Soapbox Saturday

Yes, I’m pulling it out. It’s a little dusty, and I need to repair a few loose screws (or is that me?) but it’ll do for now.

I read an article this week in a magazine that was sitting on the table in our kitchen at work. As I was making copies of it, I found myself flooded with memories of being in the stacks at Sterling Library on the A&M campus doing research for projects and papers. In fact, this may have been a topic I would have done a project about. But I think my views would have been a little different back then… or as we Aggies say, “Back in ol’ army days.”

The article was entitled “Sexism” in the April 2008 issue of Conde Nast Portfolio and obviously was about sexism in the workplace. The main point seemed to be that while women in the workplace made great strides through the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, there has been a stagnation or even regression in the most recent years thus proving that sexism and sexist behaviors and hiring practices are still alive and well. Here’s a link I just found to the article…
http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/03/17/Sexism-in-the-Workplace

I’m not here to say that there may not be some truth to what the author of the article says. There very well may still be some sexist behaviors in hiring. In fact, I pretty well know there are as I’ve encountered them; since I am, in fact, a woman (shocking, I know).

In my latest round of interviewing before I got my current position, I encountered a lot of questions based purely on the fact that I am a woman, and more specifically a mother of two young children. Questions like, “What do you do with your kids while you’re working,” and, “What do you do if your kids are sick?” At first, I was bothered by these questions and wondered if I should respond in a polite way that they can’t ask me that. But then after discussing it with M, we decided that it was better for us if they knew up front how we worked and that way there were no incorrect expectations. I remember we also said that we didn't want me working for someone who would have had a problem with me needing to be at home with sick kids, so if my answer kept me from getting the job, we were okay with that.

But back to the article…

My main problem with the author’s whole premise is that there is no mention on the availability rates of women for the jobs she is speaking of being so deficient of female representation - high level corporate officer type positions.

For instance, the writer comments that, “… at this rate, it will take 73 years for women to achieve parity with men at the board level.”

Parity. Meaning, what? 50/50? Well, what if there are not enough women seeking those positions to make it 50/50?

My thought is this: Is it possible that in the last 5-10 years, women have finally begun to see that there is more to life than chasing a career? Is it possible that some biological clocks started ticking and once children were in the picture, some of these women decided that they would not pursue the big positions in order to raise their families?

She also mentions the decline of pay rates of women versus men. The figures she quotes seem to be sweeping, across the board general type numbers and not taking a man and a woman doing the exact same job.

Is it possible that women may purposefully take less stressful, and thus lower paying jobs in order to remain more available for their families?

I ask these questions I guess because they are true of me. Not that I would have ever necessarily achieved the status of a corporate officer. But, in my former Corporate America life, I had been on a bit of a management fast track and tended on the work-a-holic side until I became pregnant with our first child and asked for a demotion. We made the choice that if I was going to work while we had young children, that it would be only on a part time basis to keep the stress level down and keep my focus more on the family.

And, may I add, that the Lord has blessed that decision and kept us to it.

So, why the soapbox, you ask?

Because I am sick and tired of the lack of acknowledgement that women may be choosing things other than their careers. I hate that blame is being pinned on corporations when there may be not as much blame to assign. I can’t stand the feeling that if I don’t make the choice to work full time in a life consuming career, then I’m making the wrong choice. It infuriates me that the feminists would have us believe that the only “choice” is their choice.


Is it possible that the choices that I and the majority of my closest friends have made with regard to our careers are indicative of what is going on among women our age across the nation and that there will never be as many women as men seeking high level corporate officer positions?

And, while I could go on and on and pick this entire article apart (which I have already done mentally), I’ll spare you the brain damage of it all and just close with this…

I love the fact that I have the choice to work outside of my home. But it is just that… a choice. And for a movement that is so big on choice in other matters, it just kills me that they don’t seem to acknowledge it here.


Stepping down, now.

Would anyone else like to share their soapbox?