Emily
MikeOn Friday the New York Times ran an article about the recession and women in the workplace. The general thesis was that with the loss of jobs for men in the recession, more and more women are returning to the workforce. In the article, the NYT does a good job of keeping a fair analysis of why women may not be working in the first place, countering with theory that women will “opt out” of a career, with examples of difficulties women face once they have children:
…many working mothers left the labor force not because they were opting to, but because they were forced to by workplaces that made it too difficult to balance family and work. Separately, some economists argued that the decrease in women working was not caused by opting out, but by the 2001 recession that was followed by years of weak job growth.
These facts, however, seem to be lost on other sites who picked up the article, including BusinessInsider.com . In an article titled “Recession So Bad Educated Women Have To Go Back To Work,” the author briefly describes the NYT article, but misses the larger point.
Having fought for a century to earn the right to work, many of these women worked for a while and then realized that working is actually for the birds. And, so, in recent years, they’ve been staying home and letting hubby bring home the bacon.
Right. Because women opt out of careers because they require too much work– like raising children and maintaining a whole household isn’t really work. The fact is, in most households, women are still expected to stop or cut back on the amount of work once they have children. In different cases, perhaps it’s an agreement reached mutually between husband and wife, and perhaps it’s not– but the fact remains that the responsibility for raising children still falls to the women. And yet, women’s commitment to housework is hugely under-valued in society. Also, as the NYT points out, “every two years a woman is out of the labor force, her earnings fall by 10 percent, a penalty that lasts throughout her career,” making it even harder to return to the workforce .
The comments on the Business Insider devolve into gems such as:
So sad. Too bad. Get to work bitches!
I know a guy hiring pretty women and they make 500/day – must be able to work with sticky situations and have nice boobs.
Pampered, pampered, pampered. And ridiculous you have not even a clue …
Are there some women who simply have no desire to work and seek out a financially secure spouse to maintain a leisurely lifestyle? Absolutely. But turning individual occurrences into an overgeneralization about women’s work is wrong and perpetuates inequities like unequal pay.
The truth is, many women are still forced to make sacrifices when they have a family. Women are expected to make cuts on their careers while men aren’t. Many families can’t afford daily childcare, and many can’t afford to take unpaid leave when the children are sick. Many women lose crucial years on the pay scale when they spend time with their children. Sometimes they welcome that sacrifice, and sometimes their hands are tied due to unsympathetic or discriminatory workplace environments for pregnant women or mothers. And let’s be honest– raising the children and doing the housework isn’t easy. It’s a 24/7 job that doesn’t even pay.
For two-parent households, child care and careers can be negotiated individually, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the notion is still out there– that if we stay home with the children, we’re lazy, pampered housewives, and if we do have a career and kids, we’re bad mothers. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Filed under: Male Perspectives, Marriage, Politics, Workplace Tagged: | economic crisis, Feminism, new york times, Recession, women, working women
There’s a deeper problem here that is often overlooked, especially by feminists. It’s worse for a man to “back off” on his career in favor of his family than it is for a woman to do so. The semi-fixed gender roles are negatively affecting both sexes.
A woman can, and is even expected, to shift her priorities from the workplace to the home once she has children. A man is thought to be strange and wrong if he does the same thing and will often face harsher “penalties” in the workplace for doing so.
“The truth is, many women are still forced to make sacrifices when they have a family. Women are expected to make cuts on their careers while men aren’t. Many families can’t afford daily childcare, and many can’t afford to take unpaid leave when the children are sick. Many women lose crucial years on the pay scale when they spend time with their children. Sometimes they welcome that sacrifice, and sometimes their hands are tied due to unsympathetic or discriminatory workplace environments for pregnant women or mothers. And let’s be honest– raising the children and doing the housework isn’t easy. It’s a 24/7 job that doesn’t even pay.”
Funny that’s what happened to me when I moved from a place where I was enjoying a budding career to accommodate a career opportunity for my ex-wife. As a result my career took a big hit and when my ex got tired of being the primary breadwiinner she sought out and had an affair with a married man whose wife had never worked day since she got married. He’s now left his wife and my ex and he are living together. Hmmmm, I wonder if I can find a financially secure woman who will support me. What do you think. The fact is women have that option, men don’t. Why because as a general rule men out earn women and as long as they do women enjoy a fall back position that men don’t enjoy. Financial burdens fall on men and as a general rule that is the way most women would prefer it.