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?

[woodlandwanderwoman]

The flip side of this is that Nigel Farage is implying that a lot of people make it to where they do only because a great proportion of often more capable candidates cannot compete because they choose to have a family.

This might go some way in explaining why a culture of self importance seems to have infected so many otherwise quite average people, making them feel that not only are they qualified but entitled to judge mothers (and fathers) by the amount of time they spend at work or home.

Meanwhile, I think that most mothers will say that having children has helped them to understand what is really important in life and it's not simply a function of time.

This understanding is different for everyone which is why I personally don't feel that society truly supports the choice of any mother, power or otherwise, because no two mothers want the same thing.

[stealthsquiggle]

Want2b - I should be more exact, sorry. I have been working in Sweden and Norway, where I have had "sorry, HTC, kindergarten run" (male) customers and similar things from both male and female colleagues, and there are way more women in senior customer facing roles (including the country MD) and in senior technical (CTO) roles in customers than I have ever seen elsewhere in Europe. OTOH, the only Danes I have worked with have been macho-culture supremos, but I have not spent enough time there to condemn an entire nation on that basis

[stealthsquiggle]

HTC?

GTG

[wordfactory]

I don't like the phrase but will roll with it here.

I know quite a few power Mums, and I do think they get a very hard time (mostly behind their backs) from women who are often married to power Dads.

The double standards is revolting.

These women will say oh-so proudly how ambitious their DH is. How great at their job. And yet still they're such an oh-so great Dad.

Apparently, it is their magic penis which allows these men to be hugely successful and a good parent!

[LittleBearPad]

I think the comment about society not supporting mums is most true on this thread.

[Want2bSupermum]

stealth I condem any society where one of their largest employers thinks its ok to send someone 3500 miles away and not give them paternity leave when their wife has a baby. Heck, they didn't allow him vacation time while I was in the hospital. He took 4 days off split over the two weeks. SiL said none of the men have taken full paternity leave during her career. They might take the first week or two but after that they are back at work. While she doesn't have children, she is not in an unskilled role.

[Want2bSupermum]

doh - she is in an unskilled role.

Forgot to add that Norway has a different set up because they have managed their oil money. Childcare is fully paid for allowing women to work if they want to. Most Norwegens I have worked with work really long hours, just not in the office and they have all been men. I have not come accross many women in senior positions outside of government/oil industry.

My Dad ran his production facility out of Sweden and the sexism was a big problem there. The general manager would be fired within 2 years either because of sexual harrasement, lack of equal opportunities etc. My Dad wanted to put a women in charge and the board would not agree with him. That was 20 years ago and the company that bought the facility closed it down and moved production to Poland. Just be wary of what you see. There are a lot of silent barriers in place even in 'progressive' places.

[legoplayingmumsunite]

It does vary so much from country to country. My brother worked in Switzerland for a few years, he had British work colleagues taken aside for a little chat to check they were coping with their workload if they were seen to work late too often.

make sure you are seen burning the midnight oil for one long night a week, send a few high profile emails over the weekend to show you are working

I recognise this. DH is at home one day a week and I always work late that day. I also regularly send emails in the evening or at the weekend, or on my day at home. And I don't even work somewhere where we work particularly long hours but we do have a lot of American customers so the emails sent at odd times definitely have an effect on them.

[LauraBridges]

As a nation we tend to criticise anyone who does well at anything as most people are pretty idle.
However if you "lean in" whether male or female you can do well. It's not rocket science.

To be honest every week someone says I am amazing and their role model etc etc. I get embarrassed by their heaped on praise for the fact I've lots of children and earn a lot. Someone on Friday said it yet again. So if other people think I should be given a hard time it never ever is voiced to me at all.

I have always been happy to be counted as a woman who has always had lots of ambition, loves power and money and likes beating other people whether male or female. Plenty of women are like that. Many of us like that also adore children and babies and pregnancy and breastfeeding.

[PacificDogwood]

Laura, I get the 'admiration' too. DH doesn't. We have the same number of children, we work in the same field, I do less hours than he does.
He gets admired when he 'baby sits'. His own children...

[PacificDogwood]

And are you Xenia?

[lalouche]

I think 60-70 hour weeks of work are bad for children, whether it is the mother or the father that does them. Other countries, notably in Scandinavia, manage successful economies without the insane hours pressure we have.

[stealthsquiggle]

Fair enough want2be - I was not disputing your condemnation of the Danes, just saying that I didn't have enough experience to do so .

As for Norway /Sweden I am interested to hear what you say. I don't think it's perfect by any means, but it is noticeably different to the UK and other European countries that I have worked in.

[scottishmummy]

Powermum awful term,smacks of know your place.might be good at job but don't forget you're mum
I'm not wholly defined by being a mother.ive never heard man called power dad
Because women still defined by parental status,as if that is all consuming,but not for men

[specialmagiclady]

Thanks for getting back to me upthread on the family backup thing. Sorry I

For me, as well as my control-freakery about someone else looking after my PFB was the fact that my DH and I were both in the same business, with the same stupid hours expected and the same short term contracts offered at the last minute. We were always set up, financially and admin-wise for one of us to be out of work. It's just that it stopped being DH's turn to be the "wife".

I also, and this is crucial, didn't have any role models. I had met precisely 2 women who had kids and worked in production. They job shared with each other. But one was the boss's wife and both had taken huge cuts in pay and status to keep working. For an industry that is dominated by young women, telly has been rubbish at retaining them as parents. it may be very different in the BBC, but that is how the independent sector at the shitey end of telly was.

Because people are supposed to "love love love" working in telly. It's the Arts, dahling, they are expected to put in the most horrific hours. My DH really only has friends from that background, because everyone else would realise how appallingly rude it is to announce you're not coming to an event at the last minute because you're "stuck in an edit".

It's not family friendly whether you are talking about men or women.

Rant over.

[BlueMoonRoses]

The book "The Invention of Difference" by Binna and Jo Kandola says it all. And spectacular, I agree. I left for the same reason, having worked for the "I work 100 hours a week and so should you" type. A woman.

[scottishmummy]

Leave baby with stranger,you know what that's the snippy shit working women hear habitually
How is a sourced,visited,registered setting a stranger?but the inference is who cares stranger is adequate
Just as you don't want to leave your pfb with someone strange,neither do other mums

If you think nursery,nanny,cm equates to stranger care,that's your prejudice

[breatheslowly]

I wonder whether there is any benefit in redefining some jobs as having standard hours of 60 hour a week (leaving aside the time directive issues). This would then enable some workers to take realistic part time jobs as 30 hours a week and actually work 30 hours a week in those types of job.

[Want2bSupermum]

I think spectacular has hit on a major problem with the workplace. Nothing has changed with how things work. If we as women want to change the workplace we need to get into senior management roles. This is easier said than done.

My experience as a mother with a paid career is that childcare is the biggest barrier that women face. I hear on MN how women should consider family income, not just their income, when deciding if they are going to continue working. That argument is hollow to me. If I earn GBP20k after tax and have childcare expenses of GBP20k I am not earning anything by working. It shouldn't be this way. I really think the only way forward is for childcare costs to be fully deductible against the lower income earners income where both parents work. I think this is an important change that needs to happen.

[merrymouse]

"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."

Where are the interviews with the 'power dads' for comparison?

[Mimishimi]

I agree with Bonsoir. It only leaves a bad taste in others mouths when others, not necessarily related, are expected to pick up the pieces when it comes to their children - taking them after school, to sport/music practise, on a weekend so mum/dad have time together etc. Generally those sorts of families have two high-flying parents where a lot of time commitment to work is expected or something they want to commit to (not talking about parents with ordinary hours).

I don't see how the approval of other parents should make a difference but strongly disagree that the word 'unsupportive' is appropriate when others (relative included) aren't too willing to take on some of their family responsibilities.

[tomverlaine]

I look at it a different way -of the senior men in our organization I can't think of any who have wives who work full time- most don't work at all. So the working culture assumes this is the case - travel, social meetings, evening meetings, calls/meetings at weekends and on holidays all have the stay at home spouse as the hidden assumption. Even at a more junior level it exists. Senior women are in two camps - ones with sahps - at one stage of the senior 12 women 9 had sahps - and then there is the camp with a lot of paid help- and it takes more than a nanny and cleaner to fill in the gaps.