Interesting post about women in the finance industry

[maryjanell79]

Hey all,

Just read this post on how womens role in the finance industry has changed in the past 2 generations.

www.rplan.co.uk/post/1280/women-in-finance-the-past-50-years

I think we have come a long way. Especially those who can juggle high powered jobs and a family! (Hats off to them as that is no small task!)
However I get the feeling we still have a long way to go in the finance industry.

What is everyone elses thoughts on this post?

I also think that using a surgeon as an example is deliberately disingenuous when this thread started off being about finance. Howabout:

A bond salesperson
An origination "specialist"
A swap or bond broker.

The above can earn many hundred of thousands per annum but hardly have to be geniuses to do so.

Amillion, I don't think you need to worry about offending anyone.

That's the rub - yes some of the very low IQ people are good parents and some housewives have a high IQ (often the ones whose husbands see it as some kind of badge of success to show off that their previous high earning Oxbridge wife is now at home baking cakes which for some groups is more a thing about which to show off than that you have a thick barbie doll wife at home - in other words her sacrifce so she can iron your shirt and spend time at the gym just for you is all the greater and thus all the more desired in some of those sexist men)... so yes "some".

However my point was generalities. Most very bright women who earn over £100k whether surgeons or in the City do not want to and do not give up work. More women who dont' earn much at all who marry Mr Money Bags whetyher he be on £20k double their pay or £100k will be likely to be less bright than those who work. Therefore the brighter women tend to work. Then moving to the argument about being a good parents obviously you need some brains to do it well. Not all the fat men in gold chains are thick and plenty work in the City but as a generalisation a lot of them aren't too hot on child psychology whereas your Oxbridge educated medic or banker usually is.

Most people who earn a lot of money in the UK are quite bright. You only have to go on working mother v housewife threads on musmnet and analyse the spelling and grammar of the housewives (again most not all) and working mothers to be able to see that I am right.

Xenia, I could know as much as I like about child psychology but raising a child is a lot to do with character traits like patience, creativity etc. Just as your IQ contributes to your ability to pursue your chosen profession, but your assertiveness and self-belief brings about your "eat what you kill" approach.

What's your view on how EQ contributes to child-reading ability?

Those who succeed at work tend to be women and men with good people skills although I have worked with a few almost unable to communicate aspergers like brilliant backroom people but they are rare. So women and men who do well at work are usually those with the highest EQ. Like many successful people I am pretty good at caring, love and all the rest. it is just those who earn nothing or very little who have to comfort themselves that housewives and the like have qualities working men and working women do not. They cling to that as if we finger nails on a cliff in order to justify their life as servant and cleaner but they know in their heart of hearts they are wrong and that successful people are often good at most things including child rearing.

Xenia.You know I gave you the MN trophy for the amount of childcare hours you did,because that is what you wanted.
Do you want me to also give you the MN trophy for being the best at child rearing and child psychology?

Xenia can you clarify who you think should have children ( IQ, EQ, salary level, whatever) and who you think should look after those children during normal working hours? Thanks.

I dont think she will be back.
When things get too hot,she gets out of the kitchen!

It depends for what purpose I am being asked the question. In China they say one child per family unless you are in the country where you must hvae a son so are allowed a second child if your first is a girl. They have decided there that if you can afford to pay a massive sum then you can have more children and if children are needed on the land then 2 is okay where only 1 might be allowed in the cities.

In terms of what this nation needs we probably want to do it a bit like th eFrench did for a while - big tax breaks for your 4th and subsequent child which goes to those who pay tax because it is those people whose chidlren tend to contribute more to siociety and 4th generation low IQ benefits claimants. Our system is currently skewed the other way.

I am a free market libertarian so I would not go the socialist Chinese way of restrictive child numbers and nor do I like tax breaks which try to make people do things.

If I am being asked a moral question of whether it does this planet any good at all for any of us ever to have children and obviously we would all answer with a huge no to that. Nothing you can do worse for mother earth than breed.
of course some will be in religoins where it is their duty to have a baby a year, sex when you are ovulating - thinking orthodox Jews niddah here, FLDS and many other sects.

Who should look after children where both parents work? That is up to the parents to arrange. We found daily nannies worked well when we weren't around.

Hi Xenia

The purpose for my question was that I find some of your posts a bit difficult to follow - my interpretation was that you felt there was an ideal IQ/salary/EQ level for parents so I was seeking to clarify if that was the case. I'm not sure your response did clear that up, but that's your prerogative.

The current French system taxes a couple if they choose joint taxation (which I would say encourages SAHP-hood more than the UK system) then increases the tax break somewhat for the first and second child and even more for the third and subsequent.

I do believe that SAHP friends of mine have qualities that I do not, just as I believe that I am good at what I do but would be bad at, say, many aspects of being a teacher, as it requires a different character to mine.

Also, whilst high IQ and salary level show signifcant correlation, plenty of people with high IQs are not in high paying jobs during the time that childcare is most expensive, e.g. post doctoral students. A post doc and a secondary school teacher could have a high combined IQ but still not be in a position to pay a nanny. Two A&E nurses could have a good combined IQ and have read up plenty about child psychology but still one of them has to be a SAHP because their salaries don't cover full time nursery fees and out of hours nannies.

Earlier on in the thread you mentioned that you were lucky to have been able to afford what you did, but subsequent posts have gone back to the black and white style of posting - earning £100k or being a fat bloke wearing a gold chain. I'm not sure why.

The Evening Standard (in London ) is hosting a conference with some leading women in finance about how to get more women into top jobs which should be relevant to this thread.

I was just saying on the whole women and men who earn a lot tend to be brighter and more psychologically sophisticated and better at bringing up their children. Usually high earning women keep working. I agree that there are low paid academics who are bright and don't earn much but mostly those who earn more are brighter than those who don't. Most secondary school teachers woudl never meet the academic requirements for top jobs so I would not put them all in the same camp as the very bright high earners.

Thanks for the note on the conference Xenia, I'll have a look at it.

I think the correlation between IQ and parenting skills is far weaker than you do, but I don't suppose either of us will change our minds!

'I was just saying on the whole women and men who earn a lot tend to be brighter and more psychologically sophisticated and better at bringing up their children'

The first part is probably true as a generalisation (but what can you do other than generalise?). The second part is absolutely not true. Many people who struggle academically are wonderful parents. Perhaps Xenia you move in circles in which the majority of the people you know well are academically above normal?

I wonder how we define a wonderful parent? It would be a really interesting topic for many on mumsnet.

It is a debate which also applies to the rights of those with conditions such as down's to have and bring up children. Social workers deal with parents all the time who just do not have the mental abilities to bring up a child. Then we move to category 2 where the parents are average IQ which is 100 and can read and read to their children and the interesting point is on the whole children of two parents of average or below average IQ have that too so ma be we are saying two low IQ parents have a low IQ child and bring it up in a low IQ way which is fine as it's loved and can go on to low IQ jobs and that if the child has had care, love (not a thump when it cries) then all is well. however if you do not have enough brain power to understand the subtleties of child psychology I still submit you are not so good a parent at dealing with the child whether the child has a low IQ or not.

Then you get 120+ IQ (university /grammar school level originally going back 40 years) parents who may well both work but not necessarily.

Anyway it is certanily the case that brighter high paid women work and in my view tend to know more about how to deal with children b"better" in all sorts of categories and it is more likely than not that housewives never earned much so hardly even earned enough to pay for childcare and on the whole are not as bright as clever women tend to earn a lot. Thus mostly housewives are less bright than working mothers. If anyone had time take 20 mumsnet housewife v working mother threads over the last 2 years and analyse the grammar and spelling and way they write of the working mothers v the housewives and my case is proven. Obviously you get the odd woman who is very bright but adores housework and minding under 5s for 12 hours a day alone, more fool her or with a rich husband who pays for a cleaner and nanny.

Xenia - I am not sure that you make the most powerful argument about grammar and spelling being aligned to working mothers given the syntax in some of your posts. I won't, however, hold you to decent standards on punctuation because you are clearly writing in a hurry.

I was a working mother for 95% of the time my children were young and I recently retired as I have earned enough to allow me to do other things I enjoy; I am nearly 70 anyway. My entire career, including the time I ran my own consultancy, has been very highly paid. However, for a few years when my children were pre-school I opted to be a "more fool her" housewife, but - important point here - not one who definitely "adores housework". So I fit into none of your categories. However, I am definitely not unusual in being extremely successful in my career but willing to put myself second for the small space of time my children were tiny. There are women just like me all over the country. My husband also had the same attitude, so it was not sex specific.

Did I mysteriously suffer a dive in IQ for those few years, only to soar again in the real world? Or can you not accept that there are more than "the few odd women" who have made decisions that are different from yours but still have a few brain cells to rub together?

You are clearly very successful and extremely intelligent. You really don't have to denigrate others to make your point.

We get it.

We do have stuffed down our faces every day in almost every newspaper that working parents damage children and no one ever makes the case that full time working parents might in fact be better parents than the stay at homers. I think it's worth having a voice to make that case - such is my work. That does not mean there are no bright housewives but on the whole clever high earning women tend to keep working and others don't. Eg a leading female surgeon is likely to keep working and your local Tesco operative would not.

My local Tesco operatives employ a huge amount of over 50 years employees.And most carry on working because they have to .

working full time parents are by definition not home at 4pm to 6pm on the whole,SAHMs are,so that is nice for children when they get home from school.
When people have children,how they look after them well is by empathy,observation,nurture,understanding.To do those things well,parents need to be physically there,and quality hours.
Bedtimes.Yes,WOHMs may have the edge there.They have not seen the kids all day.There again,who is the most tired and worn out,SAHMs or WOHMs.Not sure.
Weekends,wouldnt like to say.
School holidays,SAHMs may have the edge,because they are physically there for more of the time.

tbh though,I know what you are after.You want to be the best,or have been the best.Well Im afraid Xenia,I can categorically say,you will not have been the best mum in the whole world,or even on Mumsnet.

Xenia your last post seems to be staying that your WOHP are better stance is based on countering society's SAHP are better status quo.

If that is what you are trying to do, I don't think you are going about it in a way likely to gather much support!

Couples with lowish wages have fewer choices about child care - if family is not available and opposing shifts are not available then SAHP may be the only economic choice because there hasnt been the spare cash to save to cover excess costs of child care during the FT child care years. I don't think anyone disputes that - I just don't see how you can infer any parenting "qualities" from rational economic limitations.

I'm inclined to think that good parents will be good parents whether they are working parents or stay at home parents and bad parents will be bad parents whether they are working parents or stay at home parents.

Good or bad parenting is the bit that comes first - the rest is pretty irrelevant.

Xenia I thought you might wonder what a definition of a wonderful parent is. I would say one which produces a child who is happy, well mannered and a useful member of society. A binman is every bit as useful as the surgeons you are so fond of. Try fighting disease when the world fills up with rubbish. I fail to see where IQ falls in producing such a child. I notice you havent refuted the fact that perhaps you dont mix in a very wide social circle if you feel that academic achievement or social status is the main factor (or even a major factor) at work. I think you have a bit of a persecution complex about going back to work. I went back when DC was 8 weeks old and dont feel I was judged for it. Some people were a bit confused, but generally older people who arent accustomed to the woman being the breadwinner. I dont feel society as a whole judges me.

P.S. The working classes do not generally give a child 'a good thump' when they cry.

I meet all kinds of people. I prefer to chat to clever people. I don't think that's a social status thing. It's just I find people who are quick with interesting ideas the ones I like to talk to.

I just did a quick web search and David Lammy did say the working class use physical violence on children and he thinks it's a good thing.
www.standard.co.uk/news/liberal-elite-stigmatise-the-working-class-for-smacking-says-david-lammy-7312881.html

I do think surveys would show that the higher family income and IQ the less likely a parent is to smack a child and instead deal with it more intelligently.

I am just saying that on the whole clever full time working women who earn quite a lot probably make better mothers than housewives.

This is all so stupid.
Xenia how about clever part time working women.Oh now hang on,they dont earn so much.
Xenia Xenia Xenia
We can see through all this Xenia.

How about getting back to the op,and women in the finance industry.

Xenia - After I had children, I went part time for a bit and then quit my high-paying city job to work for myself because I wanted to spend more time with DC. It was tough for a year or so but less than 2 years into my consultancy, I'm earning more than I did before but on my terms. I have more time to myself and for my children - I haven't really worked all summer long but have done enough to keep my clients sweet.

That's not 'silly', it's smart.

It is completely true, however, that once a woman opts for part time work in the City. most promotional doors are slammed shut. I've seen it (and I undertook my MSc research on it).

What I find staggering, though, is that in my line of field (M&A) I can ask a CEO or an FD or MD to backfill 50% of his role in order to free up his time to defend/attack a bid, and Hey Presto! it's done. Which means that that the same CEO could effectively permanently split his 70-80 hour a week role into 2 nice 35-40 hr a week roles. But he won't. And that in a nutshell is what holds women back.

Fuck the quotas on female representation. What we need are quotas requiring 50% of jobs at all levels to be 40 hour a week roles or less (and obv. paying 50% of an 80 hr comp package)

There is not a single job in FS that needs 12 hours a day and can't be covered by teamwork. I've run global books and handed over to New York at 4 in the afternoon (having picked up from Tokyo in the morning), just as I've led teams running a bid on site in Germany whilst I've worked out of an office in London. It's not rocket science. And that is what we should be getting our daughters to fight for. If you want to work 80 hours a week, fine. But it should also be fine to want to work 40 hours a week and not find yourself consigned to the scrapheap for it. It makes me furious to see truly brilliant women give it all up simply because they are not willing to make the time sacrifices required. And it makes my blood boil to recognise that (IME) there are only a very small handful of men at the top who are there by dint of capability. Nearly all of them are there by dint of being the last man (I use the phrase advisedly) standing. what kind of a message does that send to our children?