Sexual Paradox

I am currently reading a book called Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker. It is excellent and very well written. She is, among other things, a child psychologist. She decided to contact some of her former patients to see how they were getting on with their lives as adults. She also contacted women who had been very bright at school, done well at University, had high powered jobs and then in their 30s and 40s changed careers because they wanted more than just a high powered job with a big salary.

She found the men - who had dyslexia or Asperger's syndrome - had mainly done very well for themselves in purely worldly terms; finding ways round their disability or going into spheres which made the most of their particular qualities. There was a chef who was dyslexic but had no problems reading his colleague's scrawled orders; the man who was totally hopeless in social situations but brilliant in his chosen field - computers. Apparently dyslexia, Autism and Asperger's are all mainly male problems and it is thought due to too much testosterone while the baby is in the womb. So a result of nature not nurture.

What I found most interesting is that w0men who have Asperger's - about 10% of the total sufferers - are far better in social situations than the males affected. This reflects the fact that girls develop social awareness much earlier than boys.

I have always accepted that men and women - in general - don't have the same qualities. But I don't believe that is a reason for denying either sex access to particular jobs. People mix up equality with the idea the sexes are the same. Many of those who believe the sexes are different think that excuses favouring one sex over the other which I don't believe should happen - any more than positive discrimination should happen. We may never have a situation where there are 50/50 men and women in the House of Commons or 50/50 men and women on the boards of the top companies but as long as there is no discrimination that is an acceptable situation in my view.

The gender pay gap

I'm not sure we should be surprised by the 'shock' announcement today that women earn over 20% less than men. We're not talking equal - or unequal - pay for equal work but the simple fact women do lower paid jobs than men. When I was working only 35% of my grade were women. If you went to the next grade up only 20% were women. But if you looked at lower grades a large majority were women.

Is this caused by lack of family friendly policies? In my particular employer - no very definitely not so. There was part time working, term time working, annual hours working and flexi time not to speak of paid time off for domestic emergencies and maternity leave as well as a raft of opportunities for unpaid leave and career breaks. We did not have a long hours culture either.

So why do women not earn as much as men? In my work women gravitated to certain areas of the organisation - customer service, welfare, HR etc. What were seen as the macho jobs - like the one I had just before I retired went to men in the main. But the macho jobs attract higher grades and consequently more money. By the time I retired I was working in a virtually all male environment and the culture is different. Women are seen as far less likely to be willing and able to do the job. But much of this is a false perception put about consciously or unconsciously by the men doing the job.

The work I did was seen as being results focused with an emphasis on confrontation which put off many women from even thinking about it as a career choice. In actual fact I got excellent results and without any unpleasant confrontations so the job does not have to be done in the same old way. I suspect in many organisations the same perceptions apply to the better paid jobs and as a result women don't apply for them and if they do they seem to be invisible because no one can picture them doing the job.

All the employment tribunals which involve high powered and apparently capable,
confident women complaining about the prevailing laddish culture and the endemic bullying really speaks for itself. If there is only one woman in a male environment there are always going to be these problems - until the culture changes because more women get these jobs which have always gone exclusively to men.

I am more than capable of standing up for myself in most circumstances and I'm not averse to making a scene if that's what it takes but I found the masculine ambiance at work a shade daunting. I was on good terms with all my colleagues but I found the lack of another woman to talk to on a regular basis made me feel isolated at times and I suspect many women in similar situations feel the same - or imagine they would feel the same - which is why they don't consider such jobs.

Just a few thoughts.