New to the forum! Being a warrior at work for my female colleagues!

[Tivara43]

Hello

Well, mumsnet regular lurker for years and only just discovered the feminism threads. Where have you been all my life?!

I'm a feminist. Quite honestly, I feel like society is riven with sexism, I see it everyday. From an acquaintance calling a woman a slut. To leering from white van men on my walk to work. To entrenched institutional sexism both direct and indirect in my workplace.

I challenge it every single time. I have been told I'm strident and difficult for this. LOL!!!! Even by my own father.

But I don't care. I'm actually softly spoken not that this matters.

So here's my latest battle ladies.

My office has a promotion system whereby employees are assessed against certain criteria to win the promotion.

When I started work all those years ago, there were 12 in my "intake". Roughly 50:50 male to female split. Most woman have now left, there are three of us remaining with one being on maternity leave. Formidable women, brilliant at their jobs. Hard working. None of us have been promoted. All of the men have.

The scoring against the criteria is shrouded in a veil of secrecy. I asked to see these "criteria". Objective and quantifiable... Errrrrrr no. Things like how many business development events do you attend? Well not many.... Because they are rugby matches and cricket matches and all day drinking and when we asked to do something different we were told there was no budget! Do you smell a male bias here?

So.....

I have brought a grievance about this and will resign if affirmative action isn't taken. I cannot wait. And hopefully it will change things for the positive for the next gen of female employees.

Will update you.

Blimey! You're very brave, I'm impressed! Have you got something else lined up if it doesn't go your way? My experience with this sort of thing is they tell you to shut up and / or piss off, and they carry on as they are. I hope you have more success!

Someone in the HR department isn't doing his or her job correctly. Applications for internal promotion and the decisions for and against should be certifiable and decisions should be justifiable.

Re marketing rugby , not in a million years would I do to a match but I've put up with attending the odd cricket match.

I'm not convinced rugby is necessarily of male interest but then I live in a city which hosts 6 Nations games (terminology?)so maybe different but there seem to be lots of female supporters.

Marketing events have of course to be tailored to keep your existing clients happy and win new clients. Having to put up with a rugby match might be unavoidable.

Was there a business case to support your marketing suggestions? Without knowing what you do, what your client base is and what your suggestions were it's difficult to comment.

Damn just typed a long reply. Yes it can be challenged at an employment tribunal.

We deal with applications for promotion on an annual basis. Every qualified employee may apply and will use a template for each grade setting out the criteria expected to be met.

This is scored and if the points needed aren't met there will be a discussion with line manager .

But you need to be careful and objective. To take an extreme example if you're in the buildings material supply trade complaining that marketing events such as cricket and rugby or football tailored to your clients who will mainly be men are unfair won't get you terribly far.

Hello, thanks for all replies, very helpful.

Yes, I think the criterion of attending business development events is discriminatory on grounds of sex because irrespective of the issue that such events may be appropriate for the industry (which they are not but I won't go into that yet), they indirectly discriminate against part time workers and women disproportionately because they are held after work/ at weekends and most part time workers are women and most women with children find it more difficult to attend after work and weekend events because of child care issues.

I really like the point re discrimination maintain on grounds of disability made by one poster. Not relevant to the current female employees but a great point.

A question for you ladies. One of the criterion is "leadership skills". I just wonder whether this is a male centric criterion. What do you think. I am going to try and find some relevant case law on it or something similar.

I do have another job lined up by the way. Yes, I have a fairly hefty mortgage to pay and didn't want to make myself too vulnerable. That said I would have thought I was adequately protected by statutory employment law not to be unfairly treated because I have brought this grievance.

Go Tivara!

If anyone has the time (probably not!) this is interesting and there is a section on leadership: www.researchgate.net/profile/Hussin_Hejase/publication/236846222_Female_Leadership_An_Exploratory_Research_from_Lebanon/links/0c96051bb5575bef97000000.pdf

Of course there are other ways of marketing.

Sports and social events are not realy ways of getting business or keeping it but frankly being nice to key clients ( in a Bribery Act compliant way of course) and meeting in a non- business environment. They can also be used to build networks with other professionals in other sectors who might refer work. From the point of view of more junior employees that's actually very important to get to know the people who might send you work.

Most venues will have disabled access and facilities - I'm sure Murrayfield will.

The OP can opt out of this but if it works for her employer's business just saying it's not fair I'm not interested in rugby isn't enough. And everything I've just said above will be her employer's response too. How will she answer it?

Hi still lost. Really useful points that I will need to prepare for I think. They've really made me rethink! I have opted out on all weekend occasions and about 25% of evening events because of child care issues. My colleague has a similar attendance rate at BD events because she works part time, 3 mornings two full days and so cannot come back into town for the events because of cost as well as childcare issues.

So in fact, usefully this conversation has pointed me to the real issue which is not that the events are male oriented in terms of being cricket or rugby etc but attendance impacts disproportionately on women because of pt working or child care issues.

And still lost, re your point re most venues having disabled facilities, "disability" is a far broader legal concept than just physical incapacity. It also encompasses in some instances, mental conditions. And such conditions might make it very difficult to attend networking events. Just a thought.

Social events are held after work because the majority of the participants would otherwise be at work during the day. Although race meetings are popular and they are often week days.

I don't think the disability point is terribly valid unless the choice of venue was one which precluded access which is unlikely for most sports venues in the UK.

Not entirely following why attending an evening or weekend event is necessarily more difficult because of child care.

So far as "leadership " promotions usually result in having a team of younger people below you so sorry, it seems a reasonable criterion.

Are you both single parents? And remember to be discriminatrory it has to impact disproportionately, not just that it affects one individual.

That may be so, but there should be some effort to hold social events at lunchtime for example. I think something should be done to allow women to access the opportunities more. our request for a lunch time seminar was knocked back because of budgeting for catering. So I see your point, but in the context of our office and our request, I think the refusal is unreasonable

Of course childcare issues impact on weekend attendance. I am the main breadwinner and all of my colleagues (male) in my team have partners who are SAHMS. They can attend weekend football matches, I just cannot as its too costly to organise childcare for a whole day at weekend (no RL support unfortunately). Therefore ergo the criterion impacts disproportionately on the women in the team.

Is out of hours networking part of your contract or part of the "reasonable other duties" of the job?

Re the leadership point, it may be so that leadership promotions usually result in having a team of others below you and so is a reasonable criterion BUT
A) the promotion I our office is not a leadership promotion in and of itself. Leadership is one criterion which must be satisfied in order to obtain the promotion. Essentially, the promotion has no substantive effect on working practices. In our context in relates solely to job title and charge out rate. It is not therefore the case that after promotion the employee is in charge of a team.
B) in any case, assuming it was a "leadership" promotion resulting in leading a team of people, I would argue that other less male centric criteria should be used to assess the ability to direct a team. The attributes of "leadership" do not always relate to women's feminine traits, women leaders may be required to "soften" their leadership style to gain the approval of their subordinates. Women who lead with an autocratic style risk being disliked. I do not think the same for men. Why not therefore include criteria which have a more female bias, such as collaboration and consultative qualities.

buffy great post totally agree....I think my latest mirrors some of your points

Cailindana - no, it is not explicitly part of the duties, but there is a contractual require,emy to fulfil any other duties that are reasonably necessary to perform the role so this could probably extend to networking.

I think I would be wary then of bringing networking up as a problem. I think it would be more relevant to ask why it is that all the men have been promoted while all the women have either left or stayed where they are. Ask for a justification for that, an explanation as to why they haven't met the criteria for promotion. Don't specifically point out any particular thing like leadership, let them explain it and see what they come out with.

"Leadership" can apply at all levels.

It can be synonymous with initiative. I can think of one of my female junior employees who demonstrated this with her peers in a sort of " well this is a bit of a cock-up what do we do now situation" ?

Sorry posted too soon. She took charge, found a possible solution, presented the problem with the solution to the person who could authorise her solution. That is leadership.

I f they're only schmoozing clients at rugby and cricket, it strikes me they'll be missing out all the client who would rather go to an art gallery or some other event, i.e. it's limiting their business as well as the potential leaders among their staff - it's the former which is more likely to change their minds, sadly, but if a wider range of events also means more staff with caring and other responsibilities could attend, as well as winning more business, then win-win all round. (Surely there are some fathers who have to do their share of parenting?)

I agree you need to know what criteria they're looking at.

I'm not sure I understand why you have a childcare issue for weekend events? Are you a single parent? I can fully understand why you wouldn't want to spend a day away from your family at the weekend at some bloody rugby match but that's rather a different question. I am strongly in the camp of 'childcare is not just a woman's problem' - the issue here seems to be that the men have SAH spouses and you don't.

My guess is that you are quite right, and the antiquated approach to marketing means they are missing out on potential customers. It's been remarked on for many years that tech conferences where 'booth babes' are still relatively common are a huge turnoff to women, and we increasingly (if slowly) make up a percentage of the top level decision makers in IT, the dinosaurs will find themselves losing ground. However, our progress is halted precisely because the prevailing culture is unattractive and unwelcoming.

I would not play the 'leadership skills' card, that seems perfectly valid as a criterion for promotion. But the lack of transparency about the criteria is very wrong, and the place is clearly a boys' club. It sounds godawful.

I think you should re-read your last post about leadership/feminine styles of leadership and especially this section "Why not therefore include criteria which have a more female bias, such as collaboration and consultative qualities."

Your getting into "male brain/female brain" territory. That is miles from your justified complaint of lack of transparency and your possibly justified complaint about the problems of extra- curricular activities.

You are saying " but let's add in stuff women are good at". Your employer can with good reason say , no I'm not. I'm looking for qualities all my employees are good at