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Are women naturally less ambitious than men?

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Sleepy wrote:
    If someones going from an executive postion to being a receptionist after just two years out it's because they're short-selling themselves. Maybe that's what happens in the states but it certainly doesn't happen here.

    My mother left her job in a bank to have me, then had my younger brother and sister and returned to work sixteen years later and got a new job with the same bank (though in a different county and branch) at only a grade below her old position.

    I can see why some people may choose to re-enter their career at a significantly lower level in order to have more free time to spend with their children but I don't think that people are necessarily forced to go right back to the bottom of the career ladder when they return from a hiatus.

    Sleepy- that USED to be possible - what your mother did. But not now. This is the case in the US. I would even say that if you've been out for 5 years there is absolutely no point in going back. Think about it - you have to compete with younger women who have more up to date skills and youth and smaller salaries. At least here - every profession from law to medicine to accounting - make their staff [and this is legally required at least on state by state basis] take classes to keep up to date with latest developments in their fields.

    Zulu - I agree with you. And I wish more people did. But they see it that if you've been out of the workforce your qualifications are compromised.

    I can see both sides of it and Im arriving at the conclusion that we have two imcompatible models working together to create one big mess.

    I also feel that women are biologically disadvantaged to the point where it feels like a disability. I'm sorry but thats what it feels like sometimes in the context of careers.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,966 ✭✭✭✭Zulu


    I also feel that women are biologically disadvantaged to the point where it feels like a disability...
    Oh give me a rest. :rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭simu



    I also feel that women are biologically disadvantaged to the point where it feels like a disability. I'm sorry but thats what it feels like sometimes in the context of careers.

    I have to say I disagree. Having a kid gives you more focus, I find - your career isn't just a means to buy designer goods or whatever anymore, you actually have somebody depending on you completely. Yeah, it's possibly a disadvantage if you're working in some hard-core Wall Street 80-hour week type environment but that's a pretty crazy lifestyle choice for anyone to make, kids or not, imo!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 288 ✭✭hepcat


    its not all fluffy bunnies you know, for every president of intel there s a guy in the gutter with a bottle of alcohol who risked the same and lost everything

    Come on, you're Alan Partridge aren't you?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    simu wrote:
    I have to say I disagree. Having a kid gives you more focus, I find - your career isn't just a means to buy designer goods or whatever anymore, you actually have somebody depending on you completely. Yeah, it's possibly a disadvantage if you're working in some hard-core Wall Street 80-hour week type environment but that's a pretty crazy lifestyle choice for anyone to make, kids or not, imo!

    Well a career is not just about buying designer goods. Its about actualising your potential, harvesting your talents and contributing something to the world. I find that perspective that careers are soley about material possession [which they are partially] a little patronising quite frankly especially when your positing that having a child is somehow a superior endeavor.

    What kind of focus do you need to be a surgeon? Or a top class athlete? Or a professional dancer? Or a writer?

    Give me a break.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,289 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    metrovelvet - why do I get the impression that you've some related but unresolved issues (inability to have children / bitter about a lack of success in your career or the like) that are making you very bitter about this subject? I'm not trying to be mean or hurtful in the slightest but your views here seem to come more from the "woman scorned" emotional standpoint than any calm rational observations...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Sleepy-

    Are you deliberately trying to wind me up? Im so offended by your latest post on so many levels I dont even know where to start.

    I think you are quite rude to be asking me whether or not I can have children. I cant have an opinion unless its somehow grounded in my biology?
    Unbelievable.

    Actually I think you're the one who has been emotional and irrational on this thread. Any sign of sympathy for a woman whose had to take time out for her kids and you wont even try to see her point of view.

    Im pointing out unfair assumptions. Simu said that having children makes you focus and said it such a way that careers are only for people who want to buy designer goods and that there is something more noble in having someone completely dependent on you. Im not placing one over the other as more valuable, but I will certainly bring you down if you claim that motherhood is superior to the other choices women have made, like becoming athletes, world class performers, maverick scientists, writers etc and reduce these scarifices to being motivated to buy Gucci.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭simu


    Eh, most people pursue their careers for money. "actualising your potential, harvesting your talents and contributing something to the world"??? That sounds like something straight out of a college careers service brochure tbh.

    I don't know why you got so offended by my post - I'm just giving my own experience (note the "I find") and I didn't say it was the same for everyone. And why did I give my own experience? Because reading this thread, you'd think it was impossible for a woman to have a family and a career or that all interest in a career goes out the window the second a baby arrives but frankly, I don't think things are all that bad.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Simu- I didn't get offended by your post. I was offended by Sleepy's post.

    Well I dont know what to tell you, the women I know do have dreams and they are not about buying Christian Dior. If they were solely for money we would all be in corporate finance, and I as far as I know that is not dominated by women yet. Sure money is part of it but not all of it.

    In some careers it is impossible, like professional dance. Or some athletics. Medicine. High end corporate/law/finance. Beleive it or not there are women who want to achieve things.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 43,045 ✭✭✭✭Nevyn


    It has been 5 years for me as a stay at home parent, but I am looking at getting new skills and a change in what was my career rather then going back to what I was doing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Thaedydal- yes you can look at like a chance for a fresh start too.

    OT comment for a sec:
    [As for your sig - reminded me that it would be appropriate to have a Valoween Day]


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 43,045 ✭✭✭✭Nevyn


    OT - Everyday can be Holloween if you want it to be :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    OT-

    I was thinking about love and fear lately and thought it would be good to have a holiday which combined terror. lust and romance. :D :eek: Valoween.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭simu


    Beleive it or not there are women who want to achieve things.

    Look who's patronising now. :v:


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,988 ✭✭✭constitutionus


    hepcat wrote:
    Come on, you're Alan Partridge aren't you?

    *dons blue v neck sweater* " ah haaaw!" :D


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,289 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Sleepy-

    Are you deliberately trying to wind me up? Im so offended by your latest post on so many levels I dont even know where to start.
    I apologise for any offence but I'm genuinely just trying to figure out where you're coming from.
    I think you are quite rude to be asking me whether or not I can have children. I cant have an opinion unless its somehow grounded in my biology?
    Unbelievable.
    Did I say that you can't? No, I asked was it the case that you had some major factor influencing your opinions on this because, frankly, a lot of them seem to come from some whimisical, magical land where women's careers are all straight from Danielle Steele novels instead of the real world where people have careers in order to pay their way through life. Yes, a degree of job satisfaction exists for most people but like simu pointed out: "actualising your potential, harvesting your talents and contributing something to the world" is like something from a brochure. Maybe it's just the difference between the Irish and Americans but we just don't buy into that kinda crap tbh.
    Actually I think you're the one who has been emotional and irrational on this thread. Any sign of sympathy for a woman whose had to take time out for her kids and you wont even try to see her point of view.
    Show me where I've been emotional or irrational? I'm a cold sort of person when it comes to these things. I look at the facts, listen to reasoned argument and then form my opinions. I don't see why in this day and age it has to be the woman who takes time out of their career to have kids (beyond the time required to actually have the baby and recover from the physical impact of giving birth).
    Im pointing out unfair assumptions. Simu said that having children makes you focus and said it such a way that careers are only for people who want to buy designer goods and that there is something more noble in having someone completely dependent on you.
    I didn't read Simu's post that way at all to be honest. I read it to mean that most people work in order to buy the things they want and pay for their lives and that having a child doesn't necessarily discourage a career drive but can encourage you to work harder at your career as you now have someone utterly reliant on your ability to provide for them. Did I pick this up right Simu?
    Im not placing one over the other as more valuable, but I will certainly bring you down if you claim that motherhood is superior to the other choices women have made, like becoming athletes, world class performers, maverick scientists, writers etc and reduce these scarifices to being motivated to buy Gucci.
    What is it with your constant usage of glamourous careers as examples in this thread? Out of the thousands of people I know, I know one who has a career as an athlete, one who has a career as an performer, none who could be described as 'maverick' scientists, and none who have made a living from writing (outside the world of journalism). Most people work 9 to 5's in offices. It may be dull but it's real.

    The type of careers you're talking about are exceptional ones where huge amounts of talent, opportunity, sacrifice and sheer luck are required. It makes more sense (to me at least) to look at more 'normal' careers when discussing issues such as the impact of having children on a career in such general terms as the discussion requires. Maybe I'm wrong?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Ok Sleepy. Well I guess we're working within very different frames of reference so I'll exempt myself from this discussion.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭b3t4


    Apologies for not leaving a dying thread die:

    An interesting document I came across today at www.ewm.ie/dwl/FORUM.DOC It discusses the subject matter of this thread. A quote from said document:

    "In relation to vertical segregation, the strong association that exists between putting in long hours and perceived ‘seriousness’ about career negatively impacts on women’s promotion opportunities"

    "Of the four countries studied, Denmark (which has the highest level of female labour force participation) has the smallest difference in hours worked by women and men. Interestingly, although women’s labour market participation in Ireland is higher than in Italy, women in Ireland work fewer hours. Employees surveyed in Ireland agreed that working long hours and putting work before family were seen as characteristics of those who are ‘serious’ about career advancement. In contrast, the attitudes of employees in Denmark are markedly different, and show that a different workplace culture is both possible and consistent with a competitive economy."

    A.


This discussion has been closed.
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