Women's Day Special - Its a Man's World

A Woman's Viewpoint

Back in days of old, the chances of a woman enjoying a career of her own were very slim. Regardless of her true passions and talents, she was supposed to stay at home and care for the children. Happily, things have improved, and these days women can have it all – a loving partner, children and a career.

So why are so many successful women single? And why do the careers of many married women take a nosedive once children come into the picture? Even today, it’s usually the woman who ends up sacrificing her career plans for the family.

Men can have it all – a thriving career and a happy family. But if you’re a woman, these two goals might seem completely incompatible. To thrive in any highly competitive field, you have to commit the lion’s share of your time and energy to your work. And if a couple has children, it’s much easier for the man to do this.

That’s because most people still adhere to traditional gender roles: the man is supposed to provide for the family financially and the woman is expected to raise the children and be warm and nurturing. Consequently, most women are willing to support their husband’s decision to substitute time with the family for time at work. But even if they make a concerted effort to commit to their job and meticulously plan every move of their life, women still can’t control the fate of their career and family.

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, thinks that anything is possible if you just lean in to your career. But it doesn’t matter how much you’re leaning in when you have two kids back home and an inflexible work schedule; the unpredictability of life will eventually force you to shift your focus away from work. Some women hope that marrying a progressive partner will result in a fairer distribution of domestic responsibility – thus enabling them to pursue their career. However, this rarely works out.

A Male viewpoint

In reality, most men are reluctant to set aside their career goals. For instance, a woman whom I'met at a conference shared that just a fraction of her intelligent and driven female friends, all graduates of Symbiosis, had met their career goals, despite marrying peers who had pledged they’d be equal partners once married. Once they started a family, the men were unwilling to scale back on their own career, so the women had to sacrifice their goals and assume primary responsibility for childcare.

A father’s presence is priceless, but dedicating more time to their family comes at a high cost for men.In a way, women aren’t the only ones who struggle to have it all. Indeed, many men would love to spend more time with their family, but there are huge obstacles between that dream and their lived reality.

Men also struggle to maintain a work-life balance. And many men regret not making more of an effort to be with their family. I discovered that as people (men especially) approach death, they regret that they weren’t around more when their children were growing up, and that they didn’t take more time to enjoy their partner’s companionship.

Despite this widespread regret, men are considered to be somehow unmanly if they ask for a flexible job or decide to give up their career to spend more time with their children. That was the case for the sales manager X. He recalls that, after leaving his job to stay home with his daughter, most of the moms he encountered at the park didn’t believe that he could possibly be doing this by choice. Instead, they assumed that he must have been a failure in his professional life.

This is unfortunate, as, despite the popular myth of the primacy of a mother’s love, children need their father around just as much as they need their mother. Children need a mother, but not more than they need a father, grandparents, siblings and so on. The only time a child literally can’t do without his mother is during pregnancy and while he is being breastfed. Afterward, it doesn’t matter whether mom or dad is in charge.

This has been verified by numerous studies, which have shown that children raised by gay parents turn out as well-adjusted as children raised by straight parents. Children need love, stability, care, nurture and consistency; they don’t necessarily need a parental arrangement that includes a mother.

The Harsh Reality - Endpoint

Instead of accommodating working mothers, society burdens them with irrational expectations. If a woman’s career stalls once she becomes a mother, maybe it’s her own fault: she simply lacked the necessary ambition! Or maybe she was just incompetent, incapable of juggling a career and a family. Obviously, this is nonsense.

The problem isn’t a lack of capability or ambition, however. Rather, employers simply fail to accommodate mothers. Even worse: they actually short-change them. Most workplaces fail to provide sufficiently flexible schedules. As a result, mothers may revert to jobs far beneath their level of qualification, where they can compensate for time-consuming contingencies – like taking their sick kid to the doctor – by simply working faster.

Furthermore, working mothers are not only paid less than men but less than single women, too. In 2016, for instance, an average single woman with no children earned 96 % to the male CTC; married mothers earned just 76 percent of their male peers’ earnings.

Additionally, society overwhelms working mothers with a crazy expectation: they should be perfect mothers and perfect employees. This social pressure is reflected in what women expect of themselves. For example, a physician with two children once wrote to the author professing a feeling of guilt for not being a good enough mom due to her 80-hour workweek – but also for being less than 100 percent devoted to her work.

In today’s world, Mother Teresa would probably have earned more respect working a prestigious, competitive job than caring for the sick.No matter how successful a woman is in her career, once she quits her job for a period of time to stay home with her kids, all current and prospective employers cease to see her achievements as having any relevance.