DH is trying to argue that institutionalised discrimination against women in the workplace does not exist - eh?????

[Pruuni]

Even though I am arguing examples from nearly all my female friends.
Who is right?

Is that you Pruni?

Aye. Am back.

erm, you are

my sister got made redundant on maternity leave, the only one in her company

funny that

pruni!

what is your dh talking about do you think? tell him to have a little read of the law reports from the Employment Tribunals. then think that is the tiny % that gets to trial and what might have happened in the 95% that settle

Nice to see you.

Was going to a job interview 2 weeks ago, but was asked my the employer on the phone "I hope you wont be taking lots of time off to look after your DD if she's ill, we had to get rid of the last girl for doing that"

isn;t that illegal, WB?

30,000 women get made redundant whilst on maternity leave/returning to work after having a child - i was one of them

i know of 5 others personally and more anecdotally

yoo hoo ruby !

and then there are all those who don't get employed because they are of childbearing age

Yes lulu, of course it is.

I told him to stick his job where the sun doesn't shine, advised him it was illegal and am considering reporting him.

Had a rather pathetic response, stating the previous "girl" had other issues, and she wasn't sacked for having an ill child.

hi Lu - will try to pop into bar later

... also it is the bosses which refuse requests for flexible working, or dump that "urgent" job on you at 5.30 pm

or the casual eye roll when you need to leave early because DS is ill ...

Right thank you all
I thought I was going into a feminist frenzy for a minute as a reaction to being a brainless sahm [joke]
He is Nice Bloke as well and not in the least bit interested in flaunting his pathetic Y chromosome
Makes me rather fear for womankind in a way

also I think I am right in saying there is one company in the FTSE 100 with a female CEO - Pearson. That's 1%. Is this because only 1% of women are as good as the men who make it?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

No.

I once went for a secind interview with Sara Lee, which at the time was a mahoosive conglomerate with all manner of products.
the twonk interviewing me told me that he didn't like employing married women, because he didn't think they had the drive to succeed because they didn't need to earn.
this was for a head of legal position

(what are his arguments against btw?)

Well undoubtedly there is some prejudice against women. Just as there is against black and asian people. Employers are individuals making decisions, and individuals have all sorts of irrational prejudices.

To be a chief executive of a FTSE 100 company, you need to be driven. You need other things too, like success, connections, a good track record and a fair dollop of luck. But most of all you need to be driven.

Once women have children, they tend to lose the will to stay in the office until midnight. Quite right too. But that means that lots of women self-select themselves out of top roles.

DS's bedtime got in the way of arguments against
But tbh I don't think I shall bother bringing it up again
However HC your stats will be useful if we do get to the slanging stage - as will the personal experiences thus far (sorry about those btw)
Oh god we should talk about it again, shouldn't we? I shouldn't just let it lie.

Quattrocento, this doesn't explain why men also dominate in fields where being in the office until midnight is not required such as academia and teaching (teachers will be female, heads generally male) (this is not a suggestion that teachers don't have to work hard btw).

I work in a very male environment (finance) and I really enjoy it but it does make me when by some freak of nature my colleagues attend a meeting with mainly women in it. They all have to come out and discuss it and say how it went and discuss how weird it was to be the only man without appearing to realise that I am the only woman in an all male environment day after day after day after day after day.

That's the insidiousness of it right there - it's normal to me to be surrounded by men at work. If they are surrounded by women at work they freak out.

Pruni! Hello!

My current employer, despite me being the only parent there apat from the boss, is absolutely fab. (I have worked for them before so they know me, but I do like to think they'd treat any mother/pg woman this way). When my boss rang to offer me the job I said 'yes please, but I've just found out I'm pg' and he simply said 'congratulations'. I then had to have time off in my first week due to pg complications - no pressure, no resentment, no problem.

But I know (sadly) I am lucky.

Can only speak for acadaemia
Working in the office until midnight is not unknown in the early days and is certainly pretty normal later on in one's career
There is just as much presenteeism in acadaemia as other jobs
It is not a soft option or even particularly family-friendly is you are serious about getting on in your career

Hi Berolina!
How's it going?

A lot better, thank you the placenta seems to have done the decent thing and shifted away from the cervix. It's all left me rather shaken, though - I've started having panic attacks when in public places thinking my waters are going to go. Need to deal with this.

Re self-selecting out of top positions, surely that's just proving the point about institutional discrimination? Why don't men self-select themselves out? Because they are not expected to have domestic commitments? Because our domestic, social and work set-up assumes that they will work full time and more than full time and any man who doesn't is an aberration?