Familly/career balance and working women
Family/career balance is a concern working women struggle with from the moment of considering entering the workforce.
Many women become mothers without planning, a condition forced upon them by biology. How to support financially and care daily for children is a conundrum. The vast majority of jobs available without education do not compensate adequately to cover the costs of daily life: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and childcare.
If we go across the world to the current Afghanistan we find one answer to this problem; prevent women from working outside the home, prevent women from obtaining an education. This method of family/career balance seems to be espoused by one political science professor at Boise State.
"Young men must be respectable and responsible to inspire young women to be secure with feminine goals of homemaking and having children,” he told the crowd. “Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade,” Boise State University professor Scott Yenor said.
Putting aside this keening for a nostalgic Ozzie and Harriet family life, what could American society do to improve family life? Simply stated: more pay, less hours, and adequate child care for all who work.
Our current business model elevates the need for profit over all other goals. For example, consider the contrasting business models of Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and Dan Price, Gravity. Bezos model takes as much as possible from low level employees giving them a seemingly fair pay while running them in a machine-like efficiency. At Gravity, Dan Price realized paying a starting minimum wage of $70,000 a year would lift his employees into a comfortable lifestyle. The personal cost of reducing his own compensation was well rewarded by raising his company's profile resulting in overall success.
While union organizers question the Bezos model, his is the business norm, getting as much out of human capital at least cost. The owner is not obligated to consider the home life of an employee. This 1950s model of life would have a wage earner going off to work leaving a homemaker behind to care for children while keeping house, literally, for the wage earner. And in Professor Yenor's world the wage earner is male, the homemaker female.
What stands out in particular contrast with the two above-mentioned employers is the improvement in the home life of the Gravity workers. Raising wages had an immediate effect on family needs. A balance can be achieved. One can perhaps work fewer hours. With adequate compensation the need to extend the work day to earn enough is gone. A person can actually have time with the family they are providing for.
All employment should pay enough to provide for basic human needs. Look back at the Dust Bowl refugees being abused by employers and government in the 1930s. Consider how we treat our fellow humans.
Take gender out of the equation. All work should balance with family life, not gender based but human needs.
While the Taliban and Professor Yenor may want to press women back into the kitchen, we are out. There is no going back. Change however is possible. With more mothers in the workforce, with mothers in positions of power, it is time for a change. Being a mom should never result in impoverishment and/or dependancy. All American workers deserve better working conditions. Families to exist need parents to participate. A significant change, putting humans over profits, can bring that family/career balance without denying society the benefits of women engineers, doctors and lawyers.
Leslie Hart is a retired public defender who lives in Athol.