"Losing a voice" bit of a rant...

[rtp1988]

I think I'm being overly sensitive about this but I want to rant and I feel like someone on the Childfree board will understand!

I (try to) do a lot at work to support the development of other women (I'm reasonably senior) but I'm finding this harder and harder as a non-parent.

For example, I was suggested to be someone's line manager but another woman was also suggested alongside me "in case the person wants a working mum" as a manager. Would they do that if it was any other personal characteristic?!

Then, in a discussion about helping women who are juggling childcare responsibilities with workloads I suggested we help reduce one women's workloads to help her juggle her role more successfully and I got immediately shot down in a tone of "you don't understand" by two mothers who went on for a good 5 minutes about how hard it is juggling work, with dinner/bedtime routines, then logging on in the evening. So surely reducing workloads would help her then?!

I could list several other examples and I hate how much it is getting to me!

I've dropped out of a work "woman's group" as I found it was mainly centered around childcare challenges.

I really feel like I've lost a voice at work without having a child.

Am I completely alone feeling like this? Would it be a reasonable thing to raise with my manager? Or do I just sound like I'm being a bit overly sensitive?!

I've dropped out of a work "woman's group" as I found it was mainly centered around childcare challenges.What do you feel is the priority issue for women in your workplace?

For me, it's menopause. It affects all working women (albeit in different ways) rather than just working women with young kids. You might say that the impact of cost of childcare is greater than the impact of menopause but for me, what makes menopause the key issue is its ability to affect every single woman in the workplace.

My workplace has had to set up a separate group for it, as the women's group wasn't interested in it, because it doesn't affect mothers of young children. So I relate to OP on that point.

I said it on another thread on here yesterday - the problem with conflating woman and mother is that childless women end up being lumped in with men, and assumed to have privilege over women (mothers).

I've dropped out of a work "woman's group" as I found it was mainly centered around childcare challenges. What do you feel is the priority issue for women in your workplace?

Sexist comments,
Being talked over
Inappropriate behaviour
Women not being promoted in technical roles
Equipment being used for physical roles only being bought in men's sizes/designs making it dangerous for women in those roles
Womens toilets on sites being used as equipment stores making it hard for female worked to access facilities

Childcare challenges are parental issues not women only issues and reducing women's group in the workplace to conversations about the challenges of childcare just reinforces the idea that this is a women only problem that men are excluded from.

These sound like reasonable suggestions for restructuring her workload in a way that supports her development whilst helping her balance her time.

I find it interesting that both the parents you were speaking to and the ones who have jumped on this thread are quick to tell you your idea is wrong but slow to offer alternatives themselves. In fact the only two alternatives offered (restructuring their work priorities or redistributing workload across the team) actually sound basically the same as what you are proposing 🙄

If anything, when I was a line manager, I erred on the side of caution where child-related absences were concerned.

When we were holding the ghastly thing that was the 'weekly absences review' I remember some managers with children criticising me for sanctioning an absence due to someone's 15 year old DD being unwell with a tummy bug - "A 15 year old should be able to manage" etc. I wouldn't feel confident to tell a parent something like that - I mean, my parents wouldn't have stayed home with me when I was 15 unless I'd been at death's door, but that was in the Dark Ages!

I get what you mean as I'm frequently told that I won't understand because I'm 'only a stepparent'. For a lot of years I did most of the parenting for said step child and my career slowed down because of it. I didn't have any issues with it because I'd tried and failed to have my own baby. But being told that my lived experience is worthless hurts beyond belief.

Completely agree. If any other group of people were othered in this way then it would rightly be called discrimination. However as it's childfree women then anything goes.

I too have withdrawn from mentoring younger women in the workplace because of the emphasis on reproduction and children. It like women are only seen in terms of their reproductive status and they can't see how reductive that is for all women.

Would a man suggest that another man can't be a line manager because he's not a parent.

No.

That's why this is sexist and it saddens me that women perpetuate this view.