Far too many women discover that what was once a manageable and enjoyable work-family balance can no longer be sustained — regardless of ambition, confidence or even a partner who shares tasks equally.
Every family’s situation is different; some women may be able to handle with ease conditions that don’t work for others. But many women who started out with all the ambition in the world find themselves in a place they never expected to be. They do not choose to leave their jobs; they are shut out by the refusal of their bosses to make it possible for them to fit their family life and their work life together. In her book “Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home,” the sociologist Pamela Stone calls this a “forced choice.” “Denial of requests to work part time, layoffs or relocations,” she writes, will push even the most ambitious woman out of the work force.
Bad work culture is everyone’s problem, for men just as much as for women. It’s a problem for working parents, not just working mothers. For working children who need time to take care of their own parents, not just working daughters. For anyone who does not have the luxury of a full-time lead parent or caregiver at home.
Change in our individual workplaces and in our broader politics also depends on culture change: fundamental shifts in the way we think, talk and confer prestige.
The women’s movement has brought many of us the right to compete on equal terms; it’s time for all of us to claim an equal right to care.
Source: The New York Times, September 20, 2015
Self-coaching guides for Career Women:
Pamela Stone: Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home
When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41)
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