The sisterhood – or why women have their claws out in the workplace

I went to a hen party yesterday, and suffice to say, this morning my head hurts. Saved by a late night curry, I’ve excised the worst of my hangover, but I have had my fill, for this year, at least, of saccharine cocktails sucked through penis straws – although, if men ever deigned to take their beer from furry cups on stags, I’m sure we’d all have something to say.

I love the girl whose party I went to yesterday, so I’m sure she won’t mind my saying that ‘girl’s nights’ are not my favourite occasions – all false camaraderie and organised ‘fun.’ I find gaggles of women in general hard work, particularly, now, in my mid thirties, I don’t particularly feel the need to make any new friends, and from the old ones, I want their undivided attention over cocktails.

As hen parties go, it was one of the nicest I’ve been too, all unlimited Prosecco, elegant pre-ordered meal and Mr and Mrs Smith games, followed by 80s dressing up, where we – quite literally – crimped and primped with blue eyeshadow and florescent leg warmers, which was both the highlight of the night, as well as being the most compatriot. Then followed the obligatory gay bar, karaoke, a spot of pole dancing and a club that was the epitome of cheese. It was well done, and I tip my hat to the organisers – one of whom was tired and emotional before we’d even hit the club – no doubt exhausted – and punchdrunk – from ensuring that perfect strangers were enjoying the night she’d spent the last six months pulling together.

In this microcosm of oestrogen, a world of fascinating female power struggle can be observed, lying just beneath the surface of superficial smiles, false lashes and henpecking concern. It is telling, but tragic, just how hard we are all on each other, and the struggles we endure that make us thicken our skin and sharpen our claws. Women are not kind to each other, but is this symptomatic of a society that is not kind to women, or just the natural pecking order asserting itself?

In a room full of thirty-something career women, I was the only parent; successful, most, some approaching the top of the management tree, some opting for careers in fields not normally populated by women. All degree educated or higher, many doctors, lawyers or chemists. But there was one among our number, Laura,  the last to get married, who was five months gone. After the initial clucking from the group, she fettled into feminine languor: bodily tired, and sipping at diluted wine, it was clear she was thoroughly frustrated about the infantilism her condition necessitates: that your body is no longer your own to do what you like with feels, these days, the antithesis of everything we have always been told about ourselves as modern day liberated women. For the first time in her life, the physical limitations of being female were glaringly apparent to us all, but only I knew the extent of that dog-tired discomfort that endures longer than the average rapist ‘s prison sentence.

Maternity packages became a topic of conversation: these well educated career girls bore no truck with women who gave birth ‘inappropriately’ in the workplace. The right to bear children is a fiercely guarded privilege, it seems, and those who transcend the fiscal and hierarchical lines conferred on them by their job title and have a child regardless deserve only what they get, which it seems should be shoddy maternity pay and a sharpish return to the job at hand (which isn’t raising the next generation). It is, it seems, a badge of honour to be in the privileged position of accruing enough company brownie points to have acquired the corporate right to be paid to breed.

Over wine, one friend, Rachel, who has worked her way up through a combination of middle class privilege, knowing the right people and bloody hard graft, to the position of running a team for one of Britain’s bigger employers, talked about her excitement at getting sprogged up as soon as, but in the following breath, talking about recruiting mothers in the workplace,  expressed her disinclination, despite the law.

Like many women in power in the workplace, she agrees that working with other women is tough, and noted that she was “hard to work for,” but she reserved her biggest scorn for a woman she had hired who, older then her, had a “chip on her shoulder” and once bitten, Rachel was hesitant to recruit another older woman, who had, during the interview process felt it necessary to articulate that she had “had her children”. Age and its associated wisdom were seen by Rach as a potential threat: the women’s children, as a burden. “All I could think,” Rachel said, “is that she will be running off at half past five to get home to her kids, and she’ll need time off for parents’ evenings and norovirus.”

Be that as it may, (and it may well not  be – who knows whether she had a partner who could pick up the slack, or whether she could be paid well enough to have good childcare – although many are not) I was shocked. Despite feeling a target for this type of discrimination myself once or twice, that this anti-mother, ageist discrimination was so boldly articulated, particularly when dished out from someone who works for one of Britain’s bigger corporate employers.

I barely need to say that I argued my point: that mothers work harder, are better organised and more time efficient than many of their younger, more carefree colleagues. “If they take time off for child sickness or strikes,” I said, before flouncing off for a menthol Vogue, “they tend not to come in with roaring hangovers and spend their days wanking about on YouTube.” I pointed my (unlit) fag at my preggo friend, Laura. “Just you wait,” I slurred, four Proseccos down, and slightly wonky of eye, “business and motherhood don’t mix.” Out I staggered in my vintage shop Marc Jacob patents, while Laura looked fit to burst into tears into her lime and soda.

It’s fair to say that the distinctly undemocratic, hierarchical corporate environment in which these women work has brought their claws out and no wonder. It is cat eat cat out there; and as the night wore on women after women who made up the party had something to say about their less than pleasant and understanding female bosses – but when it’s their time to wield the power stick, if they manage to smash the glass ceiling and lead a team, or indeed a company, will they be the one to change things? The bullied become bullies and that’s a fact – Marisa Mayer and her working from home policy at Yahoo! (or rather, lack of it – the CEO banned working from home at the company within months of taking the job where she had to prove herself not a soft touch) springs to mind, but then, she’d only just had a baby when she implemented that particular policy, so I guess she’s not had to deal with school holidays yet, and besides, she’s too well paid to care.

Rachel and I know each other too well to fall out about it, and in any case, you could argue it’s just sour grapes from me that she is in a position of power where I with two kids, and a job, am most certainly not.  The evening continued gaily enough, with us belting out Dolly Parton hits in the Karaoke (‘Nine to Five’ being particularly resonant, although, of course, most of us work 8.30 till 7 if we’re lucky and that’s still not good enough for some, oft female, managerial slave drivers), and comparing each other’s breasts (she’s just had hers done, and I am rightly proud of my post-breastfeeding perkiness) in the taxi – poor driver –  and twerking together, bladdered, on a lighting up dance floor.

Though we may be firm friends, motherhood is a line that is firmly drawn between us, and until Rachel gets her self knocked up, she’ll be firmly in the opposite camp. However financially prepared you are for it, motherhood brings limitations and frustrations that inevitably make it harder for women – all women –  to compete in a ruthless employment market.

So what to do about it? Women are their own worst enemies when it comes sisterliness – I posted an article only last week about how women are evolved to passive aggressively bitch stare the competition into submission, and this is clearly heightened in a cut throat corporate culture.

I must admit, when a senior member of staff from my workplace left this week on maternity leave, I couldn’t help being secretly pleased that she’d soon know what an uphill struggle she was up against, continuing to be professional, and arrive early, leave late against a tide of sleep deprivation, vomit, and baby singing classes, but, I must add, one that with the right support, is perfectly achievable.  And though she may be more established in her career than I was, she has also left in much later to sprog, and that brings with it its own raft of problems.

A lot of this female competition in the workplace is the fault of laying the burden of motherhood at the door of business. For genuine female equality, motherhood should be accepted by the government as the natural way of things, rather than as a slightly grubby undertaking that certain people have more right to undertake (by virtue of their career endeavours or amply compensated partners) than others – such as young women who have not, for whatever reason, paid their ‘dues’ in the workplace – becoming a mother doesn’t mean that they won’t – and by having children younger, the burden on the state caused by women having children, may, in the end be reduced, with the reduction of problem pregnancies, or cycles of IVF, to name just a few.

I believe free universal childcare, adequate maternity leave and universal maternity packages should be provided by the state, so that business need never have any reason to look unfavourably on women of any age, or at any life stage. Then perhaps,  us women can put our claws away.

As in all things to do with a more equal, happy and productive society, we should look to northern Europe to countries like  Denmark, Norway and Sweden, where policies like this have been successful, and consequently women face virtually no discrimination in the workplace, employment among all women is much higher and parental leave likely to be shared more equally between the sexes.

For me, it’s a no brainer. But perhaps, our overwhelmingly male government has other priorities than sorting out the future of this country, which ultimately starts with women, having babies.

PS. This, in today’s Guardian, which tells how disproportionate the number of women are among the 5 million people in the UK working for less than the living wage, is telling.