A thread started by a man to throw a few things around.

[Sanjeev]

Gents (and anyone else who is interested), here is where we can carry on this the discussion from this thread;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1465960-AIBU-to-treat-male-and-female-posters-differently-on-feminism-threads?msgid=31694784#31694784

So, who wants to go first?

This was the Nov 2011 survey in the press about young women in the UK now earning more than men. "Women in their 20s now earn a solid 3.6% more on average than men their age, after narrowly overtaking them for the first time last year". http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/young-women-earning-more-men

It's very encouraging. I see it all around me. My daughter's first qualified job pay is about £60k (mid 20s). Women are getting better qualifications than men. I don't often meet men who earn as much as I do either.

I am not saying women should not continue to fight to earn more. Some are pathetic at asking for more pay. An MBA class were asked their next job salaries. All the men got more. Every single man had negotiated hard for more pay than offered. Every single woman felt terribly grateful anyone was prepared to take her on. Women need to realise their worth and negotiate hard. I often walk away from work which does not pay enough and direct people off to cheaper people. I work for myself. I would also support board quotas at least for a few years.

I still think a lot of the issue is not discrimination at work it is women marrying up so when they decide whose wage comes first it is the man's. If the women married non earning artists and writers or the local dustbin man or whatever they might well find they succeed in their careers as the husband is not likely to say yes dear give up your £100k a year salary to mind the baby and we will survive on my £13k a year wage no problem.

Please don't throw things in the FWR section. It's rude.

"Every single woman felt terribly grateful anyone was prepared to take her on. " This is true also for lots of women who have taken time off to raise a family then go back to a job market that is stacked against them.

I would also support board quotas

Me too. It's so blatantly clear it's the only way to gain parity. I'm astonished there's so much resistance to it ... amongst women.

First qualified job paying 60k! Xenia, what on earth does your daughter do? This is an incredibly unusual situation.

I teach teenagers, and the other day we were having a discussion about what age you should take on certain responsibilities. which then morphed into would you marry a younger man/older woman.

of the 18 in the class, 16 were VERY set on the traditional way to do things. They are 13/14 years old, and already they are completely indoctrinated into the stereotypes.

Whilst I think that there are certain differences between males & females, (e.g. girls do hit puberty earlier on average, so their maturity is influenced by that), there is also a huge amount of social conditioning. I think that life experiences also affect maturity. So people shouldn't be looking at the age of future partners, more at their experiences & maturity.

It's just possible that getting rid of the concerns about age, and focussing more on personality could lesson the older man/younger woman stereotype.

msrisotto - not that unusual. My first job was the same - £60k. I'm in the legal profession. And in my case my DH did give up work when we had children.

Maybe its just me, but amongst my friends there isn't an obvious older man/younger woman thing going on. One is like this, a few where the woman is older and a lot where they are the same age +or- 1/2 years.

£60k as a starting salary may not be unusual amongst the people you know. Statisically though it is hugely unusual

Kickass, you'd have to get the film industry to adopt sensible criteria for their characters' partner choices - like compatibility! At least British soaps usually feature matched couples (including raging dysfunctionality) but the US mostly seems to portray wives as much younger, thinner and several shades lighter than their husbands.

I read somewhere that, now the Hollywood moguls have hit 50, they've become utterly obsessed with ageing male stars behaving very youthfully and getting off with women less than half their age.

Good idea to point this out to teenagers, yes: as often as possible!

Sorry I don't intend on derailing the thread I promise but a quick google shows the national graduate salary for those who manage to get above minimum wage jobs is likely to be 18k. I don't think advocating that everyone simply gets really really highly paid jobs is a realistic solution. And it would be a disaster for the economy!

yes, it's like the idea that men should always be taller than women - there's a direct correlation between how much taller the man is, and how much money the movie grosses.

We are taught so much that men will be big, strong protective etc that it's hard NOT to find those features attractive.
So we go for older men, and then we find that it doesn't make financial sense to keep earning once we have children, and so the stereotypes continue.

for those saying that their own friends/experiences are different - statistics say otherwise. women still marry older (if only slightly older) guys, and that means they've had a head start on the career ladder. Also, if it's been a couple that have been together for a while, she may well adapt her career to his even before marriage, by taking a lower paid job that is closer to him & his job, rather than going for the higher paid job, no matter how far away it is.