Working Women

During the establishment of the English colonies, slavery became a key component to the growth and development of the colonies. Slavery began when the Puritans began migrating over to America in 1620. Most Europeans brought indentured servants to America to work on their land. This worked well for people who settled in areas further towards the north, which was a prime location to have a farm. Plantations in the south usually grew crops like tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugarcane. These crops are many day crops which means that it is labor intensive and requires more days to grow, the crops are also high profit crops. Slavery became important in the southern plantations because plantation owners needed more workers to be able to produce their crops rapidly. Without the labor the slaves provided, the tobacco would dry up before it could be harvested and the cotton industry would not have succeeded.

Workforce Issues: Traditionally, men will usually work and provide the financial support and the women provide domestic care. In the recent years, as people are becoming more educated and urbanized there has been a decline in this trend.

In the reading, “From the Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home”, Hochschild explains her experience conducting a case study with a series of different women to get their perceptions of their lives as mothers, but also working women. Moreover, she provides good information to start her study. She reports that in 1950, 30 percent of American women were in the labor force, 28 percent of married women with children worked out of home. Today, those numbers have dramatically increased. During her findings, she saw that women felt a responsibility to be able to balance work and life at home, focused more on children, and expressing how overworked or tired they felt. Whereas men in this study expressed that women did most of the work around the house and childcare. In addition, what stood out to me in this reading was that some men felt pleased that their wives received more income than them. For instance, in an interview a man expressed, “was more pleased than threatened by her

In the 1960s women were being recruited into the labor force in large numbers making education a necessity. As economic growth continued to rise, there were not enough men to fill all the job positions. Women were expected to stay in the kitchen but needed in the work force. The 1960s saw an increase of 19.5% in the labor force.5 The greatest increase in employment was seen in service jobs such as clerical.6 Women already dominated such jobs, but the increase in the number of these positions allowed more women to work outside the home: "…the old female-dominated occupations provided the principal vehicle for expanding women’s roles in the labor force".7

In 1920, women won the right to vote and they were gradually moving into the male-dominated labor force, but gender roles were not changing much. Due to the World War II draft, many women entered the labor force and even helped run the country. Upon the return of the veterans, many women were forced back into their homes. However, the opportunities for women were broadening and some women began making careers for themselves outside of the home. The 1960’s saw many feminist movements and in 1963 the Equal Pay Act was passed by Congress which enticed more women to get out of the house and into better careers.

In world war II, many women received secondary jobs after men came back from the war. They felt the need that they should get to work and do the same work men do. The women demanded to work just the same as men so that they can be taken more serious and not as a joke. Women increased their dependence on themselves by working and doing things, the men do instead of having men do it for them. Post-world war II, many women were discharged from their jobs, and the ones who were able to keep their jobs were relocated to secondary jobs; women who returned home lost a bunch of their financial independence and the women who were allowed to keep their jobs continued to gain more autonomy.

Women throughout history have always been seen as stay at home mothers before World War Two. The stereotypical, perfect American family had the father that worked hard each day during the week and the mother who raised their children, cleaned, and made food. But in fact, women always worked outside the house but it just wasn’t glorified as much. These women that actually worked jobs were usually in the lower class or the minority and many men did not treat them the way they should have been treated. The males thought that a man could better suit their jobs than women, the men did not want to believe the fact that women were rising up. During World War 2 all of this changed and there was a major change in the workforce. The amount of women working

The situation and view of women has greatly improved over the years in America. Women now have equal access to education, increased participation in politics and the labor market, access to birth control, resources against domestic violence, and other equal rights. Women now have the freedom to decide on the role and impact they want to have to society, which was decided for them in the past. Women can work to gain financial independence or decide to get married and have income to support her family. Families that are earning two salaries can afford the better education for their children and enjoy a higher standard of living. One drawback of a woman and father both working is how it may affect their children. In some situation when both parents become career driven, they will have less time to take on the parenting role. This could have a negative impact the children if proper child care services is not provided for them. To prevent this many married adults who both have desires to advance in their occupation, the decision to have kids will often be postponed until each parent finds a more stable position in

Secondly, Women‘s liberation also made a big “bang” in family’s function. Recall to the traditional nuclear family, the position of women is being as a “good wife or a good mother” and limited within household’s area and husband’s authority, so Women’s liberation changed this image into a “potential good worker” because it lifted women’s position into a higher level. Starting at the 1960s, women had more chances to enrol in the paid work world and to join in more social activities. David Popenoe (1991) has investigated that women employment rate is increasing twice as much as it used to be. Therefore, this permutation of women’s social position also affects and changes the function of the nuclear family.

They talked about the genders who struggling with their work-life balance. Genders have the most impacted on their lives when they faced the challenges of work-life balance while have family. Sometimes women feel the effects of lousy work life balance because they feel stressed with their famkly and work. They are still on same positons like lower level not same men’s level. Women frustrated to pay all of the bills for their family. That is why some genders feel the effects by being depression, stress, etc. that they frustrated with their work-life balance. Robert Dorment’s article tried to influence other audience that women should not complained about men because men are working so hard for themselves and their family. Anne-Marie Slaughter tried to tell women that they could successful with work-life balance. Third article from Margaret Weigel explained that wages inequality and unequal family responsibility is the most impacted on women because women who taking care of family most time. Last article, Work-Life Balance – An Integrated Approach: The case for joint and several responsibility, which affected this situation between men and women about, share responsibility that organizations should be able to support variety coworkers of their preferences and needs. The quote, “Organizations must learn to be able to support a variety of ‘flexstyles’ as a diversity attribute of

No matter what background you come from or how you were raised, family is extremely important. According to Malinowski, “Family is a necessary institution for fulfilling the task of child rearing in society”(Conley, 2013). Society has come a long way when it comes to family and it is much different than it was in the 1950’s. Not all families are nuclear families. A nuclear family is having a mother, father, and children that are all biological (Conley, 2013). This kind of family is what some would call more “traditional.” Today in the twenty first century it is getting harder and harder to find families that have actually stayed together. There are so many different kinds of families in today’s society, and more and more families are becoming blended families. A blended family is when two families come together (Conley, 2013). Many families today have single mons, single, dads, and even same sex parents. Family is not always the people that live in the same house as you, family also consists of extended family. An extended family is a network that goes beyond the main “nuclear” family (Conley,

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

A majority of people worldwide face the challenges of incorporating work and family life as a part of their daily routine. Despite the fact that the facts regarding income, occupation and life phase may differ accordingly, these challenges intersect all socioeconomic levels and both men and women feel the impacts directly. Problems have increased as families have started to contribute extra hours to the paid labor force, which has brought widespread acknowledgment that there is a need to adapt the contemporary realities of the family and work today (Ballyn, Drago & Kochan 1).

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes

There are many different definitions about what the family is. Different theoretical positions influence these variations. For example, the functionalist sociologist George Peter Murdock defines the family as “a social group characterized by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain