There is always a lot of heated discussion, passion and
judgment on how and what women should be doing when it comes to career and
mothering. The debates and issues play
out across the world via television news, television talk shows, movies, books,
million dollar websites, blogs and more.
It sure seems like a simple enough question, but like a computer, when
you unscrew the case and get a look inside, it sure has a lot of complex
circuitry.
Despite our evolution as a society, is it still best for a
woman to stay home and raise her children properly? Forsaking her dreams and never reaching
her full potential – denying herself of the happiness that comes from a life lived
fully?
Or, like many, should she try and do both--work and raise a family? Of course as every full-time mother knows, this often means
traveling on an unsustainable path that will eventually take its toll on either
a mother’s mental and physical health, her kids, or her work performance. Sure
there is the 50/50 scenario where both mother and father chip in equally, but
those kinds of relationships are few and far between. In most households, research shows that
mothers are still the primary caregivers when both parents work. And
for those relationships where there is a true division of work, it means that
not only women will be divided between work and home, but the men will be
divided too. Of course this scenario
won’t work at all for single parents who have no partner to share the load
with. That is a major consideration when half of U.S. marriages end in divorce[1].
Looking at all these no win situations, one has to wonder if
perhaps the best scenario would be to forego raising a family altogether.
Unfortunately, that only jeopardizes our future population at a time when it is
already in decline[2].
As I alluded to in the first paragraph, there really are no
great answers when it comes to work versus career for women. In fact, it often seems like a lose/lose
situation. Maybe we aren’t considering something though. Is the real issue whether or not to stay
home, do it all or share? Could the main issue, the thing that is
broken, not be the work versus family, but the fact that our corporate work
structure was conceived when only one member of the household, generally the
male, worked? It seems to me that our current corporate structure is an archaic
and obsolete business model for today’s families—especially for women who are
desperately needed in the workforce and have been carrying the burden of child-rearing since the dawn of time. The business model needs to evolve into one
that is family-friendly, female-friendly and future friendly. It not only needs to change drastically, but
to change quickly.
Yes, we’ve sloppily managed in the past, but the world is
changing rapidly. We are losing a large
portion of our workforce as the baby boomers prepare to retire [3]en
masse, leaving corporations unmanned and stifled. Combine this with the fact that women are
having fewer children[4],
there will only be more of an employee shortage. Let’s not forget that fewer children
mean a smaller future client base for corporations looking to prosper years
from now. However, perhaps the most
compelling argument of all, at least to corporate America, is the fact that
companies with high percentages of women in leadership are more profitable—they
have as much as a 35.1% higher return on equity and a 34% better return to
shareholders[5]. If
women make that much of a difference when only 3-6 % of women hold top
positions, imagine what would happen if even more women were in places of
leadership. Sounds like one possible solution to our
economic problems to me.
The big headline here is that women’s issues aren’t just a
“female problem” anymore. If there is
one thing that everyone gets out of this blog, I hope it is this. We are at a tipping point where women’s
problems are now the country’s problem. There has never been a more important time in
our history for us women to be given equal opportunity and to be given a fair
chance in the workplace. If not, we won’t be the only ones suffering anymore.
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