So much for the sisterhood...

[showtunesgirl]

Just listening to Jeremy Vine's show on Radio 2, Vanessa Phelps is standing in and they are taking calls regarding getting more women into the boardroom. A woman caller has just called in to say that women are too hormonal due to their periods to be in a managerial position.

I'm listening too, as much as i can over dds whining.

My flabber is ghasted!

Unbelievable isn't it? Especially as men also have mood fluctuations due to testosterone just as much as women have mood swings due to hormones!

There is no "sisterhood" - never will be until women stop competing with each other for men. IMO the kind of women who make stupid comments like that caller are very invested in female/male roles and don't like the boat rocked. Heavens, they might have to take responsibility for their own lives...

I don't think there's a "brotherhood" either, for that matter. Most people act out of self interest and that may be by reinforcing the Patriarchy but it could just as easily be about class or anything else.

Women like that caller just repeat what they have heard other sexist people say. If she thought about it, she could probably come up with a hundred reasons why men shouldn't be in the boardroom either, but of course as that is the norm she won't bother - just lazily accept it. Sexist women like this put no thought into their own arguments and don't challenge anything. They are to be pitied, if it wasn't for the damage they cause other women in the long term.

My mother used to be like this - she is a very devout Catholic who used to say that she would hate to see women on the altar as priests. Well, as she has a feminist for a daughter, I soon challenged that and discussed it all with her and how I felt about that, so she could maybe start to think in a different way. It worked!!! I really think some women are just so used to male/female traditional roles that they don't consider a different way of thinking/living.

Anyway, I hope she was given short shrift.

I was listening to that too! Could not believe it. She sounded like she really meant it, saying that only post-menopausal women are in any way stable, the rest of us are all liabilities if put in charge of anything!!! I feel sorry for her if that is her genuine belief.

I had to turn it on. It was accidentally on radio2 at that time and my blood pressure is beginning to recover.
Absolutely astounding.

It seems so bizarre that a woman could have such a low opinion of her own sex. I've come to the conclusion that it is women with low self-esteem or low personal competency levels that think this way - or maybe they just have low IQs, so struggle with rational thought.

Ridiculous.

I've worked for male and female managers, and the most consistent tended to be women. Yes, sometimes one or two of them could be a bit moody. I'd never have dared ask... one did give me a steely glance once and say "not a good couple of days to discuss this, diary next week".

As it happens, the most aggressive manager I had (unit director) was a female; the genuinely nicest was a female. The one who melded a team together best... was a bloke. I'd happily work for decent clients of either gender nowadays.

Bit unsure as to whether setting 40% female boardroom targets is the right way but I'll watch with interest.

showtunesgirl
Especially as men also have mood fluctuations due to testosterone just as much as women have mood swings due to hormones
I genuinely didn't know that! Have a link?

It was the panel guest who seemed to think that women have to choose between children and a career who a wanted to throw things at. Why does it never occur to anyone that the very simple solution to the 'women take time off to have babies' argument that if men were encouraged to take paternity leave too, there would be a far more level playing field.

I love how some people still think that maternity leave is just lying back on plump pillows, eating hand-peeled grapes all day and having your nails done. 'Taking time off to have babies' - the lazy tramps!

It is really chilling to hear women say stuff like that OP. I heard a woman on TV a while ago saying that she didn't want to be equal to a man. I would have loved to ask her which hard-won rights in particular she was so desperately keen to give up

The worst manager I ever had was a woman - she was bullying and totally unsympathetic when I had health problems. What does that mean about women's ability to manage as well as men? Big fat nothing! She was just a rotten person.

I had to turn it off

There was a caller who also said that he found women employees cost him enough in sick leave (presume he meant for children), maternity pay and when children were ill. Again it comes down to women being expected to do all the child/household related stuff when men don't.
I found it all incredibly annoying and depressing.

'I found it all incredibly annoying and depressing'

That's the Jeremy Vine show for you! It sends my blood pressure through the roof too.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irritable_male_syndrome so pretty much the male equivalent of PMT.

Oh yes, I am coming to end of my maternity leave this week and it has been a laugh a minute.

Maybe a timely reminder to for me of why I never listen to it Lotta.

showtunesgirl I remember reading about a study done in an office environment - women and men both had irrational mood swings, the difference was that women could predict theirs due to it often being influenced by their menstrual cycle where as men's were completely random. I wish I could find it again.

Didn't hear it - but was Katie Hopkins a guest? It sounds like the kind of thing she'd go on to wind a few people up.

Mind you, I listen to LBC which is like listening to the JV show all day long with extra nutty opinions and right-wing swivel eyed ranting No idea why I do this, maybe I should discuss it with my therapist

Katie Hopkins is awful, a professional wind up merchant.

Lottapianos LBC is insane isn't it? I only listen because we live in the same road as one of the presenters. It's nice to have something to needle him with whenever I chat in the street.

Yay, I knew I couldn't be the only feminist who listens to LBC! I don't have your excuse though......

Please PM me with the name of the presenter (nosy cow) and any gossip you fancy sharing

Ooh, is this the presenter whose trousers have 'strangely flapping cuffs'?

I heard this. That woman's conviction sounded so strong, frightening.

And as a poster above said, the actual core issue of childcare/maternity/paternity provision wasn't mentioned.

It also riles me when people (in a, possibly misguided, attempt to prove that they are progressive) insist women are 'better' at work than men. Especially if they qualifying it by saying that women's advantage is due to their ability to empathise or care. I think that point of view shows that women are still not being viewed as individuals.

Yes, that reinforced prejudice too such as comments that had it been Lehmann sisters the crash woudl not have happened. We are people. Some are like me - I am sometimes on here accused of being male simply because as a human being I like power, success, money and am ambitious and think being at home with children more than 3 hours a day is deadly dull. Women and men within their gender differe as much as between the genders.

Any woman of sense always makes chidlcare a parent issue not a mother issues and boots her husband off to find a nanny and ensures everything is 50/50 at home. Clever women have always done this. Loser women tolerate sexism at home an they need to be told that is not to carry on and they must stop it as they damage other women by tolerating sexism within their own domestic situation.

"It also riles me when people (in a, possibly misguided, attempt to prove that they are progressive) insist women are 'better' at work than men. "

Totes agree LaLa!! It drives me nuts that people feel they have to justify women's presence at senior levels of power by saying that women bring something that men don't have. But really women should simply be there because it's fair.

Women should be there simply because they make up half of people and are perfectly capable human beings. And because men should be picking up their share of the domestic responsibility.

It is true, though, whether from nature or nurture, that there is a "typical" male attitude of recklessness, and a "typical" female attitude of cautiousness. (Obviously some men are more cautious and risk averse than others, ditto women.)

If a more cautious (and therefore typically female) attitude had been allowed to flourish in the city, and other financial centres, then the recent banking crisis would have been less likely to occur. But the problem is that cautious individuals, of whatever gender, are less respected in financial centres, because the managers tend to be the less cautious type of person, and it becomes a vicious circle.

The point about needing to have more women in managerial positions, is simply that we miss out on the best people by excluding any group, whether that exclusion is because of gender, race, class or whatever.