Why is society so unsupportive of high-achieving 'power mums'?

[KateMumsnet]

Nigel Farage has hurled himself into the debate about equality at work with a typically thoughtful, modern and nuanced view: City women with families are "worth less" than their male counterparts. UKIP-madness-as-usual, you think. Until you look at polling data which reveals what society really thinks about women in senior roles - and are forced to wonder whether his comments are smarter than they first look.

At a Jericho Chambers debate last week, chaired by Zoe Williams of the Guardian, the research company Populus shared a resoundingly miserable take on public views of women in top-level jobs.

Of the 2,000 people they asked, very nearly half think that our society has suffered as more women have worked out of the home. A whopping 57% agreed that 'when it comes to the work-life balance, women can't have it all, however much they may want it'.

So while many of us blithely assume that everyone sane wants broadly equal numbers of women and men at senior levels of business and government, we may not be right - especially if the women in question happen to have children.

A year ago, fed up with a corporate world of retro alpha men, I set out to interview some ‘power mums’ and ‘power dads’ about the choices they've made to get their senior jobs, for Management Today. I was looking for potential role models - but it wasn't that straightforward. Yes, the mums do generally love their jobs. But they also work long hours, miss their kids, feel quite stressed a lot of the time, feel judged at the school gate and judged at work - and most concede that they are surviving rather than thriving.

In contrast, the dads feel no social censure, express few regrets and are free from the racing mental ticker-tape of things they must remember (‘online shop, wash PE kit, plan birthday party, book haircuts, cancel swimming….’) which even the women with the most help keep on a loop. Unlike one of the dads, none of the mums has yet confessed to inventing breakfast meetings to escape the chaos of Cheerio throwing.

The response to the publication of those interviews has, if anything, been even more striking - particularly the judgement cast upon the female high-fliers by other women. On Facebook, a woman commented on a power mum with four children and a long commute: "She may be powerful but she is no mother"; an ambitious 20-something friend said: "when I read that they only see their kids two nights a week, I think 'shame on you' - and then I hate myself for thinking it".

In our frank debate last week, the self-confessed 'enlightened' CEO of Costcutter Supermarkets Group, Darcy Wilson-Rymer, was brutal on the business realities of the subject. Four-day weeks don't work - because women end up doing five days for 20% less pay, and then getting frustrated and doing something else. Job shares can work, but are not ideal at the most senior levels.

After the debate, a woman who read about it sent us an infuriated email, arguing that we were missing the point: "it's actually NOT about the Power Mums who have made it in their careers by getting up at 5am, working out, working a 10-hour day, getting back late feeling guilty and employing loads of staff to help them through. Its about the average professional woman who can work maybe 20 to 30 hours a week but who doesn't want power or even career progression”.

Which is of course brilliant for everyone it suits. But - news flash for Mr Farage - some women do want equality and power and progression. Even some who have had a baby, or two or three. And if the men work 70 hours a week and the women half that, it won't happen. Find me a FTSE-100 CEO who works 30 hours, and surely we'll find an exquisitely wrapped carriage clock ticking under their PA's desk.

We can spend all the time we like dissecting equality and discrimination, childcare options and our hours culture - but until society puts quality of life and families on a more equal footing with business needs, this is just how it is.

So until that time - unless we agree with Nigel Farage and his mates - we need to be supportive of the women who are making the sacrifices to get to the top, and ensure that those women are heard. If they are not, what hope do we have that our daughters will face less stark choices?

I thought this was an exceptionally thoughtful article and actually hits the nail on the head.

Until men are equally responsible for what happens at home and children, women will continue to fail to achieve their full potential.

One thing occurred to me. Both my parents worked. But in the 1970s and the 1980s it was primarily my dad who did the school run for us, and he was also perfectly capable of cleaning the house, cooking supper, and doing the laundry (although it shrunk more often when he was doing it). The only thing he was less good at than my mum was blow drying my hair, and making special porridge for us when we were ill. Both my grandfathers were pretty domesticated as well. I suppose the fact I was at the receiving end of dual care like that makes it really astonishing to me that a generation on we are carrying on as though these things are gendered for a reason. They are not. We are just not very good at organising the workplace here in the UK.

Here working parents are respected whereas sahmdsarent at all. Regular stuff I hear about sahm is they are freeloaders, drain on society, lazy, she sits on her ass, no ambition, cant be bothered etc and thats from men and women and is extremely ingrained in society

Boffin, same here. My father drove us to school every day until we were 18 (no easy school bus route). he hoovered at the weekends. He emptied the hins round the house on Saturdays. He took us out. He also did bed time stories just about every night of the week with one of us and our mother with the other two. He did the night feeds when my siblings were bottle feeding to give my brother a break, not once in a blue moon but night after night. Decent men have always been like that.

My dad was very involved in the domestic side of things too, Boffin, and this was in the 90s. Even when both him and my mum worked outside the home (he's been working from home since '96), he was always the one who did me and DSis's hair in the mornings and laid our uniforms out (said hairdos made for some interesting school photos). This was maybe just down to the fact that my mum took much longer to get ready for work than my dad, but I don't remember it being a 'big deal,' like 'isn't your dad wonderful' or 'isn't your mum an evil fiend who doesn't love her children?' It is ridiculous that so much is still regarded as 'women's work' when it isn't.

Here working parents are respected whereas sahmdsarent at all. Regular stuff I hear about sahm is they are freeloaders, drain on society, lazy, she sits on her ass, no ambition, cant be bothered etc and thats from men and women and is extremely ingrained in society

I've heard people saying things like that, annie, and it's very sad. Ambition and achievement are not always quantifiable by pounds earned, thus validated by someone else.

How did you find these men by the way? Serious question. Uni? Golf club? Where?
Round my way, those sorts of men would pretty much be ridiculed to a degree. Or constant weekly digs at least.

And yet again, the focus is on women - what they need to sacrifice to be able to achieve a career, but again everyone spectacularly missing the point is that women have now run up against a brick wall. There is nothing more we can do to make it easier for women to be able to balance work and home life. We're all balancing as skillfully as we can.

What needs to change now is for men and for employers to change their tune so that the wifework is not also always left to the women. Men need to be taking off parental leave and be just as likely to take long career breaks as women to raise families. Men need to be just as responsible for that ticker-tape of things to remember like PE kits and paying for Brownies. Employers need to be more flexible, with an end to presenteeim and more job-sharing, home working, part-time hours etc.

As I've said before, most families can't survive without two incomes so the current set-up has nothing to do with women wanting to "have it all" - but instead everything to do with women still being expected to do it all.

Commander - what sort of men? Do you mean the ones that consider that household and children are joint efforts and responsibilities?

I met mine at university, and if anyone ridiculed him or took a dig about it I would love to be a fly on the wall because they would get very short shrift.

I would agree with that Annie. But the op asks "why is society so ambivalent about power mums?"
The answer lies in the mum bit not the power bit.

And tbh, I think that is where mumsnet can do its bit properly.

Have a decent dadsnet. And monitor it properly.
At present, they can barely cope with a bunch of women. I shudder to think how they would manage 30,000 men on their site.
They would have to be prepared to invest in a lot more staff.

And the reason they would not do that? Money.
They assume, probably correctly, that they would not get enough revenue from advertising to men.

Commander - why - where did you find an intelligent man who doesn't think that his children are his responsibility as much as they are their mother's? The 1950s? (which is also where the notion of "finding" men at the golf club belongs, FGS)

I met my DH through work, as it happens.

Yes CMOT. Those sorts of men. Thank you for that answer.
I live in a part of the country where there are jobs for men. So many do not venture more than a few miles out of the area. And certainly do not go to uni.

which type of work stealth?

Christine I think you had it right with your first thought ... "UKIP madness as usual"
I'd be happy to debate some of these issues but I really can't start from here (with a chance remark by a fringe politician who's thought about the issues for what, 3 secs ?)

On a related matter do we have to have this guest blog illustrated by a suited woman with a bottle of milk in her hand. BTW where's the baby ?!
I thought we were a breastfeeding friendly forum?

My mum met my dad at uni, Commander. Though, in total honesty, I'm not sure how he turned out so enlightened about sharing domestic work/childcare. His dad, my grandad, was lovely but very much a man's man. His mum was a SAHM and it was just accepted that she would do the wifework. Dad's brother turned out quite 'traditionally' masculine/macho in terms of gender roles and responsibilities (but was still a good, kind man), but my dad really didn't. Maybe he got infected (positively) by all the feminist activism that was happening at the uni in the 70s?!

Yy to Annie - This is what needs to happen, not just for 'power mums' but for all women in the workplace.

Unfortunately this government is not concerned about lower paid women, it presides over the disgusting erosion of rights for low paid, part time workers who are generally women, it allows zero hours contracts and erodes workers rights.

I get that 'power mums' feel hard done by, I really do, but there are a whole lot of women lower down the food chain who are dealing with much, much worse.

christ its just a bottle of milk

I agree with Boffin. My dad did all those things too. Mum said he could use as iron as well as him so she never ever ironed his shirts when he was working. Only when sick.

My nanny said that we were the first parents in 20 years to tell her that she was to call either dh or me and not just me automatically. First time she called to say dd was sick, dh got there before me. Its important these things happen. Interestingly, dh works for a much more traditional culture organisation in the City. All the senior management are men and I think other than dh, only one other person has a working partner. It put a lot of pressure on dh (who works in a deal environment) when I was insisting he came home for bed and stories each night. After 4.5 years, I realised how much it was stressing him out and I have had to compromise.

Does it matter what sort of work, Commander? Male dominated, as it happens, but not coal mining .

Toddler on hip being dropped off at nursery (with changing bag) better image that's all Ubik?

Thanks Painty

For me, I did wield a bottle - but of EBM. I expressed milk all over the world, in airplane loos, in hotel rooms, and during conference calls. Everyday for a year (went back to work when ds was 16 weeks) and then for another 10 months when I was travelling.

Good point juggling although it is just an image. As painty said lots of mothers who work in the City bf. The first year on returning to work after each dc is forever ingrained in my mind as having to pump twice during the day. On my first day back a meeting overran and eventually I had to tell my colleagues if we didn't stop I would be leaking milk. Everyone knew I took 2 pumping breaks for 30 mins at 11.30am and 2.30pm and scheduled around it. After the grotty room I was given after dc1, I made damn sure we arranged a special breastfeeding room with a fridge where everyone had their own key to their bit of the fridge where the milk was stored and a nice chair and a sink. It's little things like that, ie taking a perfectly normal thing and normalising it in the workplace, that I think it's important to have senior women in the workplace.