In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

SIGH. Why th did I have to marry a man in the world's most archaic, hidebound profession.

Flexible working for lawyers, bankers, etc. must be decades off. These professions are such tight, closed shops: it's fit in or die. And for police, army etc presumably?

sorry, charlieq, while people just accept the status quo we will get nowhere.

sorry, charlieq, you are talking bllx now. i have worked flexibly in IT in investment banking for 5 yrs. both in my last firm and my current one there were men on fwas. ok, a very small number, but the ones who were prepared to stick their necks out, take a risk and be pioneers.

sorry that was very rude. i'm afraid this is a red mist subject for me. please ignore my first sentence. the rest of my post stands though

Law must be one of the worst, yes, closely followed by accountancy.

But even in professions where it is possible to work flexibly and part time (such as mine, academia), it's still really very difficult to do so in the knowledge that you are trashing your career prospects in a job where you can work short hours but the successful people are working very long hours indeed.

Apparantly police is not too bad. I have a friend who is a policewoman and she's entitled to loads of time off and return to job, then flexible hours.

What amazes me, is that employers and politicians are content to allow the total and complete waste of human resources that is represented by people taking jobs below their skills level because they want to work flexibly. Years of training have gone into some people, stacks of money in terms of the investment in training that companies have put in - and they're content not to be able to draw on it because they're not willing to offer flexibility. It stuns me that we have such a wasteful attitude to the workforce. Everything else, I'm told (decent childcare, a public transport system, the NHS, a welfare state) we can't afford; but waste of workers skills - no problem!

but the more flexible working arrangements become accepted the less working long hours will be seen as a necessity... in many places the long hours culture is presenteeism anyway... imho of course.

And that in fact tends to go for the third (charity) sector too, from my experience of working full-time in it for many years.

(That was to Fennel.)

It's when Fathers Direct start yammering on about how very unfair it is of employers not to let them, and how terrible it is that men are expected - pressured - into working a nice long day with someone else doing all the backup at home for them, poor darlings...

I'm really not very motherly, am I

alright I accept it's clearly my fault for not forcing dh to resign/ start a revolution among all the oldtimers in his place.

But this is the real world. I can't support this family as a non-working (atm) academic. If roles were reversed, no doubt I would be 'challenging the status quo' personally.

BTW bossykate, I asked a question about flexible working for men. Didn't make any statement.

Oh yes you still get people doing the long hours in the voluntary sector.

And my boss recently said at a meeting: "I know we all work more hours than we're contracted to".

To which my thought was "Do we really?! I took this job with its ludicrously low pay, so that I didn't have to work more hours than I was contracted to, thanks very much"

But that's (part of) my point, CharlieQ. It's not your fault. Just as arguably it's not my fault that the father of my children can't quite remember that DD1 stays at school for dance club on Thursdays and goes to her mate's on Wednesdays.

I quite like the idea of a few blokes taking the responsiblity on for themselves.

I'm with you MI.

Whinging poms. If they want to change it, why don't they pressure the govt to introduce flexible work for everyone?

Interesting that some government minister or other came out the other day and said she wanted to have all jobs be constructed as part time / flexible. Can't remember who it was though, and I noticed none of the big guns commented.

well one of the problems with accountancy (and I suppose this goes for law too) is that they are client facing jobs and clients can be very demanding. I also think (certainly with accountancy) that it can get easier the higher up the chain you are - I shudder to think how I would have managed articles had I had children then whereas being a manager (and I assume everything above this) gives you a bit more room for flexibility.

think that was Beverley Hughes (minister for children) caligula

IS flexible working really available for men?

YES - if they are prepared to work as hard as women, take as many risks as women, challenge the status quo as women have...

s/be "work as hard for it as women"

sorry you feel a bit got at, charlieq, but you can see this is a subject close to many hearts.

yes MI- if I were in ANY paid job atm, I would certainly be fighting for flexible working etc. Probably at the expense of my own career prospects, of course. DH also would if he could, I think: but his can't be the only type of job where the entire structure and culture of the profession makes flexible working impossible for either men or women, making the only option giving up completely. That was the only point I was misguidedly trying to make.

Just for interest - I work at a large law firm which has flexible working arrangements in place - there are only six fee-earning lawyers who have flexible working arrangements and none of those are men.

Sorry - it's Dinosaur - I was just mucking about with my name earlier!

oh and from another pov in order to achieve better acceptance on flexible working i do think there has to be a degree of realism about the request. e.g. later starts to accommodate a school drop far more likely to fly than school hours term time only. as someone said on the "unicef report thread" there needs to be far better integration of school terms/hours and working hours to really give working parents a level playing field.

flexible working is NOT an option for barristers, bossykate. That is my whole point. Maybe it's all the fault of them and their whinging wives for not blasting the profession apart from within. Or maybe they should never have taken that job, the silly colts. But well, mine did and that obviously affects my outlook.

there are or at least have been barristers on mnet who have worked flexibly.

ok will leave you alone now you have suffered enough!

i don't really know your situation in detail of course. obviously you are best placed to make the right decision for your family.

i don't think you need to be quite so defensive.

I think that in lots of professions, flexible working is an option but if you choose to exercise it, it will be to the detriment of your career.

And for some reason, women are prepared to take that career hit, and men aren't.