How come we are not discussing the terrible gender gap in UK?

[Miggsie]

I thought that the doyens of Mumsnet should really look at the report about UK dropping in gender terms.

Despite girls getting good grades at school and going to university, we still have a shocking pay gap and women in their 50's fade away in terms of senior posts.

Why?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8327895.stm

Also in the Independent.

Because we still live in a patriarchal society. I'm reading a very interesting book on gender and language and it made the point that men are always put first eg men and women, brother and sister, husband and wife. The only time women are put first is with Mum and Dad, which says it all really. There is still a long way to go.

I think the rot sets in when women take maternity leave.

Don't know what the answer is though.

Because sexism isn't treated as a real issue like racism. Even on here, there are plenty of people willing to sneer at feminists - man haters and all the tedious 1970s insults have been trotted out a few times in past months. Oh, and Harriet Hatperson (oh how witty and original...).

Fawcett and UNISON are campaigning around Equal Pay Day which is this Friday. More info on
www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=23

If you persist in assessing women's achievement purely in economic terms ("shocking pay gap") and work hierarchy ("fade away in terms of senior posts") you will always and forever more feel than women underachieve.

Women achieve in all sorts of other ways in the domestic and community sphere because that is what they, by and large, prefer to do! Stop measuring women on a male scale, please. There is so much more to women than trying to become men...

...but I do feel that I achieve in other areas, I just want to be paid the same for the same work.

I hardly think expecting to be paid fairly and treated fairly wrt promotion is about wanting to become a man. It's about wanting to be treated with respect, on your merits, not your chromosones.

Stop attributing women's position in the workplace in the UK today to sexism. It has nothing to do with sexism - this has been proved time and time again.

yeah, right.

sorciereanna are you really saying that womens place is in the home?

Yes the caring professions are largely dominated by women but, the pay is not comparable to male dominated jobs/ professions.

What about female city workers receiving considerably less pay than their male counterparts? Whats that attributable to then?

And countless other examples of women lagging behind but they spring to mind.

Women get pregnant and take time off to have babies. They are never going to be equal in the workplace until that is sorted and men do the same.

I agree with Edam. It's pure old fashioned sexism. Sexism is socially acceptable in a way that racism isn't. No-one informs parents of a sexist incident at school, but racist incidents are reported. At my DC's school, the visitor's badge tells you that racism won't be tolerated, but it doesn't mention sexism.

Sexism simply doesn't matter, it seems. There is no concerted effort to wipe it out and make it unacceptable in the public sphere in the way there is with racism.

No, I am not saying women's place is in the home; I am saying that it is pointless to think that one day women's economic achievements will equal those of men unless women stop having families - which of course they won't.

So many studies have proven over and over again that it is not sexism that creates the wage gap / glass ceiling. Believing that it is is last generation feminism.

Proven it?

"So many studies have proven over and over again that it is not sexism that creates the wage gap / glass ceiling."

Really? Proven? More studies than have "proven" that it is sexism that creates the wage gap/ glass ceiling?

Funny how women continue to have families, but men don't.

Sorry Anna, I disagree that sexism plays no part in the gender pay gap.
What about the way that traditional female jobs are less respected than that of traditional male jobs and paid less compared to them on a like for like basis?

There was a very recent case where the social carers of a local council took the council to court over pay discrimination based on gender.

I think it was Burnley. They claimed that their male counterparts in a job that had similar scores on job evaluation were being paid more than them.

They won.

I doubt its an isolated case. Just the one thats been contested.

It may be so last year to think this way but sadly sexism still exists wrt pay.

It suits a lot of women to believe in workplace sexism - that's why the issue goes on and on and on...

ok I haven't seen these new theories but am willing to give them the benefit of doubt. Do you have any references or links for them?

And it suits an awful lot of people, not to.

Proven Anna? Not 'studies suggest...'?

How surprising that Anna hasn't provided any sources to back up her claim that it has been 'proven' that sexism has nothing to do with women being paid less than men.

Guess racism has nothing to do with problems experienced by people from ethnic minorities, too. And homopobia's clearly all in the mind.

Women, know your place! Anna has spoken so it must be true.

Nellie, the gender pay gap in local authorities is a massive issue up and down the whole country - councils have been fighting a very dirty campaign to avoid giving women the back pay that is lawfully theirs.

And if that's BonsoirAnna's Hallowe'en name, I don't know why she thinks she knows so much more about the situation in the UK than those of us who actually live here.

good research avoids definitives like "proven"

i suspect a grandiose sweeping statement to try win an argument.rather than any proven research

fawcett society equal pay day 30/10/2009