To think that despite it being 21st C sexism is still rife?

[JustAnotherManicMummy]

I have a some recent examples:

My step-SIL recently had a baby. I have met her once. FIL sent out an email to me, SIL and BIL's wife (ie not his sons) He also says things like "It's different for ladies, having babies" and asks if we "look in prams" when we're out

Of my immediate circle of new-mums in RL two-thirds have had significant problems dealing with their employer about returning to work or getting queries answered both after and during maternity leave.

There are no vacancies advertised for the multi-national I work for with part-time/flexible working/job share as an option for any management or senior roles.

Now, maybe I was naieve, but I thought "the glass ceiling" was a myth, that big companies would not discriminate against women as they would be keen to be seen doing the right thing and that attitudes like FIL's went out with the Ark (he's not old btw, mid 60s).

So, AIBU to find not much has actually changed?

just me then

YANBU. Society is BU. If you ask me, sexism at work is slowly reducing (thanks to the fact women need to work, not much else) but I think there's a long way to go.

As it happens, what worries me is people thinking there ain't no sexism left - hmmm.

Re your FIL - well, old people are more likely to be codgerish. But they're old and don't rule the workplace, luckily.

YANBU

As regards to work place discrimination I think some of this is not just sexism. Other women colleaguse without children can sometimes be as bad IME

You're definitely NBU.

I had to tell my boss I'm pregnant at 10 weeks, because he wanted me to take over a project from June, which would be one month before I go on mat leave. He smiled lots, said congrats and then effectively told me he was benching me until I came back, because "well, I can't put you on any major projects now, can I, you're leaving for 6 months". Yes, but I'll still be around for the next 7 months - during which I'm expected to sit around and do nothing remotely substantial (which means bye bye promotion prospects)? After I complained vociferously, he eventually apologised and gave me work.

I supposedly work for a progressive organisation which, on paper, ticks all the boxes - we get flexitime, the ability to work part-time etc etc. The reality is very different.

So again, YNBU at all - sexism is rife IME.

YANBU

This is something that drives me wild. My 3 year old daughter loves trains, cars and Bob The Builder, and isn't remotely interested in princesses. However, she is not a tomboy - she is quite a girly-girl in most respects. People (my friends) find this perplexing to deal with. They want her to fall in one camp or the other. They cannot compute that a girl can be interested in baking AS WELL AS trains Similar for boys - why can't a boy like cooking or playing with dolls?

And don't get me started on workplace discrimination. When I was on maternity leave, my then office didn't invite me to team bonding events, Christmas party, anything! It was as if Id stopped existing! They also made it impossible for me to return to work by refusing to be flexible around my childcare arrangements. Hence, me going freelance . So many women of my acquantaince have been hounded out of work by inflexible employers...these are highly skilled women - solicitors, statisticians, pharmacists. The waste of skill and talent is shocking

Long live sexism (ironic, of course!)

A lot of what you are talking about is discrimination against people with caring responsibilities. Not all women have caring responsibilities and not all people who have caring responsibilities are women. We need to look at this group as a whole and make sure that people looking after elderly or disabled family members are also protected in the workplace.

As huge numbers of women are choosing to never have children, so we cannot see women as a group with very similar issues as we might have done 50 years ago.

Women who are 30 plus tend to focus on childcare and work as one of the main sexist problems. But most of the really grotesque and blatant sexism is thrown at the 13-25 age range, who are going to be on the receiving end of sexual harassment, sexualisation, physical attack and judgemental attitudes.

But I do believe that things are much, much better for women in this country than they were 50 years ago

Depressing that I am not alone though

Agree with Milly. It's flexibility in the workplace that the world cant/wont cope with.

A man who wanted to work flexibly to care for a disabled partner would find it just as hard. Possibly harder as there are more statutory rights for women with children under 1 year.

Actually, I have personal experience of this:

My work were pretty flexible with me. There was some give and take but in general it was fine.

Dh's work would not budge an inch, and in fact made it harder for my work by refusing to be flexible even in the smallest way.

And so it continues: Dh's work expect me to take the time of if ds is sick etc, etc.

Probably also a difference between public sector (me) and private sector (dh) as well though.

MillyR you make some good points - and men with caring responsibilities don't get much help either. But the idea that a man might want to work flexibly/part-time etc to raise children and finds it difficult because it's not the norm is just another example of sexism isn't it?

All of my examples are from recent experience. I can think of more but not personal ones.

We're a long way from equality for all

x-posted with shona. I think that's a good example of the point I was clumsily trying to make. That childcare is "the woman's responsibility"

Milly, you're right of course. In my personal experience however, I faced diisriminationt he minute I fell pregnant - being pushed down the ladder within days of announcing my pregnancy! It is the woman who bears and breast-feeds the child, and no man can take on these tasks. This means the woman is not at her most productive work-wise for at least a year minimum for each child (including pregnancy and assuming she returns to work pretty much immediately after birth). Employers refuse to see past this and write a woman off the minute she gets on the "baby wagon" (as a colleague charmingly put it)

Agree that carers of disabled/elderly persons are given short shrift too. But that is a whole other problem (just as important, but different).

i work in a ver pc environment. but men get farthr, faster - dh and i talk about it often - the fact hat even though i have more experience /work history he will more than likely get promoted ( same field of work) in his public sector job than i will in mine.

Yes, we are and its important to talk about it, because otherwise the myth that sexism is dead is easy to propagate.

But I am wary about taking flexible working as a central issue in the battle about sexism, tbh. As MillyR says, both sexes have equal problems in accessing it, and (I'm speculating here) I think it would have an equal impact on the promotional prospect of both sexes.

It's pertinant to more women, sure, because they are the ones picking up more of the caring roles, but I think a more interesting question is why they are doing that? Why not their partners? Isn't there something intrinsically sexist in our society and personal relationships, that this is the norm?

Or, if you want to confine your analysis to the workplace, ask yourself why equal pay for equal work is still not the automatic position? Why are the promotional prospects for women working full time at senior level still not the same as men?

Sigh. So many causes, so little time. It's enough to make one cancel one's subscription to Spare Rib.

Part of the point I was trying to make was that not all women have caring responsibilities - this I feel is as important as the fact that most caring responsibilities fall to women.

I saw a job application form recently where it listed the groups the organisation would not discriminate against/look positively at employing and it listed gender but it also listed people with caring responsibilities.

So what I am trying to say is, in the workplace I am discriminated against as a woman, and in addition to that I am discriminated against as a person with caring responsibilities. Many women are never going to have those responsibilities so they do not face, and will never face that combined discrimination.

Sorry that I couldn't word that more clearly and succinctly.

There is also the issue, as others have raised, that part of feminism succeeding depends on men doing more of the unpaid work currently done by women.

I get you MillyR. The double-whammy effect of being discriminated against for being a woman and for childcare responsibilities makes it twice as hard.

I wonder if the glass ceiling and women generally not getting promoted to top positions whether they have children or not is because there is an assumption that women will have children so it's not worth investing in them as much, even if that is not the case for many, many women. I mean this an unconscious prejudice in the main. Not everyone is as stupid as Alan Sugar to come right out and say they'd discount women of child-baring age for jobs.

I think I was hoping lots of people would say I am BU and give me a bit of hope

I do think there is a lot of sexism out there but i do kind of understand for some bosses its really hard.

I worked for smallish legal firm and mainly woman were employed - at one point the boss had 5 women either pregnant or on maternity leave - 2 secretaries, 1 Solicitor, 1 cleaner and i receptionist - the firm didnt employ that many people.

Its expensive to hire temporary staff and a pain because they ned to learn the jobs etc. He never said a word to me or any of the others - he was a wonderful boss and has always said my job is there anytime I want to go back but i could understand if he had the attitude that he wont employ women of that age anymore

On the other side i worked for a massive co who refused to allow me to return pt - they offered me pt work 100 miles away they were really rude aout me being pg - and made life very difficult - they offered redundancy instead and i jumped at it - i didnt want to work for aco that wouldnt do anything to help

MillyR that was well put. We should be separating the caring issue from the other discrimination women face simply because they are women.

Fact is that sexism starts from a very very early age. Just a quick look around shops is enough to make you depressed. Everything separated into pink and blue. There is actually a "girls section" and a "boys section" in a toy shop, for crying out loud. The message ingrained in children is that girls should be fluffy and interested in makeup and baking and not much else. Vice versa the message sent out to boys is that they must be active and be building model aeroplanes. This discriminates against the quiet sensitive boy as much as it does against the tomboyish girl.

The children of today will be the workforce and employers of tomorrow. THEY are the ones who will influence the way the workplace will evolve. Should the media/manufacturers be pigeon-holing them so early? Should we, as parents, not be protesting?

Yes, Millie, exactly. To be frank, I get less excited about limited opportunities for carers because I can see that for small employers in particular, accommodating people's requests for time off/part-time/flexible working can be expensive and inefficient. There is a reason for it, whereas there is no justifiable reason for discrimination against women as a class - it's blatant idiocy.

MillyR

Do you know what, I don't feel that I was on the receiving end of too much "sexual harassment, sexualisation, physical attack and judgemental attitudes" (at least not openly judgemental) when I was 13-25. I also believe that one of the differences was that in the 1980's girls/women of that age group didn't feel the need to wear so little clothing when out socially and to pretty much hand sex on a plate to the men chasing them.

I think that a large proportion of the male/female social interaction within this age group has become of a spectacularly dumbed down, essentially crude, male, level and I find it desperately sad.

Sex is great, don't get me wrong, but if we could somehow wind back the clock, I feel that young women in particular would benefit greatly from additional developmental years without the pressure to be sexual and young men would just have to fall in line with this and find other ways to enjoy female company without expecting to get a shag after perhaps as little as a few hours or maybe a week's acquaintance and thinking less of a girl who didn't look "hot" because he's concerned about his image too and what his mates would think.

In answer to the OP - yes sexism is still rife even if it manifests itself differently these days.

George, I don't know if there is a difference in the amount of harassment young women face now as opposed to a generation ago.

I do think that there have been a lot of cultural changes that might give young straight women less opportunity to develop their own sexuality rather than having a stereotypical sexuality pushed on them.

I am officially depressed. Wish I'd not started this thread now...

Good post sitdownpleasegeorge

Tis depressing how, especially in music vids, the "whore" look as I call it is all that is on offer.

I only have boys so I won't be directly responsible for trying to help young girls develop in their own time rather than to the premature schedule determined by the media and marketing industry.

Yes, women should be able to wear what they want but when/why did it become desirable to look like a whore whereas my generation still attracted the opposite sex with our clothes on. How does it benefit young women ? It's obvious what superficial benefits young men get out of it and IMHO doesn't generally improve their character or help them with the transition from boy to man at all.

Lads will always be lads, but women, as a rule, used to be able to dictate how fast things developed sexually. Women generally had the upper hand, sure we went out of our way to look good and be around men because we wanted to meet them/get together with them, that's good old mother nature for you but men chased us and tried to please us. We seem to have thrown that away and so many young women now seem to have to whore it up to attract men who then have little respect for them anyway.

YANBU. glass ceiling etc doesnt affect me as I am a SAHM what I DO get annoyed at are images of women on tv/films/music, I think alot of is is disgusting and degrading. I dont really want my daughter exposed to this - in a way it is much more basic than problems with part time working etc because how can girls grow up seeing themselves as capable and equal to men if they see women prancing around acting like this!.