Women and the myths .docx

Israt Lira 997412116 SOC: 244/ Professor L. Samuel August 5th/ 2014 “ The ‘Guilt’ Thing: Balancing Domestic and Professional Roles” (2006), by Jackie Guendouzi. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68:901-909. Women’s priorities are always surrounded by the ideology of family and children. How women are portrayed and should “function” is all socially constructed. Females that are in the workforce are socially considered to be “lacking” in being a fit mom and wife. In the article, “The Guilt Thing: Balancing Domestic and Professional Roles” by Jackie Guendouzi, women experience ‘guilt’ resulting from social constrictions of a traditional model of mothering. Due to the increase representation of women in the workforce, they still have a greater responsibility to take care of their children. The author conducted a research on 42 audio taped conversations of female teachers who basically struggle in balancing work and family. The author tries to understand why women are still doing both jobs (at home and at work) and how society play a key role in implementing the ideal model of mothering that makes these women feel “guilty”. The issue of combining work and family needs is what forces women to put their personal needs aside. Other researches have also been conducted that share the common themes of having women finding it difficult to manage work life and domestic work. To begin with, women’s lives have been changing throughout the years and as more women are being represented in the work-field, the mother and wife roles are becoming more optional nowadays. With that being said, women who are working and have children experience guilt as if they did something criminal related. In the article by Jackie Guendouzi (2006), data show that even though women are engaged in the workforce, they tend to usually do part time jobs and not full time jobs. Men are usually the ones who are associated with having a full time job, and thus, women are obligated to work part time in order to ‘work’ at home as well. The main question that the author tries to figure out is whether women enjoy doing what they do or if it is embedded into society. Research shows that a few women do like working both at home and at work but majority say otherwise. Women who are always working both at home and at their professional job tend to find it tiring for them to constantly live up to this ‘superwomen’ ideal model of women. When we learn to understand the implications that results from women who are working in the private and public sectors, we tend to look at how women’s roles are socially constructed. The ideology of “good” mothering is embedded into society and is more common in the Western Countries. The media also plays a role in displaying what women should be doing in terms of mothering their children. News coverage is usually on the negative day care impacts on children while their mothers are at work. This basically implies women should not be working and leaving their children at day cares and favor stay at home moms. As stated by Guendouzi (2006), “Current western model of motherhood is a product of both hegemonic institutional discourses” (902). Having society acknowledge what is acceptable and what is not, sets out the way any discourses should be applied. In an article by Harenstam and Bejerot (2001), they state “women’s demands for and expectations of gender equality in working life as well as in private life are still on the increase” (203). This just proves that women’s lives are always filled with responsibilities other than their actual professional duties. They are ‘expected’ to take care of their household, children and their partner and yet men’s roles have been consistent throughout the decades. The term ‘expected’ is basically an indication that it is socially constructed because, who defines what is expected? Unless it is embedded into the society for “expectations”. But the reality is that women from all over the world experience similar oppressions and thus balancing work and family needs is challenging. For instance, in an article by Valk and Srinivasan (2011), they stated “in a transitioning society like India, where the traditional roles of women as homemakers and caretakers are deeply entrenched, the work-family balance becomes a challenge for women and their employers” (39). Not only is it difficult for women to be engaged in paid work, but also society puts pressure onto women to maintain that ‘traditional’ model of motherhood. As also stated by Valk and Srinivasan (2011), “the new and expanded role of women with a strong occupational identity is putting a lot of pressure on women’s time and energy” (42). Evidently we can see a common theme that women are stereotyped into being a mother who is in charge of the domestic work and thus, they should just work in the private sector (their homes). This is an act of inequality that is faced upon women who are trying to pursue their careers or dreams. If they are constantly symbolized by society as caretakers, how are they supposed to branch out of that domestic closed environment? Similarly in another research conducted in the USA by Craig and Powell (2013), they stated “in popular debate in the USA, it finds expression in the mommy wars, which conceptualize stay at home and working mothers as taking divergent approaches to child raising”(102). This is where the idea of “guilt” comes into play as women are stereotyped because of the different ways they parent their children. Ultimately this is all socially constructed that women who stay at home feel that they are more of a “good mothering” figure as opposed to a mother that is working. The result from their research confirms that, “the working mothers do not reduce the amount of time they send with their children by the same amount of time as they spend in paid work”(102). As we can see, it is not really a bad thing that women are working nowadays but rather, it is just society that promotes these ideologies that woman should be homeworkers and childcare takers. The results from the article by Guendouzi (2006) also connect to child upbringing as this accessibility issue that implies women need to constantly be on top of their children. The stereotypical social norms convey that children who show bad behavior are a result of mothers who are working. This ultimately all relates back to the women who are always feeling guilty for having to work outside the home and reminding themselves that they should be with their children all day because of the social norms that is implemented. Having women in the workforce really is a dilemma for them. In another research by Cohen and Fernando (2013) state that, “many other respondents similarly resigned themselves to the extensive work schedules since they do not want to put their career prospects at risk. However, by doing this, these women were unable to fulfill what they saw as their full range of domestic responsibilities”(2884). Having the stereotype that women are the ones who should be doing domestic work is really tiring for women who work outside the home. Having women who always have to prioritize between their work life and their children, they barely have time for themselves and their personal needs. As stated by Nishanya who was interviewed, “I just can’t manage my children’s homework, my parents errands or even my husband and the basic hygiene around the house- the way we work is mad”(Cohen et al, 2013, 2884). It is really unfortunate to see that women who have opportunities to go out in to the world and experience work are held back because of their domestic responsibilities. In some countries women not only have to take care of their children but also their extended families as well. What we can see that in order to meet family needs, women are forced to hold of their personal needs. What all these researches have also grounded on is that, women who are co-complaining in a group setting is a way for them to relieve some of that stress with those that share the same stress. Many suggestions have been made based on these researches and one of them consisted of having more men involvement in domestic responsibilities and also non-parental childcare. In an article by Craig and Powell (2013), they state “study suggest that non-parental childcare does relieve mothers of some childcare and allow them to participate in paid work and as a result has the potential to narrow the gender division of labor and improve gender inequality in domestic workloads”(116). The solution to these problems always consists of having more involvement from the men but that is not always the case. Because it is socially constructed that women are the caretakers, it is not normal for a husband to be doing domestic responsibilities let alone raise a child. Not implying that it is not done, but majority of domestic responsibilities lay under the women’s responsibilities. In some cases, non-parental childcare can be beneficial to women especially women who like working because, it is in a different sphere than working at home. But the idea of “good mothering” can raise that “guilt” within women. It is important to understand that women are just human beings and that society puts a lot of pressure on maintaining that balance between work and family time. It is also significant that people are aware how much effort women put into their daily lives as society has expectations that need to be meet. The idea of guilt is completely socially constructed as women are “supposed” to be accessible for their children. In order to see some social change, dramatic change in ideologies need to adjust as well. Because society has been programed to think a certain way and to accept things a certain way, it is difficult to start a new trending norm that allow women to experience freedom and not just be involved with the domestic responsibilities. Some of the insightful things in the article that made sense personally were how common women feel oppressed because of their set gender roles in society. The gendered division of labor still exists and it still frustrates me that during this day and age, women are not fully up to the standards of men and nor can men ever do what women are “expected” to do as embedded in society. I cannot really connect these situations to my personal experience because I am not a mother nor am I married but my older sister is married and has a child. From what I see with her I can definitely say that she does majority of the domestic work and takes care of the child. From my mother’s point of view, I can definitely say that it was difficult for her to balance between work and family life when we first came to Canada in 2001. Glimpse of what I can remember, she would work a full time job and still come home and spend time with us and also continue on doing the domestic work. In conclusion, ultimately women from all around the world experience the same pressures from balancing work and family time. The stereotypical social norms put a restrain on women to fully experience their individuality and instead experience guilt. The main article by Guendouzi (2006) really put an emphasis on how women’s lives are really complicated as they manage to balance their professional lives to their domestic responsibility. The idea of “guilt” in this article really challenges the ideologies that are set out in society and makes you rethink how set gender roles are all socially constructed. The issues of accessibility to children, maintaining household, and paid work are all common trends in other researches that were conducted. Ultimately the issue of combining work and family is essentially hard to manage and hard to fulfill duties as a mother, wife and professional employee. Bibliography Craig, Lyn and Abigail Powell. (2013). Non-parental childcare, time pressure and the Gendered division of paid work, domestic work and parental childcare. Community, Work & Family, 16(1), 100-119. Cohen, Laurie and Fernando, Weerahannadige Dulini Anuvinda. (2013). The Rhetoric and Reality of home–work harmonization: a study of highly skilled Sri Lankan women from public and private sector organizations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(15), 2876-2893. Guendouzi, Jackie. (2006). “The Guilt Thing”: Balancing Domestic and Professional Roles. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68(4), 901-909. Harenstam Annika and Eva Bejerot. (2001). Combining professional work with family responsibilities- a burden or a blessing? International Journal of Social Welfare, 10(3), 202-214. Valk, Reimara and Vasanthi Srinivasan. (2011). Work-Family balance of Indian Women software professionals: A qualitative study. IIMB Management Review, 23(1), 39- 50. 1