Housewife to Career: Women's Job in Society and Culture - Term Paper Example

Women in Careers Introduction Women in the past decades have had little opportunity to participate in employment and other income generating activities. This is because most social and cultural institutions in the societies in which they leave curtail their every effort towards economic independence. Traditional customs and ingrained social attitudes do not allow women to go out and pursue job opportunities that are more satisfying and paying. The patriarchal society encourages dominance of customs that favors males as compared to the females. Males are better placed to grab and exploit developmental and growth career opportunities than women. Females are considered care givers and home keepers. In this light, female talents and capabilities are regarded as inferior as compared to those of male counterparts. Their lack of inclusion was justified with the notion that because of these maternal roles, they would either be absent form their workstations frequently, or if present, would be preoccupied with thoughts over the proceedings of the affairs of their homes. Males were considered methodological and rational in their undertakings, which make them better leaders. In addition, males become better managers as compared to women who are guided and driven by emotional tendencies. Therefore, negative perceptions in the society towards the talents and abilities of women are to blame for female underdevelopment. Furthermore, women face discriminations from all fronts in the society. For example, in employment, men are paid better than women and their jobs are inconsequential. As a result, most women in unfriendly society have given up and settled into the less stressing occupation as housewives. However, there are women who are bolder and strongly opinioned. Such women have worked besides men, while others have proved more competent and hardworking than their male colleagues in the career world. Body The world is changing swiftly and male dominated society is slowly disintegrating. Both males and females are receiving nearly equal treatment and recognition. As a result, the status of women as housewives is rapidly changing. This is due to the impact of globalization and liberalization on socio-cultural customs and attitudes that have helped to liberate women to pursue their career desires (Choksey 1). In addition, the institution of marriage is gradually decaying. Women are striving hard not to be viewed as home-makers only, at the expense of their career. According to Kelkar, there is a growing emphasis on educating the girl child and this has helped in raising the status of women in employment and business. In India, families are more content with small number of children. This has made it possible for parents to invest on girl child education. The change of attitude is encouraging women in India to be more career-minded and less focused on getting married early. Women and men with similar qualifications in age, education and work experience are more likely to be treated similarly in the workplace now than in the past. However, a lot of improvements still need to be seen as regarding equality in opportunity allotment. Women and society as a whole have discovered that women are as productive as men in performing other tasks other than the traditional house keeping roles. In addition, women have woken up to the realization that career has better economic prospects that help to improve their domestic lives as well as individual lives than domestic chores. Women who consider their career important are stepping in the right direction. This is good enough to challenge the pervasive gender and social inequality that keeps women from being economically emancipated. Women will be viewed as productive assets and their economic contribution will be regarded seriously because a lot of poverty situations would be alleviated especially in the domestic sector where they head. Women have decided to pursue their careers because they have discovered that they can perform better than men. Females are better managers of their own homes in comparison to their male partners. This is because they are very sensitive to the needs of every member of their families and look for ways of satisfying each of them. Therefore, they are better analysts than men and are able to plan for each family member. If women with little education can do domestic chores extremely well, then it can be said that with adequate education and empowerment, they can excel in both their domestic and non-domestic undertakings. Through better opportunities that can be realized in their careers, women will be better placed to save and invest for future needs of their homes. Therefore, the transition of women from being housewives to having a career will render them economically independent and emancipate them not only to their own welfare but also to that of their families. The famous saying that when you educate a woman, you have educated the whole society is quite practical. This is a true saying even in relation to the subject under discussion here. The transition of women from household jobs to the workplace places them at a better angle from where they can bring development to their families and society as a whole. A career woman has by now learnt the importance of knowledge that comes from education, and wants nothing less for her children. If she is a single mother, employment means she can manage to put her children through school instead of them leading a reckless life in the streets. These same children are the ones expected to contribute to the economic development of their times. Having a career means a reliable income. This will enable them together with their families to afford quality. Good health enables women to contribute towards the improvement of the state’s economy. As implied earlier, the confinement of the woman to the home as her domain means that she has no power through which she can determine or influence the economic state of her household towards a desired direction. The ability of a woman to make life-enhancing financial decisions improves drastically if she has a reliable source of income. A woman who now has an income means that she can make future financial plans for her family in preparation for any likely lapse of finances. She can save, or even invest in land and property. The ability to engage in these kinds of activities gives her economic power and control rights over the resources of the family. She is able to make financial decisions that will define the direction of her family. This is much better than a housewife who is dependent on the final decisions of her partner. Career women who are married have economic power and control rights pertaining to the family finances. Furthermore, career women posses’ enhanced efficiencies that enable them work better and seize investment opportunities more appropriately. Having a career when one has formerly been a housewife can be quite challenging. This is not only in knowing how to handle both domestic and work duties, but also in knowing how to negotiate with one’s partner over the new power gained. When a woman enters the work sector, she is assured of certain economic rights and securities. This may shock the male dominated world where most men may find themselves ill prepared to handle the economic liberties of the women who once used to be submissive housewives (Lips1). Therefore, most women might be faced with domestic abuse from their condescending husbands. Women in career can use their gained power to emancipate themselves from abusive relationships and continue being productive citizens. Women who joined career early have helped to shape the direction of women today. When they got empowered, they created women’s rights movements that agitated for the social and economic agency of the woman (Hardt). These kinds of movements though not economically oriented as such, end up addressing the discrimination that women face especially in the area of employment. These same gender rights groups agitate against domestic violence directed towards women, which if severe can deter the woman from realizing her economic potentials. The transition of women from domestic work to career has further implications to the forces that hinder development. One of these forces is that of a deeply-entrenched patriarchal system that sees to it that the contribution of women even in the domestic circles is not recognized. These are the same forces that try to retain the woman in the domestic circles where her ability to pursue her economic potential was stifled. Though the woman may be qualified, patriarchal forces put a man in a better position to get that job especially if it requires a lot of traveling, citing that a married woman with children might not make it. The patriarchal forces tend to dictate certain kinds of careers for women and others for men, where the women careers tend to be less paying (Lips1). For women to be successful in today’s careers, it is important to treat both men and women equally. This will enable women to use their unique talents and capabilities productively. A patriarchal system in extremely subtle ways contributes to high illiteracy rates among women, which in turn render them more susceptible of suffering from poverty. According to Lublin, women who have gone before in transiting from housewives to career people help to pave a way for others. They easily become a source of motivation and role models to other women who desire a career life. Most women who are not in the main stream employment face many health challenges. High rates of H.I.V/AIDS among women have been associated with poverty. This is because lack of career makes women especially in developing countries to rely on prostitution as the basic way of providing for their families. Some have voiced their desire that if they had a formal career, they would engage in more development enhancing activities. This goes to say that women having a career of their own are much more likely than those who stay at home, to contribute significantly to economic development. When a woman is educated and economically empowered, she has more choices and the power she needs to actualize her choices. She will utilize the help of men not prostitution, but rather in assisting her explore the economic prospects she is calculating. Often, money is the measure of respect for women. This is partly true in a society like this one where a woman has nothing to say to man unless she can use her status to influence her counterparts. Women contribute significantly to the economy of any one state. This is because they constitute a substantial part of most consumer markets. Women who get a career and become empowered are more likely to consume more than housewives who are dependent on their partners’ incomes. Having a career means having more choice and the power to determine what one wants. Therefore, firms can make use of women in their boards and in top managerial positions to persuade their own into consuming a particular firm’s product. This means that women can easily appeal to other women about the benefits of a product that is in the market, than men can in regard to its application or use. In addition, experience has shown that having women in company boards has helped makes the management of the company to be more effective (Rosener). When women move from being housewives to career people, they leave a gap in their homes. Their duties and roles have to be substituted by someone else, and most solve this problem by employing a domestic helper. One of these reasons of employing a house help is to have greater power with which to influence decisions in the house. However, the career women must not lose their domestic powers and influence completely to their spouses or their domestic helpers because they become too tired to even follow up on the day to day affairs of their homes. Some domestic helpers may demand hefty pay and most career women may have to dig deeper into their pockets. This leaves them with less money to use or invest. The transition from housewives to career also has negative impacts on the population as a whole, and on the economy. When women more pursue their careers instead of raising a big family, there is a steep decline in the number of children born per family. This significantly reduces the number of young talented people for the workforce. In addition, when a workforce consists of older people only, there lacks freshness of vision and the energy needed for economic contribution. For example, in Japan due to the rigorous expectations of the workforce in women, most are forced to postpone marriage to latter years or failed to get married at all. Japan women complain that the workforce is so exacting that they find time no time at all for their families. Consequently some women choose to drop out of career life to concentrate first on bringing up their children to resume career at a later stage. For most women, work life is not as easy as they expected when they were making the transition. Women awake to the rude shock that discrimination is still prevalent in the work sector although covered up in precise subtle ways (Fackler). Even though, they make it to the workplace, women still have to contend with the fact that they are not likely to rise as high in their professions as their male counterparts. This creates the impression of a ‘glass ceiling’. This requires continuous strive to make it to the top. According to Shock, statistics have it that even in the recent age where women enjoy equal opportunities with men, a lot of disparities are still apparent in terms of the male gender taking the prominent positions in organizations. In this light, women although employed, are still toying around with lower paying jobs that do not contribute significantly to their economy. Conclusion It is in order to appreciate that the social roles and cultural practices that held the woman down are of a far less magnitude than in previous decades. This has seen women being able to move from being housewives and permeating into a male-dominated workforce (Karen 23). Their transition into a career life has several economic implications on their welfare as well as on the state’s economy as a whole. When empowered, women will be able to confront and further loosen the holds of the patriarchal system that has caused the impoverishment. When educated and empowered, they will also help to improve their own general welfare and that of their families (Kelkar 19). They can also use their financial resources for future savings as well as investments. Having economic independence increases the power of a woman in her ability to make decisions influencing her future, and also enables her to choose from a variety of options. If more women were economically strengthen and made to be independent, there would be lesser cases of H.I.V/AIDS bred out of poverty and which condescends into even more poverty. Women are the highest consumers in the market. Therefore, they should be included in the boards and other key positions in the organizations to influence to boost organizational sales by influencing other women to buy from the company. Furthermore, they are considered more keen and thorough than their male colleagues. This makes women better managers than men. The more women join the work force, the healthier is the population as a whole. However, the detrimental impact of this transition is also apparent. Some women may be considered to be at race with their spouses for economic power and independence. This may cause family quakes that may even break their families. Career women may resign domestic influence and powers to their house helps and may expose their children to lower levels of care and attention. Women still have to grapple with the disappointing reality that there is still a lot of discrimination in the workplace, and their hopes of ever achieving complete economic emancipation could just be ‘pipe dreams’. Finally, the move by some women to join career world is commendable and other women should be encouraged to follow suit. This is because if more women are empowered, the world would be safer and healthier place to live. Sources Choksey, Namrata ‘New Right-hand men: The growing of the role of women in India family business’, India knowledge@Wharton, 5 Nov 2009 . Fackler, Martin “Career women in Japan find blocked path” The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2007 . Hardt, David, “A labor market punishing to mothers” The New York Times, 4 Aug 2010 . Kelkar, Govind “Gender pathways out of poverty” Unifem India, 2April 2009 . Lips1, Hillary “Blaming Women’s choices for gender pay gap” Women’s Media 7 Sept. 2009 . Lips2, Hillary “Women in leadership: delicate balancing act” Women’s Media, 2 April 2009 . Lublin, Joan. “The corner office, and a family” Wallstreet journal, 17 Oct. 2010 . O'Connor, Karen. Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook. London: Sage, 2010. Rosener, Judy “Women on corporate boards make good business sense” Women’s Media, 2 April 2009. . Stock, Kyle. “Ranks of Women on Wallstreet thin” Wallstreet journal, 20 Sep. 2010 . WHO. Integrating Poverty and Gender Into Health Programmes: A Sourcebook for Health Professionals: Module on HIV/AIDS. Geneva. World Health Organization, 2009. Read More