Partners in grime

Saturday, June 30, 2012

WHAT do high-flyers Helen Fraser and Sheryl Sandberg have in common with Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet? Simple — all three believe a woman’s success lies in marrying well.

But, while Mrs Bennet dreams of her daughters netting a rich husband, Fraser and Sandberg want to see women ascending the career ladder with the backing of supportive partners.

Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook, regularly advises young women that “the most important career decision you’ll make is who your life-partner is.”

Meanwhile, Helen Fraser, former managing director of Penguin said recently that girls should learn to be just as “ambitious” in their relationships as they are in their careers.

Girls must find a man who not only helps around the house but who also acts as their career “cheerleader”, she said recently — otherwise they could find they’re blocked by a ‘nappy wall’, forced to make choices between children and career.

If a woman wants children and career, Fraser said, a partner who “shares the load at home” and takes pride in the woman’s career really matters.

Drogheda businesswoman Louisa Maher agrees with the formidable duo: “If a woman is to be successful, she needs a strong partner who is supportive,” says the 38-year-old mother-of-two.

Maher and her husband Graham O’Rourke form a tight-knit team who run a web-development firm, Mor Solutions — and, yes, they equally share the housework and the care of their two young children.

So when Louisa was offered the 2012 presidency of influential women’s organisation Network Ireland, she talked it over with Graham first — just as four years previously, when Graham was considering the presidency of the local Chamber of Commerce, he talked it over with her: “We’re very 50/50 in the way we view our careers — Graham is my business partner as well.

“He’s a very strong character. He’s extremely supportive and provides lots of encouragement and advice,” she says.

For Co Cork-based management consultant Mary O’Callaghan, the support of her husband, Donal, not only enabled her to hold down a range of senior management positions in the corporate food sector, he also backed her decision to do an MBA in 1991 and launch her own business, Maridon Ltd, in 1994.

“I could not have done what I did without Donal’s support. When I started the MBA Donal took over the child-minding and the housework.”

Donal is a retired naval officer who now works with the Sea Fishery Protection Authority.

“When I set up the business I could not have done that without him either,” says the mother-of-two.

“I’ve met women who didn’t get the same support — and when the kids are young and things go wrong if you don’t have a supportive spouse it makes it very easy to give up.

“I saw women who gave up their jobs because it was too hard to do both the job and the home. Even though they were working full-time, they were expected to carry the house and the childcare while the men didn’t do their bit.

“If you’re in a high-powered management job you cannot afford to be distracted by some domestic issue. You need to have a very good support network and a really supportive spouse.”

Not every woman has such a supportive partner — but choosing the right man doesn’t have to be a lottery, says occupational psychologist Patricia Murray.

The first thing to do before settling down with a partner, she says, is to work out your priorities. The second thing you must do is tell him about them.

Knowing what you want out of life and being upfront about it is an important part of finding the right man, Murray believes.

Men self-focus very successfully when finding a mate, she says. “They will tend to stay with the girlfriend who buys into their ambition, and women need to look for partners in the same way.”

Yet many women tend to subvert their own needs until they’ve settled down with a partner, she says — and when it comes to seeking support with domestic responsibilities later on, it may not be forthcoming.

“The partner could say he didn’t know that this was a priority for the woman,” says Murray. He may not take her seriously, and she could be left with the ultimate responsibility in a domestic crisis — which in turn distracts from her career. And that’s the nappy wall.

Think of a relationship as a merger between two companies, says Murray: “A merger should be a deliberate act of self-fulfilment. Women need to look at the man they’re marrying because they’re ‘merging’ with that person – and it will impact on their lives and their careers.”

Occupational psychologist and author Sophie Rowan agrees that while your partner is not the ultimate determinant of career success ... he will play “an absolutely pivotal role”.

“Managing a career and a young family is probably the most difficult phase of your career,” she warns.

In her work Rowan sees both successful women who have supportive partners, and those who don’t. Supportive doesn’t just mean doing the hoovering.

“You also want understanding, reassurance and a supportive voice.

“Women who don’t have a supportive partner have a lot more to contend with.

“It creates more stress to have to manage the career and do everything at home as well.

“If one person is carrying a lot more — children, cleaning, shopping and administration — that will cause stress and quite a lot of tension.”

Unsupported women, she says, often complain that they have two full-time jobs. They can feel “angry, resentful and definitely tired” as a result, she says.

All of this can have an inevitable physical impact on their career — and there’s also a dangerous psychological effect. “If someone close to you undervalues your career and puts theirs first all the time, you’re much more likely to undervalue your career yourself.”

Sandberg, she adds, has also talked about men ‘leaning forward’ in their career: “Their momentum is always going forward, whereas women, particularly at critical stage with a young family, may lean backwards.”

This is possibly because they’re not getting enough support, she says.

There’s certainly something to it, because although girls consistently out-perform boys in the Leaving Cert, women make up only 15% of the Dáil, a third of State board directorships, and less than a quarter of elected members of local and regional authorities.

In the the senior ranks in the civil service imen make up 82.4% of secretaries general and 69.4% of principal officers.

Even in female-dominated professions 52.6% of non-consultant medical and dental professionals are women, but only 35.7% of consultants are women, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office in February. In secondary schools, where 63% of teachers are women, just 40% of the management is female.

A 2008 Economic and Social Research Institute and the Equality Authority study showed that women, including those who are out in the workforce, still do most of the housework.

This is not just a couples’ problem — it’s a major societal issue, says Orla O’Connor, acting CEO and head of policy with the National Women’s Council.

“A partner who is prepared to share responsibility is really important — but in order for women to be able to find these men we need, as a society, to change our perspective about housework and care work,” she says.

“There needs generally to be far more sharing of responsibilities in society.”

Inevitably a very senior-level management post requires a partner to take more of a supportive role — but, says O’Connor, men need to be in that role as much as women are.

“At the moment the support roles of this kind are primarily being played by women supporting men in top jobs. A lot of the work we’ve done around women in politics is that while male politicians often have a woman playing a very supportive role, female politicians still tend to carry all the care responsibilities as well as doing their jobs.

“There are assumptions about much greater sharing of responsibilities between men and women now, but the facts don’t show that.”



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