Women don’t actually want to make it to the top of the career ladder – Biznewz’s newest blogger

Gender quota conversations are right up there with religion and politics as dinner party killers. And, as I have discovered, career women are often among the staunchest opponents of having laws along the lines of black economic empowerment to redress the rampant and blatant chauvinism at the upper levels of corporations.

Let me state upfront that I am all for a more formal way of fixing this gender bias. Why? Because, whether we like it or not, the structural change required to eradicate – or even cut down on –discrimination against women won't happen on its own anymore than racial inequality could have been addressed without some major legal adjustments. The business world remains very much a man's world, whether you are in London, Beijing or Johannesburg. 

In this blog, Mo Haarhoff shares some personal anecdotes to illustrate her belief that gender quotas are 'utterly ridiculous'. Her piece illustrates how some women have come to accept, and be happy with, the fact that they will never achieve the ultimate success in their careers. Middle is good in order to balance work with raising children, is her message.

As for me: I still live in hope. – JC

By Mo Haarhoff*

Gender quotas in top management are utterly ridiculous.

Women may number over half of the population, but the proportion of women who really aspire to climb to the top of the corporate ladder is low, no matter how tempting the salaries.

To illustrate: two of my nieces, my brother's children, are presently living the reality. Both are hitting their 40s, were well educated and have excellent jobs: bright sparks.

Both have just returned to work after their second children were born.

One has a PhD from Cambridge and once married, finally obtained a transfer from the UK Treasury to work in the Welsh government because her husband, also with a Cambridge PhD, had taken up a position at a Welsh university.

She learnt immediately that a wedding ring demanded an adjustment in her goals and achievements, rather than in his.

After having her first child, she was hand-picked to work on an important project, but took leave to join her husband on invitation (from an American university) in the US for six months. She fell pregnant and had their second daughter while there. Because she was already on unpaid leave, she was still entitled to four months of maternity leave.

Eighteen months on, she's now back at work, but is privately a tad fretful. Her husband's salary does not match the esteem in which he's held. She cannot afford to stop working, but yearns to stay with her youngest a little longer.

The only job she has been given at work is to read through a lengthy document; she's bored and feels her intellect is wasted; a rude awakening.

The other niece, her sister, has a Masters degree in Business from London University and works for an investment bank. She has spent the last 15 years running their IT departments in cities throughout the world. She grew used to ex-pat perks and salary benefits. Her last stint was in New York.

She married only a few weeks ahead of transferring there, took her husband with her and had two babies in quick succession. Because her husband could not get a green card, he stayed at home looking after the kids. By the time that palled, they were on their way back to the UK.

He, now, would like to go to university, which means she needs to carry on working for at least another three years, probably more. She will also help finance her husband's education and find enough for child care for two kids, neither old enough for school. Her income is not quite as perky as it used to be.

Some evenings she doesn't get home before 11pm. She's been thrown into boring projects on her return to the office and feels she's being treated shabbily.

Why?

What most women don't understand is just how strongly the pull of their own children will be. I was always considered a fairly hard nut, whether because my son certainly did not fit the mould exactly or because teachers love to believe that single mothers make useless parents, but even I struggled to focus intently on work that I often considered less than all-consuming.

Think twice, Ladies. Adjust your goals and dreams to reality. One day, if you have children, you are likely to become a perfectly ordinary cog in the machine that is business.

Each time women take maternity leave, projects and work must be reallocated. In worst-case scenarios, new blood is hired to fill the gap left. By the time they get back to their jobs, mothers have lost twice the time they actually take off and are basically superfluous.

More junior workers have taken over where they left off. And many have twinkled, becoming the new bright stars in the firmament.

As I said to my sister-in-law today, both nieces have reached their pinnacle of success: bored to tears at work and yearning to be with their kids; needing and believing that they are worth more to their employers than they actually are.

Both will expect to take the odd day off when their kids are ill; both will feel, at times, that life has let them down just a little.

Perhaps equality in the workplace is overrated.

One of the quandaries most young mothers consider is whether to go back to work after having their first or second child. Many could use the extra money and have not thrown off the traditional thinking that they were born to eventually give up work; they never will.

Although they no longer believe that a wedding ring automatically gives them the right to kept womanhood, they struggle to accept that babies generally don't either.

I continually thanked God that this was not a question I needed to ask myself.

Women are now granted months of maternity leave, yet still fret about receiving lower salaries than their male counterparts.

I have yet to understand why.

My child was unplanned and somewhat of a culture shock. With a small kid, if you are not part of a couple, you associate with the mothers of your child's friends.

A freelancer, I fought to remain on medical aid once I became pregnant, was thrilled to have been given a mortgage bond (after being refused twice before) to buy my first house. It seemed that things were turning around for single women.

I did, however, as the sole income earner, return to work 10 days after having a caesarean section.

Advertising, the sector in which I then worked, was a singularly liberal atmosphere; no one questioned my dedication to the work or my need to adjust timings to take a baby into account.

For six months, the baby was always with me in meetings and by my side as I worked at home in the afternoons. Once he became less tractable, I took him to morning day care, picking him up on my way home after morning meetings. He spent many evenings and weekends in ad agencies while I worked.

By the time he was ready for school, I realised that he needed a play schedule that resembled those of his friends, so I found a full time job and knuckled down again to the old routine.

Only, I could never have managed being all things to all people; middle management was enough: the pinnacle of my success.

* Mo Haarhoff is just about pushing up the daisies of the working world: should-be and would-be pensioner, she'll probably never reach her aspired estate. She worked on the graphic design side of publishing and advertising for the first 20 years, moved on to middle management, back to PR and finally into research and writing. She now finally realises why her parents wanted her to be university educated…'Too late, she cried'.