director level. There is still a problem in the pay gap between men and
women. A couple of weeks ago I spoke with a senior exec and he explained
the problem of women and babies. They still have babies and that gets in
the way of them keeping up with the times in IT. Six months out and the
reduced hours mean they can't contribute as well as a man. I told him it
was arse but I understand where he's coming from. He was very much like
a Japanese company man. He'd gotten his success partially by giving all
his time to the company. He percieved the career break a woman might
take as something that made them less suitable however I think I turned
him round.
There is a pay gap for all people with disabilities. Many might feel
that a physically disabled person might not be suited to be a brick
layer. Honestly I'm not sure. I see a society that treats people as
equal making it possible for a person in a wheelchair to work on a site.
They may be the foreman (foreperson sounds stupid) rather than the
brickie but in truth I see an idealistic future where they should be
allowed to be a brickie. Many disabled people are handicapable in other
areas. There's no reason why a physically disabled person can't do an
office job and do it well, yet I suspect any analysis of the pay of the
physically disabled compared to the rest would show significant differences.
I'm going to be precise in my definition of mental illness. I mean
psychiatric illness, not common mental disorders. I mean the sort of
thing that tears someone's life apart. The sort of thing that crushes
dreams. This is not an attempt to create a hierarchy of disability but
to understand what is truly disabling. Mild to moderate non-chronic
depression is a fucking walk in the park compared to real mental
illness. There are effects of the course of the illness, i.e. there are
effects related to the problems of life crisis. Isolation and exclusion
cause changes in an individual, not least of which is the self-reliance
but also the loss of social skills and valuation of social norms.
For all that it takes from an individual severe mental illness in 2010
never takes a person's potential away. It may even make in more. The
schizophrenic who is constantly weighing normal reality and 'delusional'
reality has a mind working at twice the pace simply to deal with every
day life. Those who can survive and thrive can make excellent decisions
and will be extraordinary CEOs given the opportunity.
Though the individual remains capable the things that society values are
lost. Continuous employment and severe mental illness are virtually
mutually exclusive. Re-entry to employment is usually significantly
below the individual's potential and where they would have been in their
life were it not for mental illness.
When I was 18 I was selected for the Year In Industry gap year scheme
after being referred from an interview at Imperial College. This was a
gap year scheme for the cream of British youth. They selected people who
they expected to be captains of industry in 20 years time, entrepreneurs
in the making and leaders who were going to drive forward the UK
economy. It put them on accelerated courses. Business, Japanese language
and culture and computer programming. It also helped them get gap year
jobs. I got a job as an assistant systems engineer. I was 18 years old
and I was programming on a project for the European Space Agency. The
ENVISAT satellite, a state of the art TSAR (...think that stands for
topological synthetic aperture radar) imaging satellite and the company
I worked fro was designing the data dissemination system.
A decade and a half on...I'm unemployed. I can't get a job as fucking
donkey in a place where I used to work. I have to look for piss poor
jobs at piss poor wages which totally undervalue my wealth of skills and
don't recognise the sort of raw talent that got me recruited to a blue
chip company while I Was still at university. For all the positives of
mental illness the constructs of employment have placed a big barrier to
my flourishing (to use the term that Dr Jo Nurse coined to describe
positive mental health (the latest reconceptualisation)).
Many of my peers and family haven't suffered mental illness. A large
percentage of my family are doctors. Many of my peers from university
earn significant wages. One or two earn more in a good year than I've
earned in my entire adult life. Some are successful in business and
others in the private sector. One works for a not-for-profit firm and is
a director. Of course none of them have had to go through life wanting
to kill themselves, the silent burden that weighs heavier than Atlas's.
They've never had their ego shattered or their sense of self shredded.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the roots of the pay inequality
suffered by the mentally ill. At the start of the 21st millennium the
employment and education rate for people with a diagnosis of
schizophrenia is 5% in the UK. Schizophrenics aren't incapable of
working or contributing. Several have contributed in significant ways
throughout history, from Moses to Nash. Many are still highly
intelligent and capable, irrespective of their illness. Some may become
more intelligent (or may have their illness because of their
intelligence...not sure about casuality on this one) because it's noted
that paranoid schizophrenics are smarter. The UK chooses not to value
this and ensures one of if not the widest inequality gaps for people
with sz in Europe.
There have been significant gains in the battle for gender pay equality.
It's pathetic that modern mental health charities aren't pushing for the
same changes for their stakeholders.
But mental health charities suck balls. They wilfully indirectly
discriminate. Through not offering part time work and job shares they
ensure the disadvantage suffered by many is perpetuated. The 5 day week
disadvantages many groups and all disability charities should be
ensuring opportunities for the elderly, people with families (usually
women) and those with severe disabilities. They seek to exclude the
mentally ill and advantage those with minor disabilities, disabilities
which aren't really psychiatric illness in the traditional sense, by the
fact that they don't offer job shares where possible. They seek not to
pioneer the organisational practices required to make job shares effective.
And so those who campaign for the mentally ill not only ignore important
issues like the pay gap. They also help enforce it. But I've learned
that really it's just all rhetoric. Hot air that keeps people believing
in the charities while they waste money, promote prejudice and do
whatever they feel like rather than doing what's needed for their
stakeholders. They employ people with mild mental health problems so
they can ensure they look like they're employ people with real
experience of mental illness. The charities are about image rather than
mission. They've about convenience rather than making a difference.
They're about promoting the agenda of whomever is at the top rather than
achieving change for their stake holders. They're about ignoring the
Gandhi quote about change.
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
When I worked at a mental health charity I put this on the end of my
emails however was firmly told to remove it. It's not the sort of
message they could have in their office.
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