This thread has really got me thinking. In particular about Botticelli's post on Saturday:
"I have no useful contacts for them.
No money at all to help them out, even with train fares to uni etc.
An upbringing in poverty, cold house,no nice things etc, with no experiences of travel, extra sports, music etc.
No experience or advice for them in how to forge a well paid career because its totally out of my world.
So I do envy that -- the advantages wealth can give your children."
She's not the only one on this thread who has mentioned that some of the jobs that other women do are not things that they had ever heard of, let alone know how to ensure you get the right qualifications for them, get on that career path etc. This is also reflected on the mirror thread about the 100k earners thread making them feel down.
It has really got me thinking about the fact that "poverty of aspiration" still exists, especially amongst girls, who I suspect are still subjected to gender-led careers advice, never taught to consider being high-flyers, particularly when they are from less affluent backgrounds where they may have no-one in their direct social circle who is a high earner.
There are too many women on MN who earn poorly because the world of higher paid jobs was never revealed to them. There are too many women who were never encouraged to think beyond traditional female roles. There are too many women who would have had no idea how to start aiming for these roles even if they had wanted to (and lets admit that the path to these kinds of roles starts early, in school, as early as GCSE choices) And I think MN might be able to do something to help ensure the next generation of women aren't trapped in the same cycle of "I didn't know it existed, I didn't know how to get there, I was never told how to do something different".
What I'm thinking of is some kind of MN Mentoring scheme, where MNers who are successful in a wide range of fields, but especially in high earning fields which are traditionally not the preserve of women, volunteer some of their time to mentor the children of MNers like Botticelli. We may not be able to help her with train fares, travel and sports for her kids (I think she would be offended if we even suggested that, and she's only one of thousands of women on MN in the same position), but we can do something to help her children think wider in terms of jobs, give them the benefit of our experience by sharing advice on how to forge that well paid career.
Personally, I'd like this to be aimed at girls rather than boys - its women who are less likely to be socially mobile, earn well, get stuck in low paid jobs etc. But I appreciate mothers of boys might feel differently, so I guess we would have to canvass opinion on that.
I think it would have to be online mentoring, on the board (maybe via a mentor inbox) to preserve anonymity. I don't see this beeing about helping someone by giving them a placement in their company (although some people may be willing to do this), more about giving advice, telling them about different careers etc.
What do you think? I'll ping a note to MNHQ about it - it may be a crappy idea, but worth a mention, I thought.