Women can rise up without dragging men down

[Bumpitybumper]

During International Women's Day my Instagram feed was flooded with various feminist quotes and mantras, but one which really stuck with me was about how women gaining power, influence and status doesn't mean that men are automatically worse off. I appreciate that the woman sharing it was almost trying to sell feminism to an audience that probably included a lot of men, but surely the premise is wrong? By default women taking up positions of power and gaining more influence will reduce the position of men (as a class) who are used to pretty much having the monopoly on it all.

Sorry if the wording of the thread title isn't the exact quote as i couldn't find the original post.

I don't think the workplace is fair to men either. Mediocre men only get on if they are the right sort of mediocre man. I also do believe that if it were really true that you could get a much better, more intelligent and harder working employee for much less money then corporations would do just that.

Women dominated businesses would be the most effective test bed for all these theories because men otherwise need to consent to being controlled by women, which the evidence suggests they are not happy about.

I think it’s complicated. You do see very good employees stuck low down for spurious reasons, managed by incompetents. Partly I think it’s that people can get on if your face fits, partly luck of being in the right place at the right time, partly gift of the gab and partly in my experience incompetent or morally dubious people are promoted because they can’t or won’t question the status quo and are no threat to the real higher ups.

A teeny proportion of start up funding is given to female led businesses and entrepreneurs. It’s a joke where every aspect of the system is stacked against women in general and yet we are blamed for not rising above it and getting 50% of everything because we like low paid work and staying at home with our dc. Yeah, right.

Good thread, and as I’ve reflected in it I fear there is a behavioural problem informed by a biological pressure that I’m not sure how to fix.

Consider two equally smart, highly driven and ambitious young professionals. They both prioritise their careers and want to rise to the top. They date/ get married. They both want children. However biology hands the man in the equation the freedom to say “actually my career is more important I want to hold off on having children until I’ve reached the pinnacle of my chosen field” whilst the woman is free to say the same she is rolling a riskier die with her decision.

In fact men have this freedom to eschew settling down almost entirely until they have achieved what they want to achieve, again women can do the same, but there is a greater risk. I think if we got to a point with a sexism factor of zero this fact still frees up more men to focus aggressively on their careers.

How do we socially correct for this? There will always be more men competing for the top spots because they can afford to take greater risks with their fertility?

dervel no offence but that stuff has been done to death.

We know women have to have dc before the menopause and we know the longer women (and men) leave having dc the greater the risk of complications in pregnancy and for dc. We also know dc are little for a short time and the time needed out of the workplace in a career spanning decades is in the grand scheme of things, negligible.

In my radical feminist utopia, parents would be supported to have work fit round little dc. After all, if we all stop having dc tomorrow, Widget Inc is going to have no customers in the future to buy their widgets or use their services. As Widget Inc currently has a swathe of mediocre men who rely on the mothers of their children to take the career hit, they don’t have to change the workplace to fit round child rearing at all.

No. That is making thevassumption that all the 'best' or 'top' positions belong to men by default.

I think the quote is more about a state of mind i.e. you don't need to be a cunt about rising to the top.

Dervel

Yes, female fertility does not last as long as male fertility (although men are more likely to experience problems as they age, which they should perhaps be made more aware of). But this is a complete side issue to the main point, which is that the woman also has to gestate and birth the child, regardless of whether she does so at 21 or 45.

Reproduction has zero physical impact on a man and his contribution to the reproductive labour is like 0.01%. Sure it is less risky for the man to wait until he is middle-aged before he reproduces, but he can also go to work the day after his child is born (or even while it is being born). Meanwhile reproduction has an enormous physical impact on a woman. We can never make this 'fair'.

Things we can do to try to level out the social impact of biological 'unfairness' are things that increase the impact of fatherhood on men. (These things tend to also benefit fathers and/or children).

No offence taken. I’m just feeling around these issues in my own head. I question what you mean by little for a negligible amount of time? I am of the view that children benefit from hands on parenting for a good crucial first 7 years or so. I’m a single father as well so I promise you I’m not wedded to the idea that it’s necessarily mothers that have to do this.

I’m curious how this feminist utopia would work? Universal Basic Income? Childcare provided on site at workplaces?

Or reduce the impact on women. But it has to be two-pronged. Making it easier for a mother to take a long maternity leave and then work part time has to be in combination with men also placing more focus on their family responsibilities after becoming fathers. And that is actually the trickier part because, just as OP says, for this to happen men as a class must be willing to take responsibility for reproduction and they generally aren't because it suits them to have women take care of this.

So I started a career at 22 and will end working at 68 (in theory) and that’s 46 years of work. I have 2 dcs and took one 8 month and one 9 month maternity leave - that’s 17 months out of 552 months of work or 3% of total working life, but obviously more in proportion when the percentage is taken in my child bearing years. The rest of pt/ time out/ sahp that’s happened with my dc and all dc in general, could be shared between parents and not overly burdened on one parent who is usually the mother.

We live in a world where taking a 8 month maternity leave is seen as a legitimate reason why the vast majority of leaders are male and how it is, is how it should be. We could have onsite childcare, universal income, more recognition and benefits for sahp, more support for pt working, awards for the most accommodating workplaces etc etc and really push the idea the supporting families is good for everyone. Or we could carry on with individual women carrying the burden, taking the hit and being blamed for their own poverty/ lack of success etc etc. If you’re a single parent dervel I’m sure you have your own experiences which will sometimes be the same or sometimes different.

I dunno, people feel their jobs are oh so important and special that if you miss a couple of months you cannot possibly ever recover to their level of amazing-ness at their role. Most of us do stuff that the world could miss, which I appreciate might be hard to accept

@Dervel
For me (definitely not talking for myself) a feminist utopia would involve a radical shift in how we function as a society to the extent that it is almost unimaginable today. More emphasis needs to be placed on things that are currently either completely undervalued or totally ignored because they are seen as largely being part of women's domain such as caring for the vulnerable (children, disabled and elderly). I think it should be expected that the majority of both men and women will have time in their careers when their focus will be on their home life and this should not be penalised in the way it is currently and seen as a black mark on someone's career history. We need to be more flexible about how we view different choices and responsibilities and men need to step up and take on their share of domestic/childcare responsibilities

Personally I would quite like a shared maternity/paternity leave model that allowed, say the woman (and man, optional) to take the first few months off to recover physically. After that, I would have liked to have started working a few days a week to keep my hand in and keep everything ticking over, that could be shared with the father also doing the same (eg each doing 2.5 days or 2/3 days) for up to a year.

I completely agree that a year or two out within a 45-50 year career has no reason to have an impact on your career progression. Things don't change that quickly. I went off on mat leave and half my caseload hadn't progressed at all during the 9 months I was off.

MeAgainAgain - I'm so glad you're still around. I had a hunch you were .

Another day, another round of dealing with mediocre men earning far more than me, in positions for which I would have to jump through hoops. Sigh.

robot I do love it here TBH even when the threads go around and around... Try to carry Dittany's torch but only to like 1/10 of the brightness! I'll never forget her - or any of the old crew TBH.

I switched jobs recently which sorted similar issues to some extent...

I highly recommend it!

I genuinely think that in the industry I work the gender pay gap has had a big effect, it was a massive gap, and all of a sudden women being promoted / hired into all sorts of more senior (but still not top) roles.

Yes the promotions emails going out with sometimes 4 women 1 man are being noticed. The men are not happy. The women perform. What can they do? I mean in a civilised society, obv they could take it all away if they wished - Iran in the 60s pics always get me.

I mean the gender pay gap reporting.

It looked terrible.

And I believe has had an effect - I know it has.

Suddenly, in conference calls sometimes with majority women. Bizarre. To me. But good bizarre.