[2] Let's talk about: women's issues in the work place

[ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving]

There are so many different facets to this:

• The kind of work women are more likely to do (with the associated pay and risks)
• More likely to be on zero hour contracts, PT work etc
• Maternity discrimination at work
• Childcare issues preventing women from working
• Time out of work for caring reasons making it harder for women to find work
• Work place harassment
• A general lack of confidence and lower expectations (less likely to apply for promotions or advocate for pay rises)

In my life I've had to leave 2 jobs due to sexual harassment by my boss at one, and attempted sexual assault by my colleague at another. I've always done "women's work" - care assistant, primary school TA etc - and have therefore never worked for more than minimum wage. I left uni when I found out I was pregnant with my oldest and haven't worked since. I'm trying to retrain atm to go back to work when my youngest is a bit older but am restricted by childcare and funding issues.

What kind of issues have you all faced in the workplace?

For a good quality of like a family with two adults and two kids can probably reasonably work one full time job when the kids are small and add another half-time job when they are a bit older.

Or both work PT.

A colleague was asked what her plans were for a family when going for a promotion, she said she felt very uncomfortable answering the questions. She did get the promotion at least but the group she works in is predominantly male. I wonder why? She didn't complain.

There was a senior manager at work who liked to give female employees a hug. It was patronising rather than sexual harrassment but he never did it to men funnily enough. Everyone knew he did it but no-one complained. Retired now thankfully.

I was told by a young whizzkid that mothers in their 40s lacked ambition when I applied for a job working in his dept. Obviously I didn't report him because who needs to take that shitstorm on, got a promotion in another dept.

Years ago I was given a sideways move into another dept when I got pregnant with DD2 (close gap between my eldest 2) because my then boss was so pissed off about me getting pregnant. Luckily my new boss was much better so it was a good thing for me but it could easilyhave not been.

I do think a lot of sexism is unreported because no-one wants to rock the boat and be branded a trouble maker. At work some depts have women throughout the management structure and others don't. Sometimes it changes as soon as an individual retires. We are now 50% female and things have improved a lot in the time I've been there (although most of the examples I list above have been in the last 5 years). A colleague was the first person at work to return after having a baby (this was in the 80s), she said they put her in an office on her own on her first day back and said 'we'll understand if you can't cope!'. So we have come a long way.

I my experience of bosses who absolutely hate part time workers, but there are also a few who positively prefer to employ women with kids part time if there is that option and will make a point of it. (Sounds good right)

But as they will tell you, this preference is because they get as much or more output out of those part time workers, as they do from the full timers, and all on only a PT salary.
Plus they will tell you that they get more experience and reliability from the female PTers, so the employer doesn’t have to bother spending on training and developing them. Plus they won’t leave whatever you ask them to do, pretty much, because they need the PT job and everyone knows these are hard to find.

My career absolutely stalled when I got into my 30s because I didn't have children. I have since realised that childless women in the prime childbearing years are treated like ticking time bombs by employers. It didn't get worse once I had children really - except that I could no longer do the regularly scheduled 6pm meetings or breakfast briefings so was considered unsuitable for promotion.

Many workplaces have cultures which are incompatible with caring responsibilities and those fall overwhelmingly onto women's shoulders. Until they address that, all the 'family friendly' policies in the world won't make a difference

My sense is that there is a need to recognise that life requires people to do other things than paid work, and the goal of having all adults between about 20 and 65 in paid work is not reasonable

Was there not some Mexican telecoms billionaire who suggested everyone moving to a three day week with a slightly longer (10 hour) working day?

I have long thought that would be the ideal. Mum can work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Dad Thursday, Friday, Saturday, everyone can have Sunday off together. Single parent households only have to ask grandparents/pay for childcare for three days rather than five.

Obviously there will always be some jobs that need to cover 24/7 but for most of us why fixate on the five on, two off pattern? It doesn't have to be set in stone.

I feel like the idea that some things are set in stone, even when they demonstrably aren't working, is a bizarre but deeply ingrained human thing. Reading threads by home educators recently has really made me think about a lot of this stuff. Lots of people saying to them "you don't have the skills to teach the national curriculum at home" followed by "why would we want to teach the NC, we home educate to get away from that" replies. And I think that's true for so many areas of life - education, work, politics, it's all picking over a system that is basically broken. We need to start really asking ourselves what the outcomes are that we want to achieve, and whether our current models are the best way of getting there". But it'd take a fairly major society wide shift in perspective. For all their failings in other areas, the Green Party plan to introduce a 4 day working week is one I definitely support. And also just a recognition of the fact that not all jobs need to be full time. Not all jobs need to be office based. Not all jobs need to be completed between the hours of 9 - 5. Yes a lot do, but a lot of jobs could be done just as effectively over 4 days, or mixed in with remote working, or 8 hours spread over the day in whatever arrangement works best for the employee etc. Just more flexibility in general. But we'd need to start a) acknowledging that our current model isn't reasonable or effective and b) start actually valuing the idea of people having lives outside of work, rather than just paying lip service to it.

Unfortunately - and I know this is a bit of a sweeping statement - I suspect a 3/4 day working week would result for a lot of families in the woman doing everything at home over 3 days rather than 4, while the husband does his mysterious outing Munsnet hobby over 3 days rather than 2... but it'd certainly help with a lot of practical childcare problems and reduce the idea that you have to choose between work and life.

"the woman doing everything at home over 3 days rather than 2" that should read.

I work in a male dominated tech job. For 7 years I've managed to keep my role because they allowed flexible working and WFH. A new senior leader was appointed and he is looking to stop WFH. I will have to choose between my daughter or my job. I could cut my hours. I could look for another role.

It is very boys club, a lot of ex military. In the last 4 meetings I was asked my opinion after my male counterpart. There is no female senior leader in our large team. I have no one to seek out as a mentor. I dont always feel comfortable in the jokey male group.

They use the fact that the most senior person over all departmemts is female as proof that they are equal opportunities, as if all other women are at fault for not achieving.

The men are parents, but it doesnt seem to bother them as much.

I've been told I need more presence. Need to be more assertive. I think I am assertive. I'm not loud. Or aggressive. My opinion if different is seen as arguing.

I'm also very petite and 'girly' looking which makes it even harder.

I have so many direct examples from a decade plus ago that just adds to the distrust I feel of my colleagues.

At various points in my company's history of mergers and acquisitions the policy has been no WFH but that's been applied to people wanting to move to it, not to those like me already doing it. Im not sure, but that sort of change in conditions might amount to constructive dismissal, and also potentially indirect sex discrimination.

I've made things work, but it has been such a struggle.

I'm a single parent and my eldest is autistic with specific learning difficulties.

Childcare for those with special needs seems particularly difficult. Fortunately I was able to have the children share bedrooms and have aupairs. This was the cheapest option and meant that there was some continuity of care, as they tended to change annually. I had aupairs for the best part of 10 years.

Flexible working - where the fuck is it? None of the employers I've worked for have had flexible working.

I had to take a career step down, as there is no way I could have carried on in the role I had as a single parent. Consequently, my ex-H who earned about the same as I did when we first had the children, now earns 5 times what I do and yet I'll give you one guess who has raised our children and pays the lions share!

In the workplace, I feel like I have "MUM" tattooed on my forehead. It seems to be fine for my male boss to regularly leave early or come in late because he's done school drop offs or pick ups or WFH because one of his kids is sick, but all the female staff seem to be watched like hawks for this kind of thing & permission is denied or they are forced to take leave. It seems really unfair and yet there doesn't feel like there is a way of challenging it either.

As for sitting in meetings and listening to mansplaining and views from the age of dinosaurs as to women's competence and so on - I could probably write a book, not to mention inappropriate sexual comments, touching and so on. However, on the plus side I have definitely seen that stuff diminish, as the older generation retires.

The whole system sucks in my personal opinion and I feel like I am trying to make the best of it and endlessly compromise one way or another just to keep my head above water.

This thread is eye-opening for the insidiousness of sex discrimination, both blatant direct, and indirect, in relation to women in work.

I would like to see a move across the board to more flexible working being the norm, not the exception, where it can be accommodated. And for jobs where that's not possible, eg jobs where you really need to be there at certain times, then predictability of shifts which accommodate children should be a minimum expectation. I would also like to see a 4 day week being more standard.

Predictability of shifts and working hours should be something that we try and make happen across the board, it would be so much better for so many people. And not just things like childcare, but also taking a class, or volunteer work, playing on a team...

Along the same lines I'm inclined to think that the shift that has happened in many places to having shops open at all times has not been of much benefit to workers in most instances, it hasn't really meant people are better off because they have more shifts available.

And not just things like childcare, but also taking a class, or volunteer work, playing on a team.

Yes this is also true. I remember DH really wanted to do an evening course for a DIY skill but because he'd only be able to go every other week there was no way the college could accommodate it, and his work are entirely inflexible about their shifts, even though they are unsociable hours.

In a way, longer opening hours can be good, as an example, when I was a student those sort of jobs later in the evening (shops/call centres/etc) were great because you could do them after classes finished, then head out after work at eg 10pm to meet your friends in the pub/club. That suits a young, single person. You can accommodate previous staff during normal hours, then different staff at a stage of life where later hours suit them.

But there comes a time where work needs to fit around other responsibilities, what suits a 21 year old single person won't suit someone with a family, or even just a partnewho works different hours so you never see each other. And nobody "lives to work", and we should never expect it because that's not a desirable life anyone should want or expect for their employees. We need people to have balanced lives.

It's definitely a class issue as well as a women's issue. Not being able to do evening classes/ retrain because of long hours/ shift work limits people's options making them easier to exploit, and prevents social mobility.

Also, to jump back to an earlier point in the thread, those who talked about signing NDAs - what would you do if you didn't have those?

Predictability of shifts and working hours should be something that we try and make happen across the board, it would be so much better for so many people.

Anyone working in HR or in any managerial capacity can help other women, carers, lone parents and disabled people by bringing this up as an issue where they work.
Many people need a contract with fixed hours and pay, with overtime being voluntary and that you have to opt in to. This should be the starting contract for every new member of staff, especially on the lower rates of pay.

As and when contracts discriminate against groups of people, some of who have protected characteristics.
Any workplace that refuses to acknowledge the issue or offer these contracts may as well be actively trying to weed these groups of people out of their workplace. We can't even apply for those jobs.

Another question - is anyone here self employed? Have you experienced any sex based inequality in your self employment?

You either need predictability^^ or a very high degree of flexibility.

I was one of a team of six - five men, and me. I had the most sector-specific knowledge out of the six of us, transferring into the team from a department which was immersed in sector knowledge, whereas the others had come in via other routes. I discovered by chance several months in that I was nonetheless the lowest paid by several £k.

I took this further with both my direct boss and HR, with evidence of good performance (excellent appraisal, positive feedback from colleagues and clients, trusted with high profile projects etc). Somewhat grudgingly, I was awarded a pay rise.

Shortly afterwards, I was made redundant mid-project...the only one out of the team of six to be let go