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!!

I'd like to say that all people are not equal....

Why is a mass murderer of equal worth of a hard-working nurse who cares for many, eases and saves lives, etc?

EachPeach, all people start off equal and their choices in life determine the value society assigns to thier contribution. The argument here (from the sane majority) is that that value should be assigned fairly regardless of gender. i.e. a female nurse would be worth the same as a male.

I've read through this entire mind-boggling thread.

To the OP it is absolutely fine for you in your position to make the assessment that your DP earns more than you and you should stay at home. That's your choice.

Me personally, I like a bit of independence. I quite enjoy cooking and cleaning and childcare but I would go stark staring mad doing it all day every day. So I work and I enjoy my work and I am well paid. Much better paid in fact than my DH.

I'm not trying to prove a wider political point by working - in fact my impulse to work is quite selfish. I need to work because I am restless and easily bored. But I admit that I resent being told that I shouldn't be working or if I am allowed to work I should be working in some role that you see as being suitable for a woman. Also I think it is a bit ungrateful of you to be churlish about the rights women achieved - those rights were hard won.

Your stereotypes are outdated by the way - I don't know if you are aware that more women than men are currently training to be doctors, for instance.

YABU. I am insistent that the sexes are EQUAL. Equal does not mean the SAME.

I once had a female boss. We were interviewing for a temporary person and she actually said to me that she didn't want the mother with 2 kids as they would no doubt be off every five mins for child related issues. I was totally ! This person was in no doubt the most qualified and experienced person to be interviewed. My boss was unmarried and had no kids, but if this is the view of other women in the work place......

By "milking" pregnancy I presume you mean going to ante-natal classes and taking time off when you feel in, because the alternative is that you might miscarry?

Some men "milk" having a bad back, or having an industrial industry. That doesn't lead us all to discriminate against men in the workplace in case they milk things, does it?

When you feel ill, sorry

That's not what i meant by milking pregnancy. Dp has had both kinds in the last 18 months, one girl who milked her pregnancy to the bitter end one man who milked backache. His backache was that bad he could still play golf at weekends

That's my point - if men milk stuff, it doesn't lead to other men being treated less favourably purely on account of their sex. Whereas if women milk stuff, that's seen to be a comment on all women in the workplace. Why the inequality of attitude?

Exactly catzenobia.

This is so obvious. I would have thought!

It's not just men that discriminate against women either.

When my previous (early 60's/female) boss was recruiting for someone to cover my maternity leave, she told me she was considering a semi-retired bloke because 'At least I know he won't go and get pregnant on me."

... she was a mother of 2 and grandmother of 5, who had worked her way up to management after starting FT work when she got divorced when her kids were in their teens.

There were several other snider remarks both before and after my ML, to the point that I was considering complaining or leaving when (fortunately) she retired and I was transferred to head office with a very lovely and supportive male boss who bent over backwards to allow his largely female staff enough flexibility to cope with their family commitments.

Back to the subject - I agree with MillyR that's it's not necessarily about being considered the same, but about having the same rights and choices (and as for the same pay - that's a no-brainer, surely?)

We all know what milking pregnancy means, the women who moan, who go on and on about it at work, who make every tiny twinge into a big thing. It's the same with sickness. Some people are natural malingers and some aren't.

If most men over 40 milked constant illness things then people wouldnt' want to employ them. If one woman in 100 only milked pregnancy then there wouldn't be a problem either but if more than say 50% of women who get pregnant aren't going to go back to work full time (and most jobs do need people in there full time to be done properly) then those women who won't be going part time or making flexible working requests are affected. If it was once in a blue moon a woman took more than a month or two off with a baby and most were back to work full time after that period and it was as likely the husband as the wife would take time off when the children were sick then there would be many fewer negative images of a woman getting pregnant at work. When I think oif the hassle for me never mind the emotional issues for teh children of my having had two nannies off on maternity leave I'm glad I don't employ any staff in my business.

"most jobs do need people in there full time to be done properly"

That is complete and total bollocks. On the contrary, I can't think of any job off the top of my head, which can't be done part time or on a job share basis. Only people with an extremely limited worldview believe that the job-market has to be organised the same way it has been for a hundred years. We can organise the job market according to the needs of people in our society, rather than trying to make people fit in to a job market that doesn't meet our society's needs.

having the same rights as a man is not the same as being a man. Men amd women are different. End of story.

"I can't think of any job off the top of my head, which can't be done part time or on a job share basis."

I don't know if your just talking about office based jobs here or not? But i know that most manual, "hands on," physical jobs need the person to be there full time in order to get the job done.

My dp has just had a girl on maternity leave for the last 9 months. Her hours were 7.30am - 4.30pm and her main duties were serving customers in a very busy shop. Dp let her make the decision about coming back but couldn't offer her part time because part time would just not work. He would have ended up having to split her job in half and employing someone else to do the other half. From experience, finding someone for the other half of her hours would have be a big nightmare and wouldn't have worked. Being only a small business, there is no way she could have adopted part time because it wouldn't have been practical being such a hands on, physical job.

I imagine in an office envirnment, alot of paperwork can be carried over to the next day, hence why you said the job could be done part time? In jobs such as the girls i just described, everything has to be done, packed away, finished before she can go home. Different jobs, different ways of doing things.

Also, splitting jobs is how so many things get forgotten, go missing etc. If one hasn't told the other about something important that has to be done, it gets missed. Not a good way to do things imo.

Sorry but these are just the usual obections employers raise when they don't want to be arsed to think about how they can make pt hours work. Efficient systems ensure proper communication.

When the trade unions were fighting for the 8 hour day, many, many people said it was an impossible dream - employers needed people to work 50 or 60 hours a week, otherwise the job couldn't be done.

Funnily enough, once the 40 hour working week was brought in, they found that if they adapted their practices, they could get the job done. Not in the same way they had done before, but nevertheless, they got it done. And it was good for society and families that wage earners didn't have to do such long hours and became the norm. The workplace changed to adapt to the needs of society. And it can change again, as society's needs have changed.

YOu're right I was too generalised in my comment. You can work flexible hours manning a till at Tesco etc easily enough although it's more trouble to employ more people for the employer, more hassle to manage the payroll of two people not one and if you were mother employing a nanny to have to employ two for one baby wouldn't be a picnic either dealing with two employees with maternity leave, off sick etc

But many jobs rightly employers can refuse flexible working. If you're doing an 18 hour operation in a hospital you can't clock off because your shift is off as a surgeon. If you're running a court case as a barrister you have masses of work to do when court ends at 4.30pm before the case continues the next day, same if you're a judge, same if you're an MD of a company really or managing a lot of staff. Also in lots of jobs if you're not available to your customer's /clients you lose them, end of story.

But we all accommodate if we want to keep staff when they work. I've just let our cleaner most days work 4.30 to 6.30 because she's doing a course most mornings. And she's bringing her daughter here on Monday because there's no one to look after her and it's an inset day. It's just normal to accommodate people you want to keep working for you if you can but sometimes it's just not possible.

What is clear is women are fools to themselves and other women if they are the ones always compromising and mkaing sacrifices because when that supposedly lovely loyal man runs off with the woman 20 years younger to Thailand and leaves you without a penny your children will be blaming you if you have no means to support them because you put all your eggs into the basket of the man, gave up all work and earning capacity and then lost it all because you didn't protect your financial position. No reason men's careers over women's careers should be protected.. No reason women should always be the losers, always be the ones washing out the underwear and serving.

"If you're doing an 18 hour operation in a hospital you can't clock off because your shift is off as a surgeon."

Nobody sane would ever suggest such a thing. There is such a thing as flexi time, where you work the hours you need to, to do the job effectively, and then you bank that time and take it off when there isn't a patient to operate on. Same with a law case you're working on.

It really isn't difficult. It just takes flexibility, imagination, and a change in NI and tax rules so that employers are not financially penalised for being flexible. And it will eventually happen, because it's what society and families need.

Yes, I agree that the workplace can be adapted to suit the changing needs of society.

However, I think with any process of transition, sometimes things swing too far the other way before settling down. The fact is, there are some jobs which cannot be done effectively (and by effectively I mean delivering the service required properly, not impacting negatively on other colleagues etc) without the employee being there full time. Or if not full time, then it is not possible to offer flexible employment in the terms the employee wants.

Why is it so difficult for some people to accept this??

Over the last few years, since the right to request flexible working was introduced, I have unfortunately seen several cases where women have had totally the wrong mindset about it. They see it as a 'right' to re-write the job description on their terms. They just don't seem able to see that what suits them, is going to have a negative impact on colleagues, or on service delivery.

We need to move forward in terms of updating the workplace in a way that reflects the changing needs of society as a whole, but we also need to be honest about the fact that flexibility will never mean giving each individual precisely what suits them.

X posts there with LittleBella.

Yes, one form of flexible working would be to work an 18 hour stretch when necessary and then 'bank' some hours. But the reality IME is that this type of arrangement is rarely useful to the people who request flexible working (IME 100% of the people I work with who have requested it have been women with young children). These people need clear, planned childcare arrangments, and don't want to work long stretches and then have time off. Often they would end up having to pay for nursery/nanny during the time off anyway.

"Why is it so difficult foe r some people to accept this??"

Because people said exactly the same thing aobut the 8 hour day. They say exactly the same thing every single time a progressive employment measure is introduced. And it always turns out to be wrong.

We're in a transition period at the moment where the whole of the marketplace hasn't yet been adapted to the needs of society, so yes I agree that for employers, particularly small ones, it is v. difficult to adapt. But if someone in 1880 had introduced a 40 hour week, it would have been impossible for them to function in the marketplace as well. It takes critical mass to change the workplace. We have to stop saying it can never be done. It can and it will be.

People aren't saying things can never change LB. Read the thread again.

I actually said that yes, the workplace can change and develop to suit the changing needs of society.

That is not the same as saying that everyone who ever makes a request for flexible working is asking for something realistic and fair.

I wish you could see some of the cases I've come across where employees have requested flexible working! Some have been entirely reasonable and workable, but others haven't. And I personally have experience right now of a few female colleagues who are working reduced hours and it's having a detrimental impact on the service being delivered and on other colleagues, and that's wrong. The women themselves are perfectly competent, but the terms they are working on at the moment are having a negative impact.

It's perfectly possible to be open to the idea of flexible working, and changing working conditions, while at the same time acknowledging that it can't work in every situation.