Blog #34

Clearly, professional women make sacrifices everyday for the sake of their family and children. It is clear that it is necessary for organizations to offer flexible work schedules and other alternatives to enable women to be both successful at home and in the workplace. More importantly however, it is necessary for women to be given the credibility that they deserve. It is interesting that Joan Williams, author of Unbending Gender describes her work experience with a gap as a result of having a child. She specialized in local government law until her child was born which is indicative that women are forced to make decisions that affect them both at home and at work with precision to ensure that they can balance the two. How many times have you heard of a man having changed positions, interests or work schedules as a result of having children? The only man that comes to my mind that had to think about a child first was the Hewlett Packard executive who essentially was forced to consider the child as a result of his wife’s death. Unfortunately, for most of us working women and mothers, we continue to be taken for granted and as explained by Williams it is because the work we do at home is not considered work and for homemakers in particular, they are viewed as simply housewives and we undermine their responsibilities. Williams further states that working mothers also face the challenge of being on the “mommy track” and she is referring to being on track to less pay, less benefits, compromised advancement and unfortunately on track to possibly leaving the workforce because of the increased difficulty to balance home and work life particularly when children are involved.
In terms of feminism, it has become difficult for women to call themselves feminists as the discourse associated with a feminist is almost always strict equality between men and women. However, as long as men do not have to literally bare children, I don’t think that it is possible to achieve equality. As a result, it is necessary to be more flexible towards working mothers as they have the responsibility to be more often times than not, the primary caregivers. I think more women would be inclined to form an alliance as feminists if the discourse was more family oriented because like I mentioned previously, total equality is not possible. This is not to say that women are less as a matter of fact, we often do more than men. We work equally as hard except we work a double shift, one in the office and another at home. The problem is that one is considered legitimate and the other is simply overlooked as “eh housework.”
It is devastating that the ‘ideal worker norm’ has essentially damaged the credibility of working women because realistically children have mishaps, they become ill, they have to visit the doctor or simply put-they are little human beings that are dependent on their adult care givers (moms). An ideal worker image is that of an employee that is willing to work 40 hours every week and to stay for overtime if necessary. Again, it is difficult for mothers to be considered ‘ideal workers’ because of their inability to commit to unfriendly and masculine policies. All of this combined, leaves us hardworking and deserving, admirable and commendable women a step behind men all the time. I have to admit however that I am quite fortunate in many ways as I have a very supportive spouse in which we share the work and we both respect that we have responsibility both at home and we help each other out as we view our marriage as teamwork.