Government cuts affecting women disproportionately.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Heard in a R4 doc that £5billion of the £7billion raised by the emergency budget has come out of women's pockets.

Also got sent a link to this event, which sounds interesting: Women At The Cutting Edge

So what do you think? Are they targetting women on purpose? Or is it just a by-product of the traditional Tory Appeal-to-the-Rich-and-Wannabe-Rich mentality. I.e. because women are lower paid and more of us live in poverty, why should they listen to us?

I don;t get wheole marriage V single mothers bit; many a single mother was married. In fact, some still *are.

My friend for example whose H is in prison until MArch and then (sadly) will just pop off to where he ahs been living for the past few eyars (was arrested on his return). Without paying her a bean, though he might well take out a few loans in her anme as per usual. He won;t sign a divorce apper though adn friend is too scared to chase him (as would I be knowing him; and I am not generally scared by idiots of his ilk).

Well yes Hudd; so whya re there no agencies anywhere near us (a particualrly badly hit area) to give Dh advice on his business venture? He either dfoesn;t meet some specific minority criteria (eg under 25) or they closed down. He's in a business skills lecture as I type, at uni, and has gone in with about 3 years worth of questions!

Seth / Miggsie good posts.

my point about education, Huddspur, is that as long as vast pools of existing talent are being wasted I am not going to be terribly convinced by concerns about brain drains.

and you are being very naive about markets being the best way to allocate resources if you think they are perfectly effective without any external input. Broadly speaking markets are effective but they are not infallible. There are such things as prejudice which prevent people from making the best possible decision for their company.

I'm aware of the dangers of markets and the the need to regulate them effectively but I just don't see what kind of market intervention would help with the problem of getting people who have an employment gap back into work without severly damaging economic efficiency.

I think the failing of the education system for many should make us more worried about brain drains we need to make the most of the entrepeneurs and talented people that we have.

Companies can relocate very eaily nowadays sethstarkaddersmum. They are being actively 'headhunted' by other countries offering lower tax rates and pools of fresh unprotected workers to exploit.

It wont affect them from an import point of view because much of the work is being done offshore nowadays anyway.

If we lose the banks, we lose about a third of the tax take.

well you could be tougher on age and sex discrimination for a start!
and there are all sorts of ways it could be made easier for women to keep their careers going - more tax relief on childcare, forcing employers to keep jobs open for longer as happens in some Nordic countries - and to get back into the workplace - eg financial help with retraining, auditing career break rules to make sure they are really justified (eg, a friend of mine has 20 years experience as a children's nurse; if she takes time out, even if just a year, she will have to do 6 months retraining and go back down to a lower grade )
and yes some of these things would cost money, but the extra tax would more than justify it. The final straw for me with my job as an academic was the failure of the REF (framework for counting how much research academics have done) to take proper account of time taken out due to pregnancy and sickness - result, I become SAHM, they lose my income tax not to mention the tax paid by the people caring for my dcs at nursery....

So, Hudd; you say repeatedly we need business

we need to make the most of the entrepreneurs we have

What about my post below about Dh being unable to find small business support locally then?

In what way does that fulfil the aims you stated; good aims?

But the thing is that women going back to work after having children, experience more discrimination than can be explained by the career break they have had. It's not as if women of 40 who have had 5 years off go back in expecting to be paid the same as someone who has worked for those extra 5 years. They go back in expecting to be paid the same as they were before they left (i.e. equivalent to 35 year olds who have not had a break), or possibly slightly less for a period while they catch up with latest developments etc.

The fact is, women can never catch up after a career break. Employers and the government have a "you've made your bed" attitude, even though the "mistake" they've made is actually giving birth to and educating the next generation of workers.

'Companies can relocate very eaily nowadays sethstarkaddersmum'

why did you address that comment to me CCPCCP? My point is that a far worse brain drain is already happening (skilled women out of the labour force) but no-one seems in the least bit worried about that.

my db works at quite a high level for a mobile phone company. He became a feminist recently (yay!) after noticing that as he got to a certain level in the company there suddenly weren't any women there, despite his having worked with loads of women who were just as talented as him as he rose through the ranks.
Obviously you would expect a bit of attrition from a few women choosing to spend more time with their kids but there suddenly weren't ANY. It was this that made him reckon there was something more going on than just a properly-functioning market. Apart from anything else he feels the company is losing out from not having women at that level given that women are 50% of their customers and connecting effectively with their consumers is pretty important to their success as a company....

"I just don't see what kind of market intervention would help with the problem of getting people who have an employment gap back into work without severly damaging economic efficiency"

Seriously?

There are no circumstances under which anyone who has had any kind of employment break for any reason can be a valuable employee?

That's bananas, sorry.

ISNT I didn't say that people who have had a career break are of no value in the workplace. I just don't see what the Government can do to help employees who have had a career break get back into the workplace at the same or similar level that they were at before without damaging economic efficiency.

have you read my 14:47 post yet Huddspur?

There are plenty of easy and straightforward things that could be done. And economic efficiency is ALREADY being damaged by the failure to make the most of women's skills.

I am seriously about this.

So if someone has a few months out of the office, for whatever reason, there is no way they should expect to go back into the role they were doing before?

That doesn't make any sense.

It's an idea that if you step off the conveyor belt, then you forfeit everything and have to go back and start again. Apparently irrespective of intelligence level, competence, experience, how you perform, etc etc. Irrelevant, just go back to the start.

It's not a board game . Most people are more than capable of doing the jobs they left after a break.

I always use the career break for travelling example in these discussions. All four of the companies I have worked for have been happy to employ people who have taken gap years to go travelling. I've met loads of people who have done this. Some of them twice . DH has done it three times for a total of four years. He has not taken any career hit at all. In fact it is something he particularly mentions on his CV and happily discusses at interviews. You could say it has had a positive impact on his career.

DH and I work in the same field. In 10 years in this industry, I think I have met one woman who has taken time out for children (other than statuatory maternity leave) and returned to work. DH also knows one. Not a very impressive hit rate.

This on the Today programme this morning links directly to what we've been discussing. Hear what a Tory think tank think about issues of gender inequality in the cuts - women should stay at home stop being a drain on the economy and stealing men's jobs in a nutshell.

Did I wake up in the '50s?

I believe someone from Fawcett will be on in a minute

Ooh goody I hear there's going to be a big emphasis on "choice" for women under this government.

Run your local school yourself - or watch it close!

Work - or have children!

Both the things on Today this morning (thanks for linking, Alice) have mentioned exactly what I suspected: women will be the "the foot soldiers in the big society", doing the free work.

Lovely comments there from Jill Kirby about the uselessness of "second earners" being added to households . "What we really want to see is workless households getting back into the public economy" - basically go home, ladies, let some unemployed men do your jobs.

Never mind that the unemployed men might not be ready, willing or able to perform the same tasks. Or that this will further widen the wealth gap between men and women. No - it's all about cocks=jobs apparently.

Women are doing much better at school, how about a government initiative to promote men staying at home with the kids? That way you free up a more skilled workforce instantly.

Good idea?

Great idea for a govt initiative Elephants.

To be fair this govt isn't going to go in for hectoring leaflets but it's funny that the last lot never ran a leaflet or poster campaign telling men to do their fair share of the housework or pay their maintenance when their marriage breaks up.
My dh received a helpful leaflet for new dads at one point suggesting that he could take the kids to the park if he doesn't know how to play with them; how about one explaining how to use a washing machine to make your clothes clean?
After all, if all men were doing their bit around the house that would help some of the women who are struggling with the double shift to maintain their productivity at work and make them less likely to give up and go back to the home.

Also, how about compulsory caring lessons for young male NEETS? It would cover basic housework and home maintenance, cookery, caring for children and the elderly. After all, I have identified the major social problem here, the one that is forcing so many women onto benefits, as the fact that men aren't doing their fare share of the caring.
This would have the added benefit of making them more marriageable, thus encouraging the mothers of their children to want to stay with them and bringing down the number of single parent families. This would be a great result for right wing values - shall I ring up DC and suggest it?

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought WTF!! at this stuff on the Today programme. Well we can help the HE issue too can't we, don't let women go to University, becuase, after all, we won't be working so why do we need an education....
So anyone who thought the Tories aren't anti women just listen to this rubbish!!

Exactly Black Duck - that will come next. Why educate women, they should just be baby machines, cleaners, cooks and put on a pretty dress and smile to ease the stresses of the working day for their man.

In some ways I was pleased this was on the reveal the ideological underpinnings for people who might be skeptical of that argument. It came from one of their own think tank's mouths. Of course the view may not be universal, but the fact it can even be said illustrates the discursive space that they are occupying.

And exactly about the choice of whether to force women back home or get men to pick up their share. That's a policy choice. All jobs could also be made part time. Then there would be plenty to go round, plenty of flexibility for people to share home responsibilities, no chance for the ridiculous argument that part timers are the less devoted. But of course that isn't the discourse the government is choosing to put out there. And it is scary how easily it is bought and the lack of questioning, media included.

Did Fawcett come on and give what for? I had to go out (to work, although obviously I shouldn't have bothered and made cakes instead so a man could do that )

Yes Fawcett came on at 8.30 ish (check on BBC site) - I didn't hear it, I was at work, and can't listen at the moment.....!

They came on and did a pretty good job, unfortunately I had to get on with work at that moment as well.

Maybe I should give up work in order to further radicalise myself against this bullshit wash DP's socks and free up my work for one of the local flop-haired youths?

If anyone's in London this afternoon there's a demo Women Against the Cuts 5-7 outside the Treasury.

Any placard ideas?