Working Women
When I was little, I really didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. At one point, I thought I would work in a bank because that’s where the money was. After undergraduate, I just knew that I wanted to be done with school and start working. Who knew that I would end up going to business school for another two years and get my MBA. While there, I joined an organization called NAWMBA – National Association of Women MBA’s and it was during one of the events that the topic of work life balance came up. It is a very interesting topic because its honestly a lot harder to be a woman in the corporate world and try to balance work and your personal life – kids, family, etc. Many of the speakers spoke about how different it was to be a woman in a man’s working world. Men get praised if they leave work early to attend their kids’ games or recitals. Women, on the other hand, are looked down upon. Men who are vocal are seen as aggresive while women are called witches, drama queens, etc. Unfortunately, this double standard has been around for as long as we’ve existed.
I think that things are slowly progressing for women in the work force. You still need to work a bit harder just to stay in the game. But at the same time, there are different expectations for working mothers than there are for working fathers. Women lose a bit of credability when they have kids and have to work harder to show thier commitment to the job. It is totally different for men. Here are a few tips for working women who are having trouble balancing their work and home lives:
- First and foremost, don’t feel like you have to conquer the world and do everything (both at work and at home)
- Divide and conquer – communicate with your co-workers (and partner) to ensure that everyone is doing thier fair share of the work
- Communication is key. Keep lines of communciaton open – talk to your supervisors, colleagues and subordinates to ensure that everyone knows exactly what is going on.
- When you are at work, focus on your job. When you are at home, focus on your family. There is no point in stressing out about something that happened in the office when you are home.
- Find a good child care/baby sitting situation so that you feel at ease when dropping your kids off – consider a good monitoring system if someone comes to your home to babysit
- Even though you would like to be a super parent 24/7, sometimes you just need a break. Schedule some time away from the kids with your partner or a night out with the girls.
- Work and Family are a huge part of your life, but it shouldn’t be your entire life.
It is a different and tougher battle for women in the workforce, but it is not hopeless or impossible. Everyone needs balance in their lives.
Rachel Quach
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You’ve raised some good points but it is not the full story. You’re looking at it from the perspective of a woman. It is a tough battle for everyone,not just women. If you are a single man (or woman), people seem to feel that it is perfectly OK to ask you to work overtime or over the holidays. It’s much more important for the family man to spend. People have all sorts of different “families”. Some families consist mainly of close friends. Just because someone is single does not mean that you can value their time any less than that of the family man or woman. What the workplace needs more than anything is fairness, where everyone is treated in a similar manner and their needs are accommodated. Nobody thinks twice when the family man or woman, has to rush off at 5pm to pickup kids. It;s gthe single man or woman who is expected to stayh behind and work long hours. A friend of mine recognized this as a problem and structured holiday time so that everyone shared the burden and the peoplewith “families” did not have it easy, at the expense of those “without families”. Families can be used as an excuse not to pull your full weight. Men don’t live as long as woman (stress). If they’re in the corporate world then they have to choose between the mommy track and the work track. And yet raising a child is extremely important. It is not something that you shove off on servants and expect them to do a really good job (when you won’t pay them enough). Raising children is tricky and is best not to b e outsourced (that is taken outside the family).
I know some families that have opted to have one spouse take care of the children (it is a full time job when they are young), while the other spouse works. No you can’t do everything, but don’t expect me to shoulder more of the burden just because you choose to have children. That is your choice and not mine. I am perfectly happy not to have children, and willing to pay for your children’s education but not for their day care (and the intendent problems) Remember if is a choice and it is still worthwhile for one spouse to look after the children (and no the woman isn’ t always the correcf choice),
You need to look at the whole picture and not just from your “feminist” perspective. Stereotypes exist on both sides of the issue.
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I totally understand where you are coming from. I was not trying to be a “feminist” or say that single men and women don’t have it hard. I am a single woman. I was just saying it is harder for working mothers than it is for fathers but that’s just my opinion.
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Glad we’re really on the ssame page.
I agree with your point that it is harder for a woman to be taken seriously. The problem is that until recently, men were expected to pull their weight even if it meant missing key events in their children’s lives. Now we realize that it is just as important for a child to have a father involved in their activities as it is to have the mother involved. The balance has now tipped in favor of the father (who previously had a tough time maintaining his family ties, trading off his family for the business). Now, fortunately we can take a man seriously who wants to spend time with his family. The problem in biological — women have babies (and men don’t right now), and women are “disabled” when they are pregnant and need to spend time at home bonding with their child (the mommy track). Some corporations know that it is expensive to train people and will let them stay off the work track until their children are old enough and then switchback to the work track. The problem is really severe with lawyers (who want to be made partners). People do need to have balance in their lives and to be aware of when they are treating people using stereotypes (which are partially true). I do know that men are considered “forceful”, while the same quality in a woman is considered “strident” or “shrill”. Corporations need to make allowances for both working fathers and mothers and to phrase comments in gender-neutral language. Unfortunately, if you want to play with the big boys, you have to be like the big boys. That means for any minority, you have to do more than “norml”. But we should note that men are more affected by the economic downturn than women and that there are now more women than men in higher education so it will change. The change will be gradual and frustrating but it will come.
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As a married woman, who was once single, I understand what Rachel is saying. It is really difficult for a woman to be both a woman and in business without being called either “unwomanly” or a “b-ll-breaker”. But I have to agree with grip that being a mother is important. I made the switch from working to looking after my twins to returning to work once they entered kindergarten. It wasn’t really difficult. I used the same time-management skills to manage my affair. No, I wouldn’t trade the time I had with the twins for the law office. It seemed just as important to me and did not “stiffle” me.
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I meant stifle (not stiffle).
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As a self-employed woman working for my car dealer customers, I had to deal with all sorts of bad behavior from these men. I took all my favorite creepy and cheesy lines from over the years and wrote and published a funny, ficticious story inspired by my not so funny real experiences. TAKEN FOR A RIDE, The Screenplay—A Chick Flick at the Car Lot is available on Amazon.com. This script showcases what most women who have ever worked outside the home can totally relate to. It is not a stereotype, it is, unfortunately, very real. M. Garvin, Author of TAKEN FOR A RIDE.
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