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Women diversity and work life balance
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In the article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” Leslie Bennetts expresses her malcontentedness with corporate culture’s hostility toward mothers and care taking needs (42). Bennetts uses facts, figures, and even a testimony to shed light on the average mother’s modern dilemma. She attempts to show the unjust treatment of mothers by several different outside forces. In the article, “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was.,” Hope Edelman vents her frustration at the mother’s inability to deny the role of the prominent parent (51). She uses her own personal experience to show just how ingrained societal standards are into the public. Her article goes through her own descension into the average wife, sacrificing her own career …show more content…
Bennetts exclaims “Why do any of us accept the fact that childless women earn 10% less than their male male counterparts, or that women with children earn 27% less, or that single mothers earn up to 44% less?” (Bennetts 43), continuing to question “Can any of us defend the fact that women’s standard of living drops by 36% after divorce, whereas that of men rises by 28%?” (Bennetts 43). Edelman, on the other hand, offers her own perspective by saying “I hadn’t bargained for how deeply the gender roles of ‘nurturer’ and ‘provider’ are ingrained in us all . . . “ (Edelman 53). Gender roles, people, and society are the main oppressors of mothers in Edelman’s eyes, but Bennetts would argue that the much larger and important threat of policy must be tackled first. She uses statistics to express her disdain for the policy makers in the white house, going as far as to claim that they merely “pay lip service” (Bennetts). Bennetts again takes a broader look on the issue to explain to Edelman why the terms “‘nurturer’ and ‘provider’” (Edelman 53) seem to appear even in this increasingly feminist society. Instead of lamenting this phenomenon and blaming the people, Bennetts counters Edelman with an analysis of the problem’s root in order to find a realistic
Are all mothers fit for motherhood? The concept of motherhood is scrutinized in the stories “The Rocking Horse Winner” and “Tears Idle Tears”. In “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence the mother, Hester, unpremeditatedly provokes her son into providing for her through gambling. In the story “Tears Idle Tears” by Elizabeth Bowen, Mrs. Dickinson disregards her son’s emotions and puts more emphasis in her appearance than her son’s wellbeing. Hester and Mrs. Dickinson both were inadequate mothers. Both the mothers were materialistic, pretended to love their offspring, and their dominance hindered their children’s progress in life.
The concepts that Kathleen Genson discusses reinforces the analysis Kramer presented in Chapter 4 “The Family and Intimate Relationships” of The Sociology of Gender. First and foremost, both authors would agree that family is a structure that institutionalizes and maintains gender norms. Both authors would also agree that “families tend to be organized around factors that the individual members cannot control.” In Genson’s chapter “Dilemmas of Involved Fatherhood,” the most prominent forces are the economy and social expectations, both listed and explained by Kramer. Genson’s explanation of how it is unfeasible for men to withdraw from the workforce and focus more time and energy on being involved fathers is an example of the economic factors.
It is a rare occurrence indeed to stumble upon a nonfiction article as raw and true as “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was.” by Hope Edelman. The author of three nonfiction books, who has had her work published in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Seventeen magazine, writes about her expectations regarding an egalitarian marriage with equal parenting responsibilities, and compares them to the reality that comes from living in a household where both parents work full-time and cannot drop all of their responsibilities to care for a toddler. Edelman’s narrative is a flippant view on modern views of feminist relationships, from both the side of the feminist and the side of a woman whose marriage did not reflect those ideals. While she argues everyday gender roles, she may reach a deeper topic than just the sexes assigned roles of being either a nurturer or a provider, but never both. She mentions late in the article that the two
Slaughter claimed that young men in this time have not yet had to decide between accepting a promotion or other professional opportunities in delaying their goals to spend more time with their children and to support their partner’s career goals. While it is no longer unthinkable for ladies to work outside the home, society still anticipates that men will be providers. The way of life must change to bolster caregiving as an esteemed alternative for guys. Slaughter believes that we’ll create a better society in the process, for all women. The women's activist upset needs to advance into a humanist revolution. Male or female, parting decisions inside families must be free from social defamation. The unrest for human fairness can happen. It is going on. It will happen. How far and how quick is dependent upon
...women are known to raise their children alone, the hardship of doing so cannot be underestimated and subordinating to a male provider might seem a better alternative (Sorenson & McLanahan, 1989). Pateman (p.33) takes on a tone of surrender when she indicates that from a social perspective a women’s place still seems to be within the family, especially in light of legislative action which seems to reinforce this opinion. This stand is further supported by the view that women are the ones who mostly provide primary care to children, and thus governmental initiatives such as paid maternity leave or other type of support cannot but be based on this view. Pateman (p.34) seems to promote the idea that patriarchy can be overridden by shared parenting, but will this imply the need for men to keep or minimise their socio-political contribution and focus on their family unit?
...promising dreams, relationships often fall apart under strain from unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, imprisonment, conflict and betrayal. Finally, we get to the heart of what marriage means to these mothers and why they say that successfully raising children is the most important job they will ever have. Almost all of the women said things like “It’s only because my children that I am where I am today.”
Robert Kuttner, the author of “The Politics of Family” also believes that women should not only be the caretaker but whatever they want in a career. Robert Kuttner’s text does support Stephanie Coontz’ arguments about the issues related to traditional values and modernity in American families during the beginning of 1890 and how they have changed and need to be changed in order for families to have strong bonds with each other, especially women who need more freedom to choose their own lifestyle. During this generation people reveal everything to the society. They are open about premarital sexuality, birth control and they don’t hide anything from the society.
Reading about the inequality and discrimination against mothers, especially unmarried mothers, in the Motherhood Manifesto made we flip from cover to cover of the book to see when this book was last updated. I was horrified to see it was 2006. Kiki, the single mother of two who was looking for a job in Pennsylvania in 1989 and asked repeatedly the same two questions during her interviews literally made me angry. How could an interviewer be allowed to ask personal questions such as are you married and do you have kids? I was appalled just as I would have been if he had asked her what her race, religion, and sexual orientation was. It’s all in the realm of not appropriate and discriminatory. Laws are changing constantly; I know that when being
When intensive mothers are busy with thier responsibilities in the public sphere, due to their belief that a mother is the central caregiver, their temporary replacement must exclusively be female (Hays 414). Even with a female nanny who “leaves the place in a mess, makes a petty point of not putting the dishwasher on […], never gives the correct change from the supermarket and “loses” all the receipts” (Pearson 84), Kate still makes every effort to keep the nanny in her family. From the perspective of intensive mothers, men are not capable of providing the same quality of care that a woman is able to provide (Hays 414). From a gender essentialist perspective, Kate argues that “Emily and Ben need me, and it’s me that they want. […] Daddy is the ocean; Mummy is the port, the safe haven they nestle in to gain the courage to venture farther and farther out each time” (Pearson 169). Therefore, intensive mothers find “alternate mothers,” that is, credentialed female child-care providers (Hays 412) such as Paula, Kate’s nanny, as well as Jo, Alice’s nanny who are able to promote the intellectual enrichment of their
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
One of the issues that demonstrated how sexism and heterosexism shape social welfare policy is the plight of single mothers. The well-being of single-parents, especially single mothers has been an important issue for the United States given that at least 50 percent of children who are currently growing up in the country will spend part of or their entire childhood in a single-parent family (Casey & Maldonado, 2012). As compared to other countries, single-parent families in the United States are worst off with high unemployment rates and poverty rates. This issue demonstrates how sexism and heterosexism influence social welfare policy since it has been the basis of establishment of various regulations to address the problem. The issue has been the basis of the implementation of TANF to deal with the high unemployment and poverty rates of single mothers. However, this policy has been ineffective since it makes people become more independent and does not meet the needs of women effectively. Therefore, it continues to be the basis for policy considerations to help single
Women for centuries have been suppressed by society’s “it’s a man’s world” mentality and they are only needed for baring children, while never acknowledging that they are human-beings who experience similar situations as men. Women experience far
She argues that investing in and learning to value caregiving will open up opportunities for working parents in order to create a society that is equal for all. By challenging long-held assumptions and changing our attitude towards caregiving, we can create a
The Science of Mother’s Day www.Whyfiles.org/087mother14.html Summary: “The Science of Mother’s Day” is actually an article published on the Why? Files website. The article discusses child development and factors that can detract from or enhance development. These can include attachment issues, socialization, environment, family structure and poverty.
The motherhood norm propels the care gap, the ideal worker norm pushes the gender gap, and the individualism norm prompts the income gap. The motherhood norm forces a burden on women to care. As Drago says, “the norm of motherhood leads women to expect, and be expected, to serve as caregivers for their families, and, more broadly, to care for anyone in need, and to do so for love rather than money. (Drago, 7)” women are more likely to have either a job or just a family, neither of which is healthy or in their well-being and morelse making the care gap more normal. The ideal worker norm again incentivizes people to act in a certain way, despite what their feelings are. Drago explains “professionals must adhere to the norm if they hope to gain