And yet it’s probably extremely pervasive. I know more than a few business owners who do not hire women for this reason. Too disruptive in their opinion.
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We have a few EA/administrative type positions at my firm. We have hired various kinds of people (male, female, younger, older, straight, gay) in these positions over the years but have found the people who fit best were young women, probably 1-2 years out of college, who had non-STEM majors and had worked in a bigger company for 1-2 years. When we did, we just decided that when we were hire that demographic, we should expect to have maternity leave taken regularly. The other thing we discovered is that in all but one case, the women took maternity leave and then did not come back. This might have meant getting a job closer to home or working from home or in one case becoming a SAHM and helping a bit with the husband’s business. My current EA has just come back from her 2nd child. When she returned (full-time) from leave the first time, she was operating at no more than 50% capacity. In contrast, she returned from the second leave at 95% capacity.
It appears you are in financial services? That would lead me to conclude a significant percentage of your employers customers are female.
It should be obvious that your executives and senior managers will be well informed by having shared experiences, empathy and familiarity with their client base. To truly meet the needs and wishes of a clientele any organization needs to be staffed by people representative of the community they are serving.
In terms of women’s “expectation” to be in senior roles while “taking breaks to become pregnant”, are you suggesting they should expect not to gain seniority if they choose to have children? A pragmatic response would be that as a society I think we would be wasting a tremendous resource by discriminating against child bearing women in a way that dissuades them from participating and excelling in the work place. I also find the implication of your rhetorical question to be immoral as it seemingly supports forcing female workers into having to decide between having children and pursuing careers. Good companies, with engaged and productive employees who serve satisfied customers value uniqueness and encourage and support “all” employees in striking a work life balance (not just those with penises).
As a warning this sort of myopic and dated perspective will likely limit your career advancement. I would open your mind rather than considering yourself a victim of the pursuit of gender equality.
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I mean I’ve got to disagree.
The heyday of financial services was long before 2008 and the industry was heavily Male.
The idea that we need gender representation to somehow meet client needs is absurd (most of our clients are institutional, not retail).
I mean at the moment, they’re not gaining seniority at the rate you’d expect. So something is clearly going wrong there…
As a warning this sort of myopic and dated perspective will likely limit your career advancement. I would open your mind rather than considering yourself a victim of the pursuit of gender equality.
I want to make it clear that I don’t consider myself to be a victim of gender equality. I was providing a rationale for why women are underrepresented.
I’m happy to take this to PM if you want because I’m aware that we’re going massively off-topic here. I didn’t respond to the above user because of this but felt compelled to defend myself here.
I started my career at a preeminent investment bank in the mid 1980s. So enlighten me.
When you say heyday do you mean back in the “good” times when cigars were smoked on the trading floor, “little people” were being used as “bowling balls” at Christmas parties and cocaine was being snorted off of Rolexes during bathroom breaks? Or perhaps you mean before Bloomberg existed, the concept of option adjusted spread hadn’t been contemplated and bonds traded based on dollar price versus yield (spread)? So as someone that was actually there I am intrigued.
I am a current (and repeat) CEO of a large financial institution. I am fine that we disagree but I base my comments on a broad lived experience.
This suggests you feel victimized regardless of your comment to the contrary.
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Well, if true, this could be because something is wrong with the women or because something is wrong with the work/work culture. You choose to believe it’s the former, but excuse us if many of us believe it’s the latter …
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When you say heyday do you mean back in the “good” times when cigars were smoked on the trading floor, “little people” were being used as “bowling balls” at Christmas parties and cocaine was being snorted off of Rolexes during bathroom breaks?
I mean I’ve spoken to a few older people on the floor and they were all pretty reminiscent about the 1990s and before. They regularly describe a culture that’s completely different to the one I’ve experienced - less regulatory burden, dinners, gifts, no ESG analysis/ratings using our ‘proprietary’ system because MSCI just isn’t good enough apparently… etc.
We’re under significant cost pressure these days with management fees being compressed across the industry - this was not the case 30 years ago.
I am a current (and repeat) CEO of a large financial institution. I am fine that we disagree but I base my comments on a broad lived experience.
And I base my own comments on my own ‘lived’ experience.
This suggests you feel victimized regardless of your comment to the contrary.
I’m just talking from a firm perspective. It makes no difference to me personally.
It’s their career, not mine at stake.
Edit: I really, really don’t want to argue about this. I have my beliefs, other people have their own beliefs. It really doesn’t matter what I think.
At least we can agree on that😀
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So it’s a messed up society that penalizes women for “taking a break” to have a baby. It’s not a break, that’s for sure. Fathers should be given paternity leave so that mothers can return to work as soon as they want to.
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Then I’ll assume everyone will move on.
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