Anna Whitehouse’s Post

How to close the gender pay gap 👇🏻

THIS 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 So many companies make men feel it’s emasculating asking for flexible working. There is nothing more masculine than a man caring for his own kids. And it’s not even ‘unconscious bias’ as I say above. It’s fully CONSCIOUS bias. Every day. In every office. Let men parent. It’s that simple. Only 1 in 10* flexible working requests goes through for men. Compared to 4 in 10 for women. So the bulk (‘burden’ isn’t quite the right word) of childcare remains strapped to female shoulders. Listen to my podcast Dirty Mother Pukka to hear how to fix the above. #flexappeal *EHRC

‘Part-time’ is not office code for ‘slacker’; It’s not a case of “she only works part-time” or “he’s just a part-timer”. It simply means fewer days, less pay. Support and promote part time workers if you give a 🐒‘s about closing the Gender Pay Gap. 40% of women in employment work parttime (compared to 13% of men). Start raising, supporting and promoting part-timers (job shares 🙌🏻) and watch that glaring hole of inequality close. It’s not 🚀 👩🔬 . AND can we have a moment for the number of part-time workers who get paid less but are still expected to do the full-time role? The whole ‘four day a week pay but still expected to do five days of work’? That’s not flexible working that’s extortion/ taking advantage. #flexappeal #parttime #closethegenderpaygap **Listen to our Flex Appeal podcast episode to hear how to get a flexible working request approved and what the new Flexible Working Bill that’s coming into effect in April means for you. In my Instagram bio @mother_pukka.**

Good GOD team we did it!!!!!! Today Minister Hollinrake put the flexible working regulations to Parliament where they will become law in April 2024 😭🎉 The Acas Statutory Code of Practice on Flexible Working – which set out what it means to handle a request in a reasonable manner - is also landing then. Together they will make it harder for you to be pushed out the workplace for daring to have a baby. Or other caring responsibilities. Or disabilities that mean you can’t schlep into the office. You will have a legal right to request flexible working from day one on the job. Plus it will be harder for your boss to reject your request after the new laws. Always more to push for (flex by default is up next) but when I started Flex Appeal eight years ago I genuinely didn’t see the day when the words ‘Flexible Working’ would be attached to a bill. Entrenched in law. Huge love to my Flex Appeal team at Old Square chambers. That’s four of the UK’s top employment lawyers: Ljeoma Omambala QC, Rebecca Tuck QC, Eleena Misra, Nadia Motraghi. And my right hand women @shoutybear and Carly Claydon-Davies. And to all the charities and organisations that fought tooth and nail to get this cemented into legislation Pregnant Then Screwed @fawcettsociety @workingfamuk @fatherhoodinst @maternityaction Now to make flexible working the default… watch this space 👀 #FLEXAPPEAL

Who else has been pushed out of work for daring to have a baby?

I was prepared for the exhaustion, the sleepless nights, the early rises and the relentless crying - mine and theirs. I’d made peace with time no longer being my own; being absorbed into their hearts, minds and soft play centres that smell of feet. But I never really considered helping them find themselves - find their identity - while I was losing myself. That’s the bit no one talks about in the baby books. The raising of the next generation while you’re falling apart at the seams. The picking them up off the floor with a scraped knee as your c-section stitches pinch. The feeding them their five-a-day while eating discarded toast crusts. The telling them everything is going to be ok when you need someone to ask “are you ok?” I’ve only started to really pick up the pieces of the last five years and rehash them into another form. It’s all a bit rough around the edges and there’s still so many cracks and hairline fractures. But I’m there, a shattered but somehow stronger version of myself. And I want anyone else who is picking up everything for everyone else right now to know you are not alone. That there’s someone here, right now, to help raise you, too PANDAS Foundation UK (Pre and Postnatal Depression Advice and Support) ♥️

😭😭😭😭😭😭. It’s happening. The Flexible Working Bill has passed its third reading in the House of Lords and will become law. It will be going to Royal Assent within the week 🙏🏻 So all workers will be given the legal right to request flexible working from day one. For everyone. Not after 26 weeks in a job with a ‘oh it might or might not happen’. But from day one across all industries. By default 🙏🏻. And you will get two chances a year to put in a request (instead of one). Your employer will have to respond in 2 months (instead of the current vague ‘whenever suits’). They will have to consult with you if they decline. They will have to look you in the eye and tell you why it’s not possible to do your job around childcare responsibilities, around a disability, perhaps, around anxiety; around human needs. To be clear, the only job we reckon can’t be done flexibly - core hours, job shares, ward-led rostering, part time, working from home, compressed hours - is on an oil rig. A Whitehall source said to Skynewsuk.com: “Flexible working can make work more accessible to under-represented groups such as women, disabled people, parents and carer, giving employers access to a wider pool of talent.” Yes, yes it can. It’s been seven years, it’s taken pure graft from our friends and fellow campaigners Working Families Pregnant Then Screwed Fawcett Society Maternity Action Trades Union Congress (The TUC) to do this and it’s happening. #FLEXAPPEAL 💪🏻 There’s still SO much more to do but it’s happening. **Huge huge thanks to @wearemcalpine for investing in Flex Appeal (for clarity all funds go to the campaign) and for showing all industries that working in a humane, human way is possible. Not just possible but essential to close the gender pay gap. Thank you to the legal team at Old Square Chambers for fighting so hard by my side. All my efforts will now be going into @workyourway to match candidates with flexible roles ♥️** 📷 Charlotte Gray Unending support Celia Venables Carly Claydon-Davies

A friend said the other day ‘you are lucky your husband is so hands-on’. And I kindly explained why it jarred. I am lucky in so many ways - but when it comes to parenting and working, Matt and I divide and conquer. No one is doing anyone a ‘favour’. We’re wading through the childcare quagmire together as best we can. It’s all-hands-on-deck. And it’s messy, stressy, wonky and punctuated with arguments - but it’s equal graft. Worlds away from the utterings of ‘daddy daycare’ or fathers ‘babysitting’ their own kids. Most men I know aren’t playing into the hapless Dad tropes of the past. They’re brilliant. On it. Not some Mad Men-era fleeting father figures. (And those that aren’t, get with the equality programme.) But good god I can’t watch another Tik Tok video of a young guy showing ‘how to get laid’ by Hoovering, mopping and cooking. Jesus Christ. No one is going to hop on seeing you do the bare minimum. Clear up your own stuff, look after your own kids and no, there’s no medal. We’ve been cracking on since the dawn of time with limited fanfare. And the domestic load remains well, loaded against us. (Women carry out an average of 60% more unpaid work than men according to The Office of National Statistics). Which doesn’t make me feel very ‘lucky’ at all. Happy Valentine’s 💋 **Listen to the full, incredibly emotive (and articulate) chat on my Dirty Mother Pukka podcast on how to unload some of the domestic load on your partner; How to create equality within the home without facing irretrievable breakdown in the process. This is a perfect listen if you feel your partner isn’t pulling his/her domestic weight or if you want to understand what shifts could/should be made.** #flexappeal