Ladybucks

[laughing dog]

As a matter of fact, at one point, for a number of years, my sister did exactly the same job as male co-workers, put in as many hours or more on the same projects, taking the lead on some---and got paid less. Ostensibly because her job title was slightly different but it turned out that indeed there were one or two men with the same job title who were paid more. After spending some time trying to convince tptb that she should get the same pay, she took our father's advice and simply insisted that her job title and subsequently the same pay.

That's been some years ago but it was a very common practice: to give men and women different job titles and different pay grades but the same job duties. One job title was of course in line for more promotions. Women were assumed to be just killing time until marriage and kids, never mind that a woman may have no such plans. A man on the marriage/kid tract was seen as more responsible.

It's different now but at my workplace, a woman who has a baby is still seen as less dedicated and more likely to leave. All data to the contrary.

Well, if we're playing the anecdote game, my grampa smoked a pack of cigarettes a day from age 16, and he lived to be 102 years old. So, that stuff about smoking causing cancer is just crap. In fact, I'd say that smoking improves your health!

That anecdote allows one to conclude it reduces the intelligence of the descendents.

 

[Toni]

Interesting. Do you have any evidence beyond these anecdotes that this went on. I would tend to bet that it indeed did. How about that it still does? I find that less likely.

And do you have any evidence on this?

It's different now but at my workplace, a woman who has a baby is still seen as less dedicated and more likely to leave. All data to the contrary.

I wouldn't be surprised if women who have had babies ARE on average more likely to leave. The data contradicts that?

My observations contradict that. So far, no woman that I work with has left after having a child or children. However, there are snide comments during pregnancy that people guess she won't be working as hard or sticking around because women just don't work as hard after they have children. Yet, it is almost universally true that these same women are regarded as being the hardest working, the exact ones who pick up extra work as needed and who don't pass work off onto others the way childless workers or male workers tend to do. They do tend to ask for and get some schedule accommodations, as frankly I am getting to deal with an ongoing family situation right now (not child related.) I cannot generalize to say that men and childless workers are less productive in general but in my lab, those who are regarded as the 'get it done' people are all women with children, some of the children now grown and some of the children still quite young.

Now, as a society, yes, that is probably true, particularly when high quality child care is limited and expensive and there is less of an established support system for young families and with (in general) men still picking up less of the household/child care related chores. So far, only one man has taken any parental leave, although another man is in the middle of adopting an older child and is taking some parental leave in the form of some shorter work days and an occasional day off to help with the transition. Certainly society norms are strongly at play here. The idea of men taking parental leave is relatively new and in my workplace, is still unpaid so is harder to do. Women get a paid leave to recover from childbirth but not paid for adoption. I think this is foolish and wrong and short sighted. In my particular work unit, people rarely leave compared with others. This is directly because my work unit tends to be flexible with work schedules, etc. They can't expand the company's policies with regards to paid leave, etc. but they can make it easier for people to work shorter hours or more flexible hours and they do just that and have an enviable retention rate.