Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Women Must Sacrifice Career for Family? Really?

I'm so sick of the assumption that women - women attorneys in particular - can't hack working full-time and having a family. That women - the masters of multi-tasking - require reduced hours and telecommuting in order to raise their kids while holding down a job.

Oh really?

Guess that means that successful women who work their butts off full-time are, ipso facto, utterly incapable of having equally rewarding personal lives. Or that working women are destined to be either professional slugs or crappy wives and moms.

Pul-eeze.

And what role, pray tell, are men supposed to play in this absurd scenario? I guess, circa 1955, they're the real professionals, the bread-winners without shared family responsibilities. The ones who bring home the bacon to the "little woman" changing diapers while she's wearing her apron, cooking dinner for the family before going back to her part-time telecommuting job.

Here's the link to an ABA Journal article I just read with total disgust, that perpetuates this kind of ridiculous, last-millenium mindset.
At 50 Best Law Firms for Women, Policies Allowing Reduced Hours and Telecommuting Are the Norm - News - ABA Journal

2 comments:

  1. It is really hard for men to ignore the programming that says they should be the breadwinner. Its ingrained by TV and for guys like me over 50, what we saw growing up. But its not unchangeable. The key is speaking out. Kudos for doing so.

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  2. I think you're right about the programming, aldewitt. Can't change the past, right?

    What bugs me are that certain women's groups perpetuate these view, supposedly in the name of progress: Gosh, it's so great that us mommy-trackers can stay on mommy-track until we retire or drop dead, because our bosses are letting us telecommute.

    Vs: Okay, we did the mommy-track thing because it was a way for us to keep working in a primarily male environment while we had our kids, but those ways are obsolete now. Let's get back to the office and to partnership track. Let's share child-rearing responsibilities so both parents have the same professional opportunities. Let's orient the damn ABA Journal articles and those surveys to working parents of both genders.

    You get the idea....

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