Women exercise conscious choice when not aiming for the top jobs and are happier for it

[BonsoirAnna]

Here

Unquiet Dad - I agree with you. Most wage-earners, be they men or women, are under pressure to maintain or to better the standard of living to which that family has become accustomed. And it might be that luck, circumstances and talent conspire to take some further than others.

I know a lot of high-achieving people, and, while they are generally healthily competitive, I don't know of any, either men or women, who have had to fit the comical-ambitious Apprentice-style mould to get on.

Unquiet/Impatient - agree with you that many men are in a sense 'pressured' into being the main wage earner for a variety of reasons.

Most of my friends very neatly still fit into the 1950s stereotype of the man going out to work and the woman staying at home or at best doing part time work. Some women like my DW were forced into it. Some women chose that willingly and gladly with the support of DP/DH. However, some women essentially maouvere their DP/DH into the breadwinner (walking wallet) role and indeed, some of what SerenityX described earlier of unhappy men sat in airport lounges springs from that. In essence these men feel they had no choice.

Apprentice absolutely annoys me because it portrays busines speople as a stereotype. Very few business people are like that and frankly those that are are quite tiresome.

As I said earlier, it is quite a lot more complicated than this book or some posters make out. Yes, some people have choices, some are forced into decisions and most people have to make compromises.

I think it's a bit loaded to talk of men being forced into breadwinner role, just as it is a bit loaded to talk of women being forced into a SAHM role. The reality of adult life is that there is a lot of work to do, both paid and unpaid, and it always makes good economic sense to specialise. There is no point getting too het up about it.

I deal frequently with high level execs and I've never met anyone who conforms to the apprentice "type". Yes, people can be ambitious and driven but for the most part they are also nice human beings. Watching the App most of them seemed to have no common sense and no clue how to work in a team, let alone lead one.

On the one hand, I know a lot of women who have stepped out of the big company corporate world at senior management level because they just didn't want to put up with the corporate bullshit anymore, they set up on their own and are happy to be busy and earning in their own, small, flexible set up.

On the other hand, for those women who do want to be at the top of corporations, it is still of course very hard to be accepted. A friend of mine who is a headhunter working at CEO level has never managed to place a woman despite puting forward very good candidates. He says he meets a lot of resistance from HR Directors (often the only female Director in the company) to even put these candidates in front of the board.

And I'd be very surprised if sir alan speaks to his real employees in the same way.

AnAuntie - oh yes I know this is absolutely true for sure.

"A friend of mine who is a headhunter working at CEO level has never managed to place a woman despite puting forward very good candidates. He says he meets a lot of resistance from HR Directors (often the only female Director in the company) to even put these candidates in front of the board. "

There is a lot of sexism from women against women. I have my own theory about that but woudl like to hear form others who have had similar experiences.

Women feel threatened by other women in my experience. It's as if they expect to have to compete against man and feel "good" when they do well in that arena. And when they are in the "Queen Bee" position they are very wary of letting any other potential contenders in. This is NATURE showing itself surely.

I usually find other women supportive in my industry- there is a sense of sticking together. The only times there has been negativity is more due to performance.
I found it interesting to hear from Unquiet and Abeta and can see their points. I agree most couples find something that works for them.
I also support the point made by impatientgriselda- it is a lot easier for me in my senior position to flex my hours and arrangements. My husband is not at as high a level and is tied more to standard hours. Also, I can dictate my diary and schedule most of the time so now my son has started school, I can arrange for no travel in Sep to ease us through this change. I think I am very lucky with all that I have- a career I love, a family I love and the support of my husband. Bonus point I am healthy too! Life is good

Arguably "forced into" is the wrong emphasis, but certainly a lot of men find themselves in the position of being the high-"achieving" (in that narrow, MC, business-orientated sense as SGB indicated), highly-paid, highly-stressed, miserable bastard sitting in the airport lounge - and unable to get out of it and "downsize" into a more cushy or less stressful job.

Because if they don't do it, well, the entire lifestyle they have constructed around them (nice house with big mortgage, high-maintenance wife, demanding children with all the latest gadgets, nice cars, etc.) will all fall apart.

There's a novel in it...

I agree on the "no turning back" issue: when you reach a certain level of income, it becomes inconceivable to voluntarily impose a reduced lifestyle on your family and that is where the pressure lies, IMO. You've just got to carry on.

I think the reality of the situation is that women are expected to be all things to all people, wife, mother, career- driven, plus having to do all the housework, so whatever 'choice' is taken, it appears to always be the wrong one.
I think that it is a sad fact that women who do wish to pursue a high powered career are often limited by having a family, and are discriminated against.

I work full time - but know that I have dropped my career aspriations since having children. I wouldn't say this was a choice so much as the only way to cope. Fact is that although there is better childcare and lots of schemes to get parents back into work, when you have kids you have to compromise somewhere. Hi-flying jobs demand high input - longer days, meetings, being there for the job. Even just trying to do a full time job is difficult - School clubs tend to start around 8 and finish by 5.30 so unless you live within 30 mins from work then this can be tricky, then it's when the child is sick who takes time off, what cover is there in the holidays .. none of these are compatible with working long hours. So as parents you have to make the choice - one of you drops back to look after the offspring or you pay your wages to have someone else take that role.

So I find I get stress from being a working parent.I still work in a well paid job with a team (and boss!) who are all single, and have no commitments outside of work ... they struggle to comprehend that I do enjoy my job - but I HAVE to be back for the children by 5.30. I hear the mental tuts when I leave on time...! That's the part that makes it hard - being seen as a slacker because I'm not a slave to my desk and work my set hours. I do work evenings if needed when the kids are in bed but this largely goes unseen so people think I'm not pulling my weight.

I've felt that I've been forced to drop my career rather than do it by choice. Sometimes I feel that perhaps I'm not achieving to my full potential, and feel that I could be doing more ... not because of my work ethic or ability, but because the higher jobs just don't fit into 9-5 no matter what the contracts say. Until they invent time travel I can't be part of that world any more.

Example: 'We need everyone in London for a 9am kick off to discuss next years objectives' .... Childcare doesn't open until 8am, train takes 1h30 from my home ...so I'm late for the meeting and made to feel uncomfortable about it.

'Training Course' 10am-4.30pm so people can get away before the rush. ... to be back by 5.30 I need to be on the 3.45 train...more raised eyebrows as I leave early, it's impossible.

So now I don't stretch for the career ladder. I've settled for a job that I can fit into my life, instead of giving my life to a job. My boss hates that I arrive late or go early to the London meetings, I hate it that I have to pay out extra to try and attend to be greeted with this disapproval.

So ...Women exercise conscious choice when not aiming for the top jobs ... Yes it has been my choice to lower the bar and settle for less, would I have done it if there'd been an alternative though? I don't know that I would ...and are happier for it
...

Part of me has learnt to expect less, but to make more of life ... but part of me sometimes wonders what if?

But when I get a huge bear hug from my little boy at the end of the day as he says 'I missed you Mummy, I love you big lots' ... and I think that's what's really important not whether I've hit my performance indicators. On the home front I'm getting great performance feedback.

Phoenix2010 - surely a large part of your problem is that you live so far from your work, not that childcare facilities don't have extended hours?

It's a very interesting book. I would recommend reading it.

Loving your comments on this thread SGB, especially the psychopaths part. Thoroughly agree with your viewpoint.

Someone earlier mentioned that when the DC arrived they looked at finances and as the man earned more the decision was made that he would remain FT. I am sure this calculation goes on a lot.

Just a thought though - in marriages (and couples who are not married as well I expect) the men are on average older than the women by a few years. So a lot of the time they will be earning more, simply because they have been working longer, rather than them actually being more successful.

So by dint of the fact that it is the norm form couples to comprise an older man / younger woman, it is almost always the woman who on the face of it appears to be less good at earning money. I wonder how many people look at it, taking that into account? maybe if people did it would make financial sense for more men to give up work.

fact?

Sound reasoning Spam!

SerenityX I think you hit the nail on the head with "At least you are not like the men I work with who seem to have it all while their women make the sacrifices."

Women think they are missing out looking after their kids! Being primary carer is a sacrifice!

Ad for having kids being a lifestyle choice in an over populated world. Sorry but . Some parts of the world may be over populated but we certainly aren't - hence the upcoming pensions crisis! We need more kids not less!

Exactly Harpy. It's just endless. Until we give up the voctim role we will never be of use to real victims of oppression. It's just nuts. What people are saying is they resent being women. Well yah boo fecking sucks!

And the sexual division of labour, with females doing the majority of childcare, is a pancultural phenomenon - and mostly panspecies - the very few exeptions only prove the rule.

The crux of it for me is that women should not be prescribed, or forced into a primary carer role if they don't want that, simply because most women on average do chose this role. Liberal democracy is all about judging people as individuals, this is what human rights and anti-discrimination legislation is all about. But that is not the same as denying that women do chose to be primary carers, again, on average, more than men, and that they do this knowing there may be some material cost - the benefits for them on average, outweigh these costs.

And even to say that is also not to say that the situation could not better managed.

More accuratley I mean women (females) have been primary carer for thousands of years - millions even. But that is a description and should never be a prescription. There will always be some women who are not very maternal and who will get allomothers to do the bulk of parenting, be they female relatives, willing fathers or paid help.

Also the job of 'mother' is not the same as housewife - yet these cerainly were synonymous and in many areas and cultures stll are. For thousands of years women were not dependent on men for food. It was the onset of agriculture that allowed men to monoplise food and resources and therefore monopolose females. Before that men's main job would have been as protector agaoinst other males. The whole set up whereby women are financially dependent on men is a forced move so to speak.

Sorry to interupt the lovefest, MT and harpy.

But this is surely rubbish. Many species have males doing stacks of rearing of young. And anyway, we have evolved past a point where "nature" bears much relation to how we live.

MT you are right to post arguments which support SGB's assertion that we should look at individual people.

However in a society such as ours, where gender roles are prescribed from birth and discrimination in the workplace is rife, it makes no sense to argue that these things are hardwired.

Show me a decent sample of people where gender roles were not prescribed from birth and people had genuinely free and flexible choice in their careers, and then I will accept your argument. But not before.