Working Women

Working Women

It's tough being a woman these days. We wanted female emancipation, but did we really get it? It appears that all we gained was the right to do two jobs. One at home and one in the work place. Working women get a bad press if they have kids. The reality is that most women have to work in order to pay the bills. I don't want to bash the entire male population, far from it. A lot of men pitch in with child care and household chores. A lot don't.

Did we make a rod for our own backs, ladies? World War II brought a new respect for working women, as they worked the land and joined the labor force in the munitions factories and so on. In the 1950s, most of them were back in the kitchen again. As the next decade progressed, they started to come out again. The 1970s was a battlefield, when working women demanded equal pay for equal work. A lot of burnt bras have gone under the bridge since then.

Today, we have women judges, surgeons, captains of industry and so on. It would be a brave man who said out loud that he didn't want to work for a woman. Has all this opportunity come at too high a price? Working women seeking good careers are postponing having children until later and later. Some of them sadly, find that they have left it all too late. There is a lot of pressure on women not to take a career break. They're frightened they'll fall behind their colleagues and miss chances of promotion. Women are supposed to have so many choices today, but biology is the real mistress.

We are the bearers of children and we breast feed the next generation. That is a privilege. For working women who have to rush back to work, putting baby into child care, it's an emotional wrench. Coming home from work at the end of the day, means compacting quality time into a brief period. As we all work longer hours, fathers miss out too. How many working men and working women get home too late to give their child a bath or read them a bed time story. These precious years pass so fast.

Men and women have to find true equality with each other, both at home and at work. Parents of young children particularly need more support from the Government. Raising children is the most difficult task of all and must be shared. Working women know all about juggling. It's the child that so often gets dropped.