Let's talk about cognitive dissonance ...

[colditz]

My relationship with my children's father broke up because he lied about money and hit me, and I finally, after many years of misery, refused to tolerate it. But why did I tolerate it for as long as I did when I was miserable?

I believed that children need their parents to stay together and that I would not cope alone. The facts were that children do not need one parent to be abusing the other, and that my life would have been easier without him merrily fucking it up.

The stress caused by the gap between my own personal beliefs and the reality of my situation was causing an uncomfortable feeling, often described as cognitive dissonance.

Is this the reason that people who consider themselves fair minded nevertheless perpetuate an unfair system? Intelligent women who do all the housework and childcare 'because he goes to work' must see the difference between theirs and their husband's exhaustion levels - why do they accept it, and decide that 'going out to work is really hard' when they surely must remeber the time when they went out to work and had no home responsibilities as being a darned sight easier than the life they live now?

I think it's bcause cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable state of being, and if you cannot change your situation, you must change your way of thinking to bring it in line with your situation or suffer the misery of inner conflict.

Which brings me to the rejection of feminism.

Why do so many women reject feminism when it would clearly improve their lot to be treated fairly?

Is it because they cannot easily become fairly treated individuals, not without huge conflict and arguments in their home and at work, so they decide, unconsciously, to believe that they are already treated fairly? And therefore feminism is defunct in their minds.

Intersting.

There was a programme on Radio 4 the other day about average earnings that demonstrated very simply that (white) men tend to earn more simply because they ask for it. Society encourages men from birth to be more proactive than women and outspokenness/ambition is actively encouraged and rewarded in a way that it simply isn't in women. Interestingly, they discovered that in careers where there was a great deal of openness about salary, there was less of a gender pay gap, and they also found that when women asked for a pay rise they were usually given it.

and one look at the 'how much more does your dh earn' thread just goes to prove how it is so very much a man's world, at least in the workplace.

Sorry Sakura it is a bit unclear.. who is happiest? Married men or Single men? Where do married woman fit in the happiness scale?
Perphaos if you post it 10-12 more times it might help.....

Base one when taking part in feminist discussions as a man is to at least attempt to get a handle on the idea that you have the privilege of being oblivious to privilege.

So you are basically saying that unless a man agrees with your version of feminism then they arent allowed to talk about feminism? Nice....

^kickass, that is something that suddenly struck me, you're right, quite often the wife's salary is less than the husband's even before they have children.

Why is this?^

You are over analysing. It is supply and demand. Educated woman usually have studied in fields where is an over supply of candidates, think like Marketing, HR, Advertising, Law, Accounting, Teachers.... yawn.

Fields where there is a shortage of skilled workers, Engineers, IT etc. These are very well paid fields. IT consultants can easily get well over 500 pounds a day, and if you were a female in this field... even more. IT depts love balance, but there are simply VERY few females willing to do this work.
You talk to a bunch of female girls about becoming a computer programmer... you would find very few who would want to do it, regardless of the fact that they are guaranteed to get a very well paid job, in which they are advantages over males. I have time and time again seen a female get a job over a male in IT or engineering, based on gender. Heck,I have done it myself when hiring staff for my dept.

But instead they opt for fields that pay rubbish because there is an over supply of willing workers.

This is a response to the question of why many woman marry men who earn more. Many males made smarter choices in career.

Sorry meant teenage girls not female girls.

HB, in the equality Illusion, Baynard points out that women are often penalized for their potential to bear children
Whether they want children or not is beside the point; society regards all females as having the potential to bear children and allots them work accordingly.
How many women fail to pass the interview because they're female we'll never know.

If I hadn't wanted children there's no way I would have married. I would have worked. I do think part of the problem is that women tend to marry a man who is established in his career, or they marry up. That's not good for equality. BUt it's like prostitution, studies show that a woman is more likely to move up the income scales by marriage than by work, because society is designed like that.

the feminist analysis in important here, because men have wives and women don't. Wives are often crucial for success in some fields. Academia, for example. The women on MN in academia said that women who have succeeded in their field have no children. THe men who are ahead of those women have 3 children and a wife. IN fact, when those men had children it boosted their career, because it made them appear more reliable and trustworthy.

marenj, great posts. I think for me cognitive dissonance is not just about the excuses though. It's about a wife literally not realising that her uncomfortable feelings and depression are a normal reaction to the unfairness of her situation. It took me a while to "get it". SOciety conspires against women. It tells them that being a SAHM is easy for example, not really work at all. SO I was so confused as to why I was knackered every night and my DH wasn't, and why when we shared the childcare on his days off, he would be more knackered than he was in the week. It finally sunk it that he couldn'T keep up with the kids even when I was around, and I was doing it on my own. Now I take two hours in the morning to rest do deskwork

hey footlong, why do you think married men score better in all areas of well-being?

Are you still delusional about the industrial revolution?

sounds like I chose marriage instead of work in my post. NOt at all. I have more degrees than my husband and I'll be returning to full-time work when DS is old enough. BUt when children are involved, I think women's options shrink dramatically, but men's often don't. It's difficult for a woman BF a newborn to go an a business trip abroad, for example. MY friend here did, went away for a week and left her 6 week old but not many mothers would do it.
To what extent our work culture is designed to be inimical to mothers (especially in parliament) is another discussion entirely

Avril, I'm not that old myself, I'M 29 and maried young. So I don'T think age is that relevant.

but footlong, why do you think that women go for those jobs? and not all of those ones you've listed have had an excess of supply - teaching was in dire straights for many years with not enough people coming into the profession.

why do men make the 'smarter' choices? are we so conditioned that men feel the need to form a career, but women assume they don't need one as much? you have to look at the reasons behind the choices.

when i was a t school girls simply weren't taught about engineering/electronis etc - we never even did wood work lessons. my dad refused to teach me & my sister to anything practical until we left home & were taught how to wire a plug & change a fuse. i remember the thrill i got when i worked out how to change a lightbulb without my dad knowing about it. no surprise that i didn't pursue anything to do with maths/science (i was actually v good at maths btw)

and why are the traditionally female roles the ones paid so little? there is a huge demand for childcare, but look at how low the pay is. why did my cleaner charge less than the gardener? neither of them had any formal training, so it wasn't about skill levels, and the gardener didn't do any major heavy work either.

part of the reason is not about supply/demand/profit, but because of the underlying assumptions of society. the answers never have one simple explanation, but you cannot simply dismiss the argument that society is structured to reward men more than women.

I see we are back to the 'it's all women's fault if life's not fair' premise. Sigh

I come from a slightly different angle, as in a lot of ways I have a wife. dh is a SAHD and has always been quite domestically inclined. My parents had the whole traditional middle class set up, he worked log hours as a professional in job he was obviously very good at, enjoyed very much (so much so that he has only just retired at the age of 75) and paid very well, whilst she brought us up and did "little jobs" and voluntary work before doing something more interesting when we were at secondary school. I decided fairly early on that his life was the one to emulate. Sadly I have a long way to go!

I think some of the issue is that a lot of home work is invisible. I know that much of it is dull and tedious, but it still takes a conscious effort to remember to say thank you when the house is clean or my clean clothes are ready to be worn again. Possibly because I grew up with a cleaner. Perhaps it's also that at the moment my job isn't terribly fulfilling, whilst dh does seem to generally enjoy being at home (he does get a fair deal of leisure time as our children are fairly autonomous now).

Doris Lessing sounds as if she is starting to hit senility. I remember my grandmother making similarly wild statements in her dotage (all children ringing Childline were making it up for example).

kickassangel - No, I dont think they are conditioned to not want a career nowdays. The percentage of female tertiary students is proof enough of that. BUT when they chose the career, if they are looking from a purely earnings potential they are more likely to make a poor choice. They might love it and money might not be such an important factor. But that doesnt change the fact they choose areas with high supply, and hence wage pressures downwards, not upwards.

Does this matter? Well thats an individual question for each person, so there is no one answer. But it is relevant when you start comparing wages between the genders across the entire employment spectrum.

If you look at professional careers that arent public serviced based and hence not really as subject to supply/demand factors (due to inherent govt interference). Then there are basically none that are dominated by females, and there are ones that are dominated by males. IT and Engineering as 2 examples, and this isnt because men want to keep them out, in fact the opposite is true, they desperately want more, an they want to pay them bloody well (in my experience as a senior executive, we actually pay them more, due to the rarity and diff skills they possess. But we see very very few them of them come through the door.

Woman (as a group) are hamstringing themselves when it comes to earning compared to men. As individuals you cant blame anyone, but it is an answer as to why the average mens wage is higher. IT and Engineering would be 2 of the highest earning proffesions in the western world. We pay financial systems senior developers 100-120k a year in London. That isnt management, no staff, woman could do the job just as well as man, worse in some areas, better in others.

My company offered scholarships to young females, we had 2 TWO applications last year. Disappointing.

And before people say IT is a small area, it def is not, it is HUGE. And makes a massive impact on the economy.

And what other field has the flexibility of IT contracting?? Not temping, but contracting. You can work 3 months, 6 months.. 1 year.. whatever. The contract market is huge in IT. Perfect for woman who want regular breaks (or not). And they get paid stupid money, female project managers.. easily get 350-700 pounds per day once a few years experience. Look at www.jobserve.co.uk

First 2 hits on my search

www.jobserve.co.uk/Project-Manager-Business-Analyst-RANsys-Clearvision-GMI-City-Of-London-Contract-W822E624B1E5528F5.jsjob

www.jobserve.co.uk/Project-Manager-City-Of-London-Contract-W08610CD26C024ED8.jsjob

I find it massively frustrating that woman choose areas that are over subscribed.. if I hear one more young lady say she wants to get into 'Marketing', and then lament the low wages or the fact she cant get a job I will scream (well not really).

So I will not belive woman (as a group), when they complain about low wages (diffent to complaining about low wages for exactly the same job .. although in IT that is reversed and woman often get paid more for the same job (I am guilty of doing this)) because young woman make poor choices. And I think it is the peer pressure to do this form other woman, not from boys or fathers. YOu really think a dad would berate a duaghter if one days she says 'Actually dad I would like to project management or Business Analyst IT work instead of Marketing' ... no of course not.

Sakura - You are such a man hater, I cant be bothered replying to you right now.

That's very interesting stuff about IT. I didn't know that about women being paid more. I certainly didn't know that at school (which was a girls' school which had no computers). I wonder who else does. I wonder who should tell them (girls that is)

• you can't sweep the being-paid-less-for-same-job thing so easily under the carpet, it is not a trivial thing.

Sakura hasn't said anything about hating men.

It isn't about what we, or any one of us, decide what feminism is, it is about what it is. It is a thing, you know, it isn't something you can just walk into when you are bored one night on the web and make it into what you want it to be. Please don't come onto threads like this and clutter them up with quibbling about basic stuff and point scoring because it is silly and annoying.

Or, if you prefer to talk than learn, go and organise some presentations about jobs in IT to be done in girls' secondary schools. That would be useful.

my sister works in IT. so does her husband.

and she does all the housework and childcare when she gets home, whilst he gets back on the pooter for some gaming downtime.

IT geeks seem to have this 'equality' stuff down pat. no really.

the cure for all evil.

But why is she doing all the housework and childcare?

hmph. I work in IT and myself and the other women I work with get paid roundabout 2/3 of our male colleagues with similar backgrounds/experience.

If I get a promotion I will be accused of sleeping with someone for it - but I don't have to worry about that because I can basically guarantee I won't be promoted in the first place now that I am married (oh yes, they were positively fawning when I was single). My managers always wanted someone who was on call to them not on call to their kids.

I would like to know where all these flexible IT jobs are, since every IT company I has worked for has denied flexible working to their workers - even the ones who make their bread and butter on selling teleconferencing and flexible working solutions to other companies.

I have been paid equal to my male colleagues before. I have never been paid more. If a HR person is offering a woman a higher salary just because she is a woman they are doing her and their company a serious disservice.

I'm coming up on 14 years in IT. I have worked for fortune 500 companies in four different countries on three continents. The one and only thing I can promise you about the IT industry right now is that it is hostile to women. "Fifty-six percent of women in technology companies leave their organizations at the mid-level point, 10-20 years in their careers"

There are lots of women in IT. The experienced ones are just rapidly leaving the industry in droves. link if you don't believe me

Women join IT, the employers treat them poorly, and they leave. Hardly a ringing endorsement. Btw, IME women managers are far worse than male managers wrt to advancement. The males are mostly annoying because of the default assumption that, as a woman who has wandered into their company, I must be up for sex.

• In 2008, women in tech made an average salary of $70,370

• men's pay during the same time period was $80,357

Maybe those IT women can retrain in marketing since clearly the income disparity in IT is just as strong as everywhere else.

Oh, and if you want to know who wins, for the record, the UK office was the most sexist company with the least openly sexist office culture. It was a bit of a relief to work in that office until I had been there a couple of years and realized that no women were ever promoted, regardless of qualifications. The only way to advance was to leave.

pithyslicker, probably for the same reason I do the bulk of our housework and childcare - it's an easy grind to slip into, especially because people in IT are usually required to work long/unusual hours. DH and I are both in IT fields (I do hardware development and he does software development) and when a milestone comes they don't care HOW sick your kids are - they need you in the office for 90 hours/week. Primary caregivers who can't make that kind of commitment are culled from the team as "not team players"

DH is playing Halo right now, but it's ok since I am on MN

'r own mistakes, that we can grasp the notion of cognitive dissonance. It makes a difference to our understanding of what marriage means too - IIRC, happiness in a relationship generally declines quite dramatically in the first seven years or so. I wish that, like Sunny, I was in a place where it was an alien concept.'

Ive been married 6 and a half years and together 8 as we got married when he was a teen and I was 20. The reason why I think I find things different is I spent my young life in the military and I think that teaches you life skills that help you in all areas of your life personally and that is why I do a lot, as does my husband as that is what is expected of everyone in the military. It does completely change you I remember the days I used to moan about being up at 5 when I first started there or having to do stuff but the forces changes your attitude for life I think personally.

kickassangel - cleaners and childcarers charge less because its easier work. There is not much physical strain, it doesnt involve being out in all weathers etc. I know men who are gardeners for the council it involves loads of humping and dumping and its not just planting the flowers.

Anyone can do childcare that is why loads of the staff are 16 and sent straight from school. I have a 2:1 degree but I cant get a C in science gcse. I had hours of extra tuition when I was at school but I still didnt get one. Doing my degree was way easier so hats of to engineers and those types of jobs. I graduated this year and the bulk of students got 2:1 but all but 3 failed science at school so cant do teaching. I retook it a second time at college and everyone got extra tuition 1 to 1 after class and still more girls failed than boys (I was 1 of them!)

Physical labour jobs and difficult jobs are always going to pay more. I dont think its because they are female dominated.

marenmj - Interesting link.
I would recomend this site

www.womenintechnology.co.uk/community/

Lots of interesting articles, but some of the stats seem rather contradictory, therefore I am not going to cherry pick the stats that back up my point.

I am not sure of the reasoning or study behind the figures you provided. As certainly female developers. BA's and PM... suffer limited barriers in the companies I have worked in or run. It was US figure though? I wonder if the UK is different?

I work in IT and myself and the other women I work with get paid roundabout 2/3 of our male colleagues with similar backgrounds/experience.

Sorry this I just do not believe.

You want a job Maren? :)

marenmj thanks for saying what I was going to say. I worked in IT for 10 years and I was never paid more than my male colleagues - far from it. I also had to prove I was better (technically) not just as good, but BETTER! I would say things in meetings and be ignored, but if a male colleague said them, well, note was taken. i also had to endure crap like 'oh lets take X (a female) to the meeting, gives the geeks something to look at'.