Cookery lessons and the gender pay-gap

Dinner with two old friends on Saturday night.  Twenty years ago we stepped out on the bottom rung of the career ladder together; spent our identical pay packets in crowded Soho pubs.  Now, he is the recently-appointed head of a global organisation.  She is a stay-at-home mum.  She resigned from her law firm a few years ago:  the work-life balance was making everyone miserable.

On his to-do list:  solving the gender pay-gap problem.  He is ardent about getting more women in more roles across the whole organisation; genuinely wants to make a difference.  On her to-do list:  call plumber; book dentist; tidy hallway cupboard.  She is less passionate about her agenda.

“Do you miss the law” I ask her, and cringe as the words leave my mouth.  She fixes me with a steely gaze.  “I don’t miss feeling guilty as I slip away from work at 5pm whilst everyone else is still working away.  I don’t miss having to be debriefed on my child’s day by the nanny and feeling terrible that I wasn’t the one soothing my troubled girl after something bad happened at school.  But I miss the status.  And I miss having an easy answer to the question “So, what do you do?” 

“Do you miss your children?” I ask him.  He never sees them, or his wife.  “I’m dead on the inside”, he says, only half-jokingly.

There’s a big imbalance here, and the gender pay-gap is only part of the problem.  Families aren’t spending enough time together.  Bright people aren’t using their skills and talents. 

How to redress the balance?  Decent, affordable childcare might help, but this as a solution doesn’t meet all needs.  Not the needs of the parent who wants to be a bit more present in their child’s lives.  Not the needs of the child who wants someone to make them breakfast on the day of an exam, or give them a cuddle when they get home from school.  Helping parents share the load a bit more equally is the way forward.  We have the technology to enable more flexible working practices – heck, we have teams working in space – but we need massive culture change too.  First, corporate leaders must walk the talk:  crush presenteeism; curtail the ridiculous, macho business dinners; leave work early from time to time to pick the kids up from school.  Second, we need a shift in public opinion:  work carried out in the domestic sphere needs to be valued. 

Things won’t happen overnight.  This is a long game.  Meanwhile, savvy mums are quietly nudging change forward.  Gently fomenting revolution in the home.  They’re teaching their sons to cook.

Mel Barrett
Monday 5 March 2017