It’s well-known that women earn less than men. The size of the gap varies from company to company, industry to industry, country to country but we all know that women tend to make less than men. They don’t get the promotions and they don’t get the big bucks. Fact.
When I was a student, I believed that the undermining of women was due to sexism in the workplace. But once I had started my working life, I got thinking. Perhaps us girls aren’t very reliable. We fall in love, have babies, get distracted by domestic arrangements, take time out for swimming lessons, and spend as little time as possible at work. There are practical and emotional reasons for our disadvantage. Dad’s, of course, are never affected in the same way. They are not penalised. And, if you are of a child-bearing age and don’t have a baby, you will soon become pregnant, and 9-months later be rendered near useless.
Now it turns out that I might have been right the first time: it is a kind of sexism. But not all women suffer to the same extent. Those of us with children, new research suggests, are better treated in the workplace than childless women. Quite extraordinary, don’t you think? You would think that those heroes who work late, don’t take school and public holidays, and don’t siphon off maternity benefits would be treated with more respect than mothers. Not so says Dr Caroline Gatrell of Lancaster University. After six years of research, she found that women who are seen to have chosen a career over children are more likely to be “vilified” at work by bosses who regard them as “cold and hard”. They lack an “essential humanity”. (Imagine thinking that about any other demographic group!) Such women, she says, are regarded as “emotionally deficient in an almost dangerous way” and because they are seen as not being “people’s people” are overlooked for promotion.
Does this suggest that the “warm, caring” mothers are more likely to be better paid and higher up the career ladder. No. This really is a no-win situation. Dr Gatrell says “Women with children are blamed for combining motherhood with paid work – and women with no children are sidelined and discounted because they are not mothers.”
We can’t ignore that we still face fundamental gender-based inequality. My husband says its self-inflicted. I think the way forward, or backwards some of you might say, is to encourage our smart, savvy and capable daughters to marry for money.

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