A Female Cabinet

[Xenia]

So Mr Cameron let us see if you can achieve 2/3rds of your cabinet female. That would be a good start.

"I'm no longer surprised by women who feel that I have to woo them in order for them to join me in fighting for women, but I am just as disinclined to jump through those hoops as ever." You are wonderful, tortoise, thank you so much for putting into words what I have felt so many times on MN and IRL. It is a weird situation to be put in, alright.

Where are the sisters? Well, let me tell you a quick story. A young man and a young woman, friends, same age & both well educated, have both been working for the same candidate during the election campaign. Come the end of the campaign, both are inspired to get into politics. When the woman tells people about this, she encounters such comments from her (usually supportive and non-sexist) friends and family as: "X would be a great MP, are you going to be his sidekick?" "you could be his secretary, they do all the organising!", "You should work together, I can just see X in parliament". When she asks: "Don't you think I'd make a good MP?" she gets uncomfortable looks, and lots of comments like: "it's not that..." and "you know how hard things are..."

It certainly made me think twice and seriously doubt whether anyone - even those closest to me - would really give me support to fight the battles ahead of me. Still thinking in fact.

That's why successful women in a sense need to go on about it so people realise loads of them are out there earning a lot with nice big families too and how much fun it all is and works fine. Rather than whinge whinge aren't things hard I wish I worked 1 hour day kind of business the press seem to latch on when writing about women.

I know, thanks Xenia. Every time I see one of those articles a small part of me gets very downhearted, and a big part of me gets incandescent with anger. I'm so fed up with being told about all the things I can't do, even simple things that no bloke would think twice about like having kids and doing a job I love.

That's why everyone remembers you Xenia, you're a bit of a lone voice, not just on MN but in the world it seems sometimes. I wish more women like you would "go on about it"

Xenia, re 'where are the sisters?' - it starts very early in that the opportunities available to girls and boys differ hugely even in the private sector. It may be different in London, but where I grew up in Essex, our local boys' private school was a minor public school which gave them all a sense of ineffable superiority as well as all kinds of other opportunities. The local girls' private school was a convent school which was not particularly academic, had a lot of wonderful facilities for horseriding and the girls used to have to sweep the classrooms out before school in the mornings . I would have loved to go to the school my brothers went to but was the wrong gender. When my parents asked me if I would like to go to the convent school I was, like, no fear ! (My state grammar offered a much better academic education but still without the small class sizes etc that my brothers got. And they did not teach us we were superior.)

seth, that's very true what you say about girls' private schools.

My parents first chose a girls' school for my sister and me because of research around single sex schools being academically better for girls. Within two years of me being there they realised that the science teaching was next to non existent and brought it up with the headmistress. They were told not to worry because "not many of the girls want to be doctors".

I was of course taken out of that school and placed in a mixed school. The differences between the two schools in terms of the opportunities that we were told were available to us were huge.

Well parents should pick better schools. Plaecs like Habs and NLCS where my daughters went are not substandard. They beat the boys time and time again!

yes indeed Xenia (and the current head at NLCS used to be the head at my old grammar as it happens) but good schools are in shorter supply for the girls and parents who aren't clued up might choose the silly ones so despite them being rich and thinking their children are getting the best of everything, the girls may still lose out compared to the boys.

Well I went to a top academic girls school, plenty of science etc. Hardly any of the old girls are famous.
Why? Well, the school teaches you that the highest thing to aim for in life is something academic, and failing that, cultural. Oxford/Cambridge don, museum director, theatre producer.
Nobody ever said to us that we might be Prime Minister, or a director of a blue chip company, or start our own company and make a fortune.

YOu've never been to a career evening I've been involved with them. Most good schools and most decent parents show children the full ranage of caerer options . Even so plenty of children do what their parents or mothers do which is why having a housewife at home clearing up dirt all day is not exactly the best way to encourage girls into the board room.

But it's hugely improving. I'm not all concerned and this recession is pushing more women to work and earn as many men are laid off so that in a sense is all to the good.

My school was obsessed with suggesting we all went into electrical engineering...

Don't forget that most people aren't brought up in London. Where I come from, the private school was in fact completely rubbish. In the year I left (state) school, no-one even passed the qualification I was taking at the private school. IME state school career advice is not bad, just absent. As long as you were going on to college/university they didn't care what you were planning to do, or where. At university there were plenty of opportunities to meet people who a) worked in hedge funds or b) were accountants (PWC type) - if you wanted to do anything other than finance you were out on a limb and had no more support or advice than if you wanted to be a gogo dancer.

There are more men in politics than women to think that there would be a fair representation would be illogical due to the different numbers that partake in that field so whilst women do make up 50% of the population they do not make up 50% of politicians

That being said i would like the best person for the job i don't care about gender of a person because being male or female will not help do anything.

I think we will get a true equality state of mind when we let go of the importance in gender in everything and simply see who is the best.

There are more men in politics than women to think that there would be a fair representation would be illogical due to the different numbers that partake in that field so whilst women do make up 50% of the population they do not make up 50% of politicians

That being said i would like the best person for the job i don't care about gender of a person because being male or female will not help do anything.

I think we will get a true equality state of mind when we let go of the importance in gender in everything and simply see who is the best.

Why do you think there are more men in politics, Sammyuni?

There are less women in politics for a number of reasons most are not attributed to sexism but the choices people make.

Women are encouraged to join, parties are keen to look less 'white' and 'male'. But women are less likely to go into politics some because of high risk, others just choose different kinds of jobs and job types.

Obviously this is not solely attributed to politics there are many fields where there are higher representation of females to males and vice versa.

Actually Sammyuni, some women do like to go into politics. In other countries the national Parliaments have a much higher proportion of women. Is there something unique to British women that means that they don't do politics compared to women across the rest of Europe?

ElephantandMiasmas
"That's why everyone remembers you Xenia, you're a bit of a lone voice, not just on MN but in the world it seems sometimes. I wish more women like you would "go on about it"l

Maybe its because I'm from a different generation to Xenia but all anyone's ever gone on at me about since I was born was how I have to have a career. How I'm letting the side down if I devote time to mu kids instead of working, how I have to get my foot on the ladder of my profession before I even think about conceiving.
It has been NON-stop.
I have argued this here again and again, but women are not men and saying they are is not going to help women. It's just going to make society continue to believe that women are sort of second-rate men. I don't think that being financially independant and taking time off to be have a baby, breastfeeding etc, need to be mutually exclusive, although they will be under our current system.
Having a baby is not a lifestyle choice. Society wouldn't exist without it and corporations would have no customers, politicians would have no citizens to tax. So I cannot join you in believing women have to shelve away child-bearing and rearing and pretend that its not an intrinsic part of being a woman.

We need lots of women in politics to feminize society and change this very thing.

Erm, Sakura - maybe Xenia does sometimes imply that "women have to shelve away child-bearing and rearing", or at least get it out of the way quick smart and outsource childcare to others where possible.

But if you're referring to my beliefs ("I cannot join you in believing"), what I actually said is not that I think childbearing and rearing are unimportant, or that women should pretend that it is. What I said was that I welcome Xenia's positivity about both having children and having a career she loves, and not feeling a bit guilty about either one.

As I am struggling to build a career and also plan to have DC this is a very current issue for me, and what I hear "non-stop" is the media's focus on women's terrible guilt at not being "there" for their children, or the way that workplaces make life difficult for parents of both sexes. I don't want to think that my professional life will grind to a halt when I have a family, or that when I want to return to work there will be no place for me there. (Obviously I have no problem with people who choose to SAH to look after children, but I am 99% sure it won't be my thing)

Really, I think we're both on the same side here. Having children is something which has always been and will remain a crucial part of society, and it's something that only women can do. It's about time they stopped being penalised for that. In fact, employers need to be made to realise that bringing up children is a normal and essential part of life.

I see it as quite a new problem. People used to be able to work at home, or take their kids to work with them, whether it was agricultural work or spinning or running a shop or whatever. For some reason society has pathologised children, and by connection the parents who spend time looking after them. This is just weird. There need to be far more workplace creches, and where possible more provision for people to work with their children nearby. I practically grew up in my parents' office (self-employed) and it did me loads of good - I learnt to keep quiet, read, amuse myself and see what they did all day.

That's a delightfully vague answer, Sammy. Why do you think women choose not to go into politics, if the reasons are not sexism-related?

ElephantandMiasmas, Oh, sorry if I came accross as ranty. I think I was on a caffeine high yesterday or something I completely agree with all you say in that last post. I don't think I'm on a different side to Xenia, rather a different "sect" (in my fantasy world where these issues would hold any weight...!)
I'm just against this pathologizing of children as you put it( fantastic term BTW) and the people who bear them.

I don't think women should feel guilty for "not being there for their kids". I think women should have access to decent alternative childcare for their kids. I have recently made the transition from SAHM to WAHM and my 10 month old goes to daycare in the mornings. But I do think feminists have to make chid-care, pregnancy and a mother's abiity to breastfeed an important part of the movement and have first refusal to care for her baby i.e they have to focus on creating a working culture that supports women and the unique contribution they make to society, not a culture that behaves as though what women do is a hindrance to capitalist growth

Oh you don't have chidren yet. After you have a baby, and you realise what a miracle your body has produced you might change your mind about wanting to work straight away. It's just such an incredibly powerful biological force. IT just hits you when you look at your newborn. It really is hard to explain. After having my first baby I thought "Aha!" this is why women keep returning to looking after their babies. YOu can't intellectualise it. It just is. And I think this is how our species has survived. Lots of women don't have this Aha moment, and that's really good for women too, because it means these women can keep working. Lots of women don't even have a biological clock ticking and end up choosing not to have a baby at all. But it's silly for feminists to deny that for lots of women doing anything else apart from caring for their newborn seems instantly trivial and irrelevant when the baby's in your arms