Women and the glass ceiling

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I was reading this really interesting article today and I thought it had a very interesting premise. It appears that a fund manager in the U.K. spoke at a Commons Select Committee (whatever that is) and criticized U.K. law which gave women a year of maternity leave plus flexible work schedules when she came back. The author of the article seems to be implying that the "glass ceiling" nowadays is more an artificial contruct that women are making for themselves. It is implying that women don't want to put in the long hours and work that is required for a top level job.

I think the author may be correct. My industry (public accounting) has become very female over the last couple of decades. I would be willing to guess that it may be almost 60% female, however there is a lack of female senior management and partners in the industry. My experience is that we seem to lose the women when they get to around 30 years of age. It is very tough on us as by that point they have become CPAs, probably have a masters, and the firm has spent countless hours and money training them. Then they seem to give it all up for marriage and family (I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, only bad for the firm). Some come back and work part time, but they never seem to have the drive they had when they were younger. They seem to want to find a nice position with a lot of flexibility and stay there and be comfortable (my opinion). Now I know I'm basing my observations on one industry in one part of the country and it could be vastly different elsewhere and in different industries. I found it interesting.

Spoiler

'The truth is the only glass ceiling that exists today is created by women'
By Maureen Rice
Last updated at 9:12 AM on 21st October 2009

When I was pregnant with my first child 20 years ago, we all knew exactly what the glass ceiling was, who put it there, and how we - we being a new generation of ambitious young women determined to succeed at work on a level footing with men - were going to power our way right through it.

Two decades on, those certainties are all gone, and that kind of thinking sounds hopelessly outdated.
While more women - including 70 per cent of mothers - work than ever before, and we've had legislation to create equal pay, extended maternity leave and flexible working, hardly any of us are in the 'top jobs' we thought we'd have by now.

The figures are dismal. Only 9 per cent of directors in the UK's top 100 companies, 23 per cent of Civil Service top management and 20 per cent of MPs are women. Plainly, there are still barriers that hold women back.

But it's not the same glass ceiling I was looking up at all those years ago when I bought jackets to hide my baby bump, rushed back to work long before my paid maternity leave was up, and pretended that I was 'collecting my car from the garage' rather than admit to sneaking off to a primary school assembly.
Attitudes to women at work have changed beyond our wildest dreams since then.
When fund manager Nichola Pease spoke out last week to a Commons Select Committee to criticise British women's entitlement to a year of maternity leave plus flexible working, she undoubtedly shocked many working women.

Yet she was only saying what many managers and business owners of both sexes have been thinking for years.
'Women get everything they want,' complained one male boss of a marketing agency.

'They work for a couple of years, take a whole year off, insist on coming back part-time - and still complain that there are so few women in charge.'

Krystyna Nowack, a City headhunter, also approved of Pease's bombshell. 'This needed to be said - and it's great that a woman said it. If it had been a man, it would have been written off as chauvinism.'

The truth is that, these days, the barriers exist more in our own heads than in any old- school system of sexism. We've reached a point where we feel confused and conflicted about what we want from work.

In other words, it's women now who are constructing a glass ceiling above their own heads - because they want more from life than just the grind of a very senior position and the cripplingly long hours that go with it.

Intriguingly, too, it's not just working mothers who are wondering whether it's all worth it.

Read any women's magazine, drop in on any female-orientated internet forum, and the 'hot issue' in working women's lives is how we can get some balance and fulfilment into our over-crowded lives, rather than fighting for our right to work 12-hour days and get to the top.

If women aren't running the country or big business, it's mainly because we just don't want to. Any glass ceiling that's in place these days isn't an enemy to women, but our alibi.

One 38-year- old woman I know, Claire, is a perfect example. After getting top marks in her A-levels and a good degree from a top university, she won a place on a graduate scheme for a City bank, where she was fast-tracking her way to the top.

'I loved the sense of achievement, the money, and the satisfaction I got from doing my job well,' she says.

But as she entered her 30s, the shine began to wear off.

'The truth is that all jobs get to be a grind,' she says. 'To do well in the City (or in any big job), you have to be prepared to work very, very hard and to make your job a priority. I got sick of being constantly exhausted, and of never switching off from work.'

When she met her future husband, Dan, she was already planning her exit strategy.

'I was getting more pleasure from decorating our house, and planning weekends away for us,' she says. 'I began to tune out of work.'

Can you imagine a high-flying man saying something like that?

By the time Claire was 34, she was pregnant with her first child. 'I took seven months' paid maternity leave, but I knew I wouldn't go back. You can't have a child and work killingly long hours, then come home too tired and distracted to be a proper parent.'

These days, she doesn't work at all, though she says: 'I'd like to do something part-time when Daisy is older.'
Here is a woman who has chosen at what point she wanted to apply her own glass ceiling to her career - the level at which she chose not to go any higher for her own valid reasons.

Research by Catalyst, an advisory group for working women, found that Claire's story is typical.

Almost 60 per cent of middle-level women 'drop out' of the career track from their mid-30s onwards - either to stop seeking promotion, to take a career break, to work fewer hours, or to start their own business on their own terms.

Often it's because, like Claire, they simply don't want to do a full-time job while their children are small.

But sometimes it's just because they are sick and tired of giving so much to their jobs, and getting so little back.

According to Mintel, almost 40 per cent of the adult population is single and child-free, so you might expect a generation of 'power singletons' to be taking over.

But while numbers of women of any kind in big jobs have increased over the past 20 years, it's been slowly, and not by much.

A survey by Red magazine last week found that a majority of women without children would also love to have a maternity-leave style paid break from work - without having to have a baby to justify it.

Sahar Hashemi, who co-founded the coffee chain Coffee Republic before leaving her brother to run the business while she freelanced as a consultant, was another typical 'corporate drop out'.

She says: 'A lot of women walk away because they want to live and work differently, not because anyone is forcing them out.'

Working women are not shoulder-padded pioneers any more. We are no longer a novelty, and we no longer feel we have anything to prove.

While being a 'career woman' had cachet 25 years ago, these days, it's just one of a menu of choices that women have created for themselves: full-time, part-time, self-employed, on sabbatical. They're all valid options.

In the office at the magazine I edit, there are two women doing a job share, working half the week each (and only one of them is a mother), and almost everyone else has taken the company up on its offer to sacrifice part of their salary to buy an extra week off every year.

Wherever there is a choice - and I do realise that 'choice' can be a luxury - quality of life, good relationships, and enough time for their families, friends and interests outside work are the priorities for today's working women.

It's what Sarah Jackson, chief executive of the charity Working Families, calls 'a cultural temperature change'.

Now that men and women work in almost equal numbers, she says, 'it's quality of life we're struggling with' - not the next promotion.

Before we complain too much that women aren't running the world, we need to consider that in return for this flexibility, we have choices that most men don't. If we still bump up against a glass ceiling occasionally (even if now it is of our own making), men have to look out of a glass window.

They can see all these other lives, involving part-time study, flexible working, sabbaticals and kitchen table businesses, but they can't have them.

It just isn't socially or professionally acceptable for most men to question how fulfilling their mid-level job is, or to downshift and let their partner take care of the bills.

And even if it were, would we like it? Recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that most mothers would still prefer it if their partner were the main breadwinner.

Socially and psychologically, most women have more choices than most men now, not fewer. Thirty-five years after the Equal Pay Act, we're realising that 'success' just doesn't mean the same thing for women.
Research at the Cranfield School of Management found that men still tend to define success at work in terms of promotions, salaries and job titles.

Women, on the other hand, talk about feeling personally fulfilled, the respect of their colleagues, and feeling that their contribution makes a difference.

'I'd rather earn a bit less, and have more time for myself,' admits one woman I know, Sarah, who's 34.

'I sing with a band, and at least two nights a week we rehearse together, so I leave work a little bit early on those nights.

'We're never going to be famous - but it's something I love. I work in accounts, and being able to express the other, more creative part of myself is really important to me.'

Another reason few women want to fight their way to the top of the corporate or political ladder is that women are now more at war with each other than with men at work.

The long-running feud between working and stay-at-home mothers is one of the bitterest and most heated of debates, with each side feeling hurt and disrespected by the other.

Meanwhile, working mothers wage a more subtle but equally tense war with their child-free colleagues.

The truth is that each of us wants a bit of what the other has - and that's why so many of us aren't sitting in a director's chair in the boardroom, but muddling along somewhere in the middle.

We don't want to work ourselves to death; but we don't want to opt out of the world of work either. We don't want to have it all any more.

We long ago learned that the only way to be happy - for us, as well as our partners and families - is to have just a bit of everything.

'I still love it when women reach the top,' one of my professional friends told me the other day.

'I think we need it, as a society, and it makes me feel proud. And I'd love it if there were more women in the important, decision-making positions.'

Then she pauses for a minute, before speaking for most of us: 'I just don't want to do it myself.'

 

You are really basing your comments on only one experience: where you happen to be working; it doesn't reflect your industry, nor does it reflect your part of the country. I have to be honest, and tell you that that is one of the worst posts you've ever posted in the time I have been on these boards. I won't even bother to dispute any of your points in which you generalize about women to such a degree to be beyond even absurdity, and it isn't worth the time or effort, since it pretty much speaks for itself. Have a nice day.

 

Err... isn't that the goal of everyone? To be able to get a flexible job that allows you to comfortably balance work and home life? I don't think that applies only to women... I think everyone wants a job that doesn't suck.

 

I completely agree. However, in order to get one of the top jobs in many companies and industries sacrifices of time and lifestyle have to to be made. I know I am not willing to make those types of sacrficies as I enjoy my family and leisure time too much. I don't remember who it was who said it, but the fact that CEO's tend to exhibit some of the traits of sociopaths doesn't surprise me. To take that to the next level it also doesn't surprise me (as the author believes) that many women don't want to get to that level because they don't exhibit those same traits.

 

And yet they complain about men getting the better positions and better salaries. Quite irrational those women, aren't they?

Personally I think the costs of maternity leave should be divided equally between both parent's employers. Then we'd get rid of this "it's because of them having kids!" excuse for not having equal pay, not to mention that it would be more equal solution anyhow. I think this is a good issue where we see how women really aren't treated equally in the labor markets anywhere, with them being forced to carry the burden of a child alone in this regard. And this has not even happened in Finland where the gender gap (according to world economic forum) is waaaaaaaay smaller than in the US.

 

Maybe I'm misreading you, Snook. Are you saying that it is particular to women who are part-time workers? or to full-time emoployees? That's a big difference, since part-time workers typically have no interest in moving from their positions (otherwise they would be full-time). Now you seem to be saying something different from that of the article you posted. Or maybe I am misunderstanding you.

 

Some people put biological needs and personal fulfillment above pretending everyone's exactly the same! Patriarchy! Racism! Bigotry! Sexism! Nazism! ... wait, what?

"It's unfair only women can have babies"? What?

 

Are you implying that men should be forced to take paternity leave? That would even the playing field, but it would never happen. Anyone who takes any extended time off shouldn't be surprised if others in the organization pass them and/or get promoted over them.

What I'm saying (and what I've observed, and what I believe the author is trying to say) is that women are doing just fine. That attempts to force women into the boardrooms and CEO positions may be misguided as there may not be enough women who are desirous of those positions. The sacrifices that have to be made to have those positions are more then most "normal" men would be willing to make and women would probably find them even less attractive.

If anything women are in a much better position as businesses have adapted to the situation as they have realized that having certain women available part time may be far more advantageous then losing them. I have yet to see in any company I have worked for or with a man who has stepped down from a full-time carear track and been offered anything remotely close to what a women may be offered. Yes, I am envious, but I know it will never happen to me as our family's needs require me to work full time (which in may case during parts of the year can exceed 70 hours a week).

 

No, I would give each couple a set time of paternity/maternity leave and leave it up to them to decide how to divide that time. I would also force the employers of both parents to divide the costs equally (as I allready stated).

This is mainly a cultural issue, biology has very little to do with it.

I don't believe I said or even implied that. There are two parents, not only the one giving birth. So the responsibility and costs should obviously be divided equally. Only the laws regarding pregnancy and maternity leave are unfair, not really maternity leave in itself.

It's easy to see why you're confused when you at first ramble about something irrelevant which has nothing to do with what I actually said.

 

I think an easier solution already exists. Require employers to extend the same amount of maternity/paternity leave to employees of both genders. If the employer offers paid maternity leave (in the US, employers are not required to extend paid maternity leave), require them to extend paid paternity leave as well on the grounds of gender equality. A lot of men would use paternity leave if they could -- and pretty much all of us would take it if the leave were paid. A measure like this would go far to remove the incentive for employers to favor men over women.

 

I think it is too ingrained in our culture. Men would never take such a long time off as we know no matter what the law says it would hurt our carear. Although two weeks to a month wouldn't be bad. Can I get that retroactive?

 

I agree with Drew about providing equivalent paternity leave, and it has been suggested (some companies even employ it). I don't think it would change much, though. Be it societal or biological, women tend to get more out of the social elements of life (organizing family vacations, playing with children, hanging out with other moms, etc.) than men do. This will automatically mean that more women take leave then men, and thus more men get promoted.

I do agree to some degree with the original article, that many women today choose their own cap. My mother did almost 30 years ago, and while she would love to have stayed in the industry all those years and been involved in the interesting tech stuff, she's loved being a mother more. It's needing to choose between the two that I think most women don't like, but that's a basic fact of life.

Beyond that, though, I do think there's still sexism in the work place in some places. I don't have nearly enough cross-discipline experience to make particular statements, but I'll guess there are still "old boy's clubs" out there, and male CEOs who just don't think any woman could cut it. That being said, though, the presence of female CEOs and such proves it is possible, and looking at them can tell us more about the costs. How many of them have healthy nuclear families? How many who do have husbands who took the "mommy" role and raised the children?

 

See? How sexist is that? I don't mean you, but if a man helps raise the children it's suddenly a "mommy role?" That's just moronic that a dad can't be a dad rather than just a corporate minion. The real implication is that women are suited to a mommy role and can't break out. That's the glass ceiling and that kind of comment only proves that women are stuck in the "mommy role" and little else.

I think it takes TWO parents to raise children if both parents are living in the household. Now, there are single parents, for whatever reason, and those parents have an ultra-tough job trying to raise the children pretty much alone. They struggle and the children suffer for the lack of the well-rounded care that two parents can provide. If you ever decide to become a dad, be dad, and help rasie the kids, rather than leaving it all up to the woman in the household. Your kids will love you for it.

It depends on the career. If you are a corporate lackey, then yes. You will find that most of big business is not very "family friendly." But if you are, say, someone who has his own business or works on his own, and works out of the home, how could it hurt? This is 2009 and people who know how to think outside the box are more in demand than those who can't, even in the corporate scene.

 

I tend to disagree. Not all men are "blue flamers" -- obsessively trying to get ahead. Not all women want to sacrifice their careers to raise their kids. It would be really nice if parents got to decide which of them will make career sacrifices for the kids or whether to share the burden equally. Employers and legislators shouldn't be making that decision for us.

I'm reminded of my time in the military. As most of us know, the US military is one of the best employers in the United States where equal opportunity is concerned*. They often allow their members the option to leave the service if they become pregnant while unmarried or even if they are married -- but to another service member. A military couple I knew became pregnant, and they elected to take that option. The husband left the Army. Why? His wife was a better soldier.

* Unless you're gay. Or fat.

 

I think you're seeing the world too red and blue Chandos. This argument isn't very solid, and sounds like the same parroted rhetoric I've heard a million times.

 

First off, we have paid paternity and maternity leave here in Sweden and it took a little while for it to catch on but is now all the rage. Believe it or not men wants to, if they can, see their children grow up. You get one part only the mother can take, one part for the father and one part they than distribute as they please. Men are actually taking a bigger and bigger chunk out of the part the couple can distribute as they want.

I think this is an issue where we won't see women becoming more like "men" but rather men becoming more like "women". From what I can gather by just looking around me is that the younger generations of men are less and less career driven and just see work as something to do to pay the bills. Basically they seem to be turning into the women you describe in your post.

 

You are correct, but I don't think that is the point. The outcry is the lack of women at the top of major corporations. There is a vast difference between the two.

 

Well, at least I have an "arugment," something you haven't bothered with on your side yet. Also, you've heard it a million times and you still don't get it? Keep working at it....

Snook - Ok, then. Perhaps I overreacted a bit to your comments. However:

The solution?

The notion that one stays with one company for his lifetime and then retires is pretty much gone. A lot of the time now it's a better career move to "job hop" for better pay and advancement.

From the article, Joac, and it could apply just as easliy to men as it does to women.

 

It's the traditional role of the mother to stay at home, raise the children, and take care of the house. It has been for centuries. I don't think it's sexism so much as you reading insults and implications into it when none were there.

I agree with this completely, but the traditional "father" role and the traditional "mother" role are two very different roles. Both need to be present and active, yes, but they aren't the same. Attempts to blend them in the name of gender equality in the past years have failed miserably.

If you own your own business, you don't "take time off" (usually indicating payed leave), you go "temporarily out of business".

It is a point, though, that it depends on the career track. I don't think a local manager at McDonalds would have trouble taking time off (provided they have capable replacements), but anyone looking to move up in the world would be advised not to, or at least to limit it.

 

Actually the problem is worse in all retail -- I know a woman who's a manager at McDonald's and she was just given two weeks (without pay) after having a c-section. She would have been replaced had she taken longer. You obviously don't really have a good feel for what it takes to manage a restaurant (even fast food), based on your comments. Many professional careers are getting much better for women (it's not quite there yet though).