Nell Scovell Quotes

I'm one of the lucky few who never had to face the whole 'Oh, you've had a baby, and now work will have to suffer' bit. It just wasn't a big deal when I got married and had a baby.

There are lots of reasons for that gap between men's and women's wages but to me, the big one is the work-family issue. Trying to juggle children and a job is tough under any circumstances, but especially if you're shooting for the kind of career that involves long hours at work and being on call 24-7.

Mothers suffer in the workplace. That fact is by now so painfully familiar it even has a name: the motherhood penalty.

What I'm about to say won't be popular, but it's true: If being a television showrunner is the job you want, and you are a woman, I would not suggest you have children. The reality is that you just cannot do both well.

Any woman in any career has to think about when they have children, if they want to have children, and how it's going to affect their career.

Young men keep telling me they don't 'have it all' either. And they may have a point. But if you define 'having it all' as the opportunity to have a successful career and a family, I'd say this. When a man tells his coworkers he's going to have a child, no one asks him how he'll manage or if he'll be coming back to work.

We found that when people put this issue on the table, it turns out that men acknowledge the issue, and employers and employees can work out solutions just as working mothers do.

Many of the big decisions over progression, promotion and future career trajectory are taken when people are in their late twenties and thirties, putting women at a huge disadvantage because this is the very time they are most likely to be having a break to have children.

There are really good reasons to leave the workforce or work less or take a different job when you want to be with your children. I just want women - and men - to make that choice once they have the child. Not years in advance, because... they don't get the right opportunities. They give up before they even start.

I think obviously we need to work harder at extending the women's movement. How do women who have prepared for careers and have a child get back to the workplace and still fulfill maternal roles?

There's also, I think more so in the music business and especially for women, this ceiling that people put on you if you have children or a family and decide to spend time with them.

When there are good postings available, the people who choose who is to come to that particular position, they will always have, at the back of their minds, a fear that, 'If I take a woman, she might prioritize her family over the job and, therefore, not be available at times when her presence is required.'

I think there's a contempt for care work and caregiving in this country that seeps into how we think about mothers, professional workers who are mothers.

The biggest barrier for women is the thought that they can't have it all.

Average male pay is higher than average female pay for a simple reason. Despite decades of enforced equality, women still have babies, and men still don't. So women who wish to spend any substantial time at all with their own offspring will fall behind in their careers, and their earnings will be less.

We should be able to carry on our careers and be women and mothers without fearing that if we show a vulnerable side, that will be attacked.

One reason women are left 'holding the baby' is anti-male discrimination in rights of maternity/paternity leave.

Motherhood is a greater predictor of wage inequality than gender is. It's enormous.

Nobody ever says to men, how can you be a Congressman and a father.

Male athletes don't get dropped when they father kids.

Society has not been set up in a way that allows women to go back to work after taking time off. Many women now have to work as well as do everything at home and no one can do everything. Society needs to find a way of relieving women.

Most female CEOs have been more understanding than their male counterparts, of the stress that new mothers experience to 'do it all,' which often means, 'all by themselves.' Why? They've been there. They understand the policies needed to keep women in the workforce.

I do remember when I first went into politics, one of my competitors asked me, 'Well, Jenny Shipley, who's looking after your children?' I don't think many of my male colleagues have faced a similar question.

I know women at work who don't talk about having a baby because they don't want to upset the apple cart, but unless people know what the problems are, why should they engage with it?

I was so intent as a young lawyer on beating the men at their own game that I didn't take any real maternity leave with my three younger children. It is only looking back that I realise I wasn't beating the system but reinforcing it.