Argh, this is why I'll never vote Conservative

[HeadFairy]

poor loves can't be the main bread winners and it's our fault!

I am not sure what to make of it. What I would be happy with is stay home parents being respected and valued alongside working mothers contributions and not just labours obsessions with getting all mums into (often menial) work. GB bleating just makes me want to SAH even more. I have always thought, though, that it is not really progress for both parents to have to slave away f/t, with all the technology etc we have, surely reducing hours would be the way forward? For example, men reducing hours as their wives move into work, so they can spend more time with the kids. OR both working around each other OR one caring and one working. At the end of the day is it so wrong to assume that while men and women are just as capable, they are different and some want to be different, some women will always be happier to stay home with the kids.

Marina,

I meant something like forward planning, policy making, development of treatments, etc - all the backroom stuff that is essential and needs someone who knows what the frontline has to deal with.

LOL @ inner caveman popeth out, scottishwitch.

The article didn't make me laugh though. And completely disagree with you TDW. We should be training more professionals to allow either gender to take out time to look after young children. There are up to 40 years in a working career. Usually only 5 - 10 max are taken out to look after children.

I do feel intensely resentful about the implication that I am putting a less educated man out of a job. Rubbish. The knowledge economy clearly benefits the educated individual - look at stats for unemployment of graduates vs non-graduates.

As far as I am aware, since the massive expansion in higher education opportunities, most people who want to go there can. There aren't hordes of able men fighting to get into university and being thwarted by better advantaged women.

TheDullWitch, re your post at 09:25:31 - I think that is an easy point to make, and one that people like Willetts would no doubt endorse. However, it would be fair to acknowledge that career mobility happens for all sorts of reasons - not just point the finger of blame at women who give up a profession because they have children.

A few years ago, my cousin, who is a GP, did a small-scale study of her cohort at medical school, looking at whether they were still in medicine, what their specialisms were etc (she was in her late 30s at the time). More of the women than the men were still practising - some women had dropped out to have children, but quite a few of the men had changed career. A few of the women might have gone on to have children and drop out later I suppose, but given their age at the time probably not enough to create the kind of large-scale imbalance you are talking about.

I am not convinced about the 'continuous assessment suiting girls' argument tbh - I am a university lecturer, and I really don't see it at this level. In any case, the argument as it is usually put forward (on the evidence of a quick google just now, anyway!) is not that boys have an intrinsic inability to do those kinds of tasks, rather that they are less likely than girls to be willing to apply themselves to the tasks over time. And that is a very important and valuable quality in working life. As of course is the ability to think quickly under pressure required in exams - which boys are supposedly better at, and which do constitute at least 50% of the assessment in every degree programme at the university where I work.

Jobs for doctors are a nightmare atm. There are no senior jobs, and a massive bottleneck of people qualifying for consultants posts, but there being no jobs. So what can they do? They either retrain, work as locums, or go abroad. It is a monumental cockup.

blimey
as if I needed another reason not to vote Tory

but wtf has Bridget Jones got to do with anything anyway?

and with 3 million unemployed under the tories there were a darned sight fewer opportunities for men to become breadwinners than there are now

'Mr Willetts said that research showed that the most important factor in the increase in the number of single-parent families over the last 30 years was unemployment in men.'
yes very interesting but is that actually anything at all to do with more women going to university?

working life in general should be more family-friendly for men and women to take the time they need to make their family life work

To go back to op, that's exactly why I would NEVER vote conservative.

What a moronic view of the world. My brothers are the main breadwinners for their families...but so are my sisters and I, and both of my closest friends. All married to well-educated men.

What a prize evil arse.

As a mother of dds it makes me feel almost scared to be reminded how many people still think along those lines. The battle is far from won.

Talk about getting it upside down: The 'problem' is that many men are lazy, selfish, unemployed and unemployable, and smart women won't marry them or move in with them because they don't need to. Yet once again, the solution is 'putting women back in their place'. When is anyone in power going to get to grips with a simple idea like suggesting MEN adapt their behaviour to benefit society?

Throckenholt
"surely there ought to be jobs for medically trained people that are not all face to face with patients?"

there is - public health deals with the policy into practice side of medicine. Or academic medicine.

Theresa May was on Women's Hour earlier trying to spin it as being all about boys' underachievement, and not about women or girls at all.

This 'Bridget Jones' tag is embarrassing anyway. Classic insert-popular-culture-reference-here attempt to get a bit of media attention. It's not as though 'educated to degree level' is the first thing that pops into your head when you think about Bridget Jones ('silly cow', maybe). And on top of all that, it's a cultural reference that's at least a decade out of date. Much like David Willetts really.

solidgoldbrass, you couldn't have put it better.

Every time I get completely disillusioned by the Labour party, I read something like this from some idiot in the Tory party, and it makes me realise that there are a lot of them like that.

They still haven't managed to persuade me that they aren't just a vested interest party of white middle class misogynists.

so do all Tory men want some little under-educated woman as their wife/partner who they can keep in the kitchen and who won't threaten their male supremacy?
because they won't be able to cope if she has a degree and a decent job?
LOLOLOL

What a load of old BS!

I am a single-parent family because my lazy feckless ex didn't want to get a job and when he did eventually get one and did become the 'main breadwinner' he spent all his money because he couldn't control his spending and my crappy wages were constantly being used to bail him out!

That's why I'm a single-parent, not because poor old down-trodden men can't be the main breadwinner.

I suppose I should let them win at computer games too.

FGS Get some balls!

i am a little uncomfortable about ladies of any political/ class position slagging off other women who choose to change career or become sahm at a later point. actually, i'm not 'a little uncomfortable', i am appalled. if a man had given up working as a doctor to become a sahd, would you be as upset with his years of wasted training?
i strongly believe that parents should have the freedom of choice to raise their children as they wish, without recourse to having signed up to a lifetime of obligation to a specific career ten years before any children were even on the scene. if that means mothers or fathers leaving work to stay at home, so be it. equally, if both parents believe they can continue to work in their chosen field and believe a nursery is the right place for their offspring, i have no blether with them.
when i joined the RAF (a long time ago) i was told i had the choice of two contracts - either a short term contract for 4,5 or 6 years, or a 'permanent' contract. but the permanent contract was essentially invalidated if i got married or chose to have children. (the rules have changed now - but just using this as an example) i went for the first option, as at that point i was unable to say whether i intended to get married or breed at any time in the future. i can't believe there are honestly poeple around who think that whatever you choose to do at 18 you should be tied to for life, whatever other of your circumstances change. that worries me more than mr willets tbh.

I quite fancy the idea of men striving to attract a high-achieving female, though. Endlessly painting and primping and strimming and bleaching and looking interested and laughing at unfunny 'jokes' and trying very hard to disguise any wish for a serious relationship...

Seriously, though, what a pile of pants.

Dullwitch,

Doctor married to doctor here, are we not allowed to breed? there is vocation, and monastic vocation!

We would have loved to have shared my maternity leave, my husband would have loved to have been part time, but our career paths meant that we have had to take the conformist route of me taking all the leave, and me being part time on my return. It is deeply irritating that a government agency is not at the forefront of creative and flexible childcare arrangements.

As for being concerned about women leaving the profession, you should perhaps widen your disdain. Modernising Medical Careers is forcing doctors into parts of the profession that they have little interest in. I can tell you that a disinterested doctor is worse for the population than a doctor doing something else.

And bear in mind that in this country we are foolish/brave enough to enroll people into a job that is rather difficult at times, whilst still a teenager. People change. Circumstances change. The generation of women doctors with no family, whilst they have changed the face of medicine, and forged the way as it were, are in a way quite sad, because the sacrifices they have made are vast, and generally unappreciated by service users.

I'm a bit at the idea that if you choose to qualify as something it's somehow robbing taxpayers if you later decide to do something else. I think it's fair enough, especially if before doing something else you do do the job you were trained for (which I should think is most usually the case).

Romy I completely agree with you. This robbing taxpayers arguement is rubbish. The NHS is hardly the most ethical recruiter anyway, it wouldn't survive if it wasn't for all the foreign trained nurses it has poached from other (often poor) countries. This man is clearly an arse, men underachieving is a real issue, but I don't understand how women not going to university would help!! Stupid illogical bollox.
Maternity leave can be shared at the moment I'm sure men can have the last 6 months. Really can't imagine them queueing up for it though.

Who to vote for though? I am tempted by the tories, never imagined I'd ever vote tory, but labour are lying idiots. Am in tory safe seat so don't suppose it matters really

what irks about the comments is it seeks to deny women options and berate them if they do progress

re all parents working pt.ehm what if they dont want to work pt?i returned FT NHS i wanted to.i dont want to be deprived of my choice's because i am a mum.having a baby does not necessarily mean mum has to go pt,nor should it

parents ideally should chose their preferred option and mode of work.

professionally qualified people are allowed career breaks and mat leave too, it isnt all hair shirt and martyrdom

clinicians are best doing what we are trained for face to face clinical work supported by flexi-working,career breaks and options to allow people to chose preferences

the paradoxical thing about some strategic thinking,policy jobs is if they completley remove the clinician form practice they become out of touch. making policy and strategies about something they dont undertake

i want to continue to see women have range of choices without being criticised for doing well or insidious implication that they are disadvantaging men

am curious what DW thinks the solution to this 'problem' is...?
prevent girls from going to university??

"....he's saying that men generally have a problem and are viewed as pretty crapulous (a view which is often shared on MN). On the whole, men do like to provide - but we are very good at telling them that we can do everything so much better than they can (from changing nappies and arranging playdates to loading the dishwasher to earning a living), which could well make them feel redundant and useless."

Hmm. Men are viewed as pretty crapulous? Not at all true. Crapulous is pretty much what women have been told for generations about stuff like careers, the right to vote etc.

Women like to provide too.