Equal Ops Commission or whatever it calls itself nowadays would have them.

(It will be v. interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years as the economic downturn gets worse. If this will impact on flexible working requests/ ITs.)

With regard to emplolyers resisting change, remember how much whining there was wuth the introduction of the minimum wage? Empoloyers insisting they'd go out of business etc etc - and in fact, once it was introduced, very, very few companies folded as a result.
And TBH, if you can't survive as a company without exploiting your staff by paying them ridiculously low wages, then you deserve to go bust because there is something badly wrong with the way your business is operating.
Ditto whoever was whinging about not being able to find a part-time shop-worker who would stay in the job_ did it ever occur to you that maybe you're horrible to work for and pay bad wages? Ok you might just have been unlucky, but I tend to think that anyone who has the same 'bad luck' repeatedly with regard to other people is contributing to what's going on.

One reason so many jobs are contracted out rather htan using direct staff is because local authorities and others want to avoid having to comply with all these employment protection measures. So I'm not sure ultimateily they ahve benefited everyone although I accept that unless people are self employed they are still subjected to the minimum wage even if just temporary workers for a contractor who picks them up at 5am from a pick up point and drives them in to work on the local authority contract.

There is a new right coming in to request flexible working in April for anyone with a child up to age 16 I think it is.

As someone said above with jobs very hard to come by and people's husbands out of work I'm not sure we're likely to see people clamouring to halve their wages.

i dont mind dh earning more than me - great more money coming in.

i would mind if i were doign the same job, hours etc - if he were being paid more by virtue of having a dick for the same job

thats just not fair. you don't have to lable yourself as a femanist to see that.

Good post SGM

I absolutely disagree with the OP and think you need convincing

Equality is a right firstly not a choice.

In a family, things work out differently for different people. Fathers should IMHO have the same rights as women when it comes to flexible working, time off etc - why not? They are as capable and equal in their role in childcare (post birth and BF) than the mother.

Many of the everyday things that we experience are down to tradition as opposed to anything else. Why should a married woman change her name? Why should a woman stay at home? Why shouldn't the OP's mum go out to work? Why should a child only have one parent around while the other is the breadwinner?

Equal pay is a requirement. It does not happen. I disputed with a previous employer over this and won. There is no excuse for paying someone unequally if they are performing the same job.

Like Stewiesmum, I find this thread utterly depressing.

It shows we've a huge long way to go with our daughters and other women even to be at first base in terms of male and female equality. A lot of women on the planet don't even have rights we take for granted yet and we should be campaigning in support them. Not allowed to drive. Not allowed to vote. Two women to count the same as one man when a witness in court. Never mind FMG which is often imposed by women on women but is still a breach of their fundamental rights.

Everytime you allow a husband to play a round of golf at the weekends without yourself also having similar time off you kick other women in the teeth.

Oh Xenia, I love you!

I'm black and female and work in an industry (science and technology) dominated by white middle class men. Despite my visible handicaps, I have excelled in my career and now work flexibly part-time managing a team of 15 men. Without the equality laws, I know for a fact that I would not have achieved my position depite having the talent and ability to do so. What is even more reassuring, is that I am respected for what I do, not for who I am.

I agree with Xenia's last post. That is why I am able to go to the gym or go running whilst DH has his time with DTS. No way would he even contenance having his leisure time without me having mine - in fact, he insists that I make time to go out with my friends periodically!

"Ditto whoever was whinging about not being able to find a part-time shop-worker who would stay in the job_ did it ever occur to you that maybe you're horrible to work for and pay bad wages? Ok you might just have been unlucky, but I tend to think that anyone who has the same 'bad luck' repeatedly with regard to other people is contributing to what's going on."

solidgoldsoddingjanuaryagain I assume you are talking about my post and you couldn't be more rude and wrong. Alot of the reason why people don't stay is because they come into the job thinking it will be a piece of piss and usually when they realise they have to work hard and get the job done with little standing around talking time, the novalty wears off for them. I prefer dp hiring more mature women who prove to be more reliable, hard working and don't just walk away from the job. The lady he hired for the morning is a mature women, hence why she is still there now. All the afternoon applicants were young girls and a few lads, hence why we had such difficulty.

Regarding wages, my dp has always payed above minimum wage and any extra hours staff do they get cash in hand for it. I didn't see any of dp's staff complaining about the £50 cash bonus he put in all of their Christmas cards this year, plus the bonus in their wage packets like he does EVERY year!

You clearly have no idea about how difficult it can be for employers to find good, reliable, long standing staff. I think if you ask most employers, they will tell you the same thing.

I think in most cases there isn't discrimination at work if women do as good as job as men particularly now we've had all those local authority equal value cases. Where the battleground lies is really in the home. No woman who works full time should do more domestically than the man where she has a man and yet they allow that all the time. I don't understand why they do. I'm not particularly stroppy or difficult or nagging but when I as 21 and newly married in 1983 no way would I have ever accepted any relationship where it was as likely a man would clean the toilet as a woman or where a man did half the time on domestic jobs a woman did and plenty of men of course aren't sexist either.

"No woman who works full time should do more domestically than the man where she has a man and yet they allow that all the time."

i'd agree with you in the sentiment with regards both partners.but how did you ( or would you if such a scenario occurred) and your significant other sort out the distribution of domestic work if one of you placed a greater importance on a particular task. i.e. one is just not that fussed about neatness (not talking about hygiene or cleanliness) because i suspect that in a lot of cases that can attribute to scenarios where two people who agree they are nothing but completely equal and responsible for domestic chores can end up having completely different work loads. so when i do something domestically i do it to my standards which probably takes half the time of my gf to do it to her standards because a) i think she's a neat freak for doing one thing b)she thinks i'm a slob for not doing it when the reality is most likely c)somewhere in the middle

MSSparkle, I have experienced both useless lazy staff (when I was a manager) and exploitative, escessively demanding employers (in various jobs). I said 'maybe you're a bad employer.' Because it is generally the case that someone who complains of repeatedly being let down or disappointed or wronged in some way by a lot of different individuals is contributing to the situation in some way.Perhaps in your case it is as simple as advertising your vacancy in the wrong place.