I started a PhD in 2008. A year later I quit, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about women, work, and career advancement. It’s about what I see happening again and again in workplaces. Where women overwork in the hope they will have career success. Where women are often chewed up and spat out by the places for which they work. Where women of a certain age can’t get work. Where women have to hide their age on paper to even get a look-in for work. This post is about that, which, coincidentally, was also kind of what my PhD was about.
Let me give you some context. Recently, in a Facebook group I’m in, more than 300 professional women — aged mostly over forty, but some in their thirties — responded to a post about one woman having a tough time finding work since COVID19, and that HR departments kept telling her she had “too much experience” and was “over qualified”. All of those women, myself included, responded that they had been having a tough time for years. COVID19 hasn’t changed anything; rather, it has amplified the issues.
My first thoughts were: I can’t believe this old chestnut is still around. It’s been my working life since I turned 40 (nearly…
