Modern Women’s New Struggle

We are in modern era, for better or worse, modernization has forever changed human society, especially the life of modern women.

We have seen the greater number of women in participating the economic workforce in past three decades, the more pertinent problem they are facing, is no longer gender discrimination, though it is not altogether disappearing, but rather how do these women copy with two demanding world, work and family. This is still a main women’s issue, according to Arlie Hochschild, just like there is gender gap in the work place, there is “leisure gap” at home. For women, over a year, (according her research based on 50 US couples) have to work extra month of twenty-four-hour days than men. That means that women have her first shift at work, then she get her second shift at home. However, to make matter worse, more modern women now view work place as home, and home as work. In her second powerful book “Time bind” Hochschild vividly painted this new dimension struggles “when work becomes home and home becomes work”. The struggles mainly belong to women, but not limit to women, modern men and fathers, also have their shares.

One thing is clear, when the boundary of home and work blurs, the duty and responsibility diminishes too. That seems lead us to the question that to whose responsibility or duty that family, home, children are? It is beyond the scope of today discussion. But clearly, children, family, and eventually, society will suffer from without due care and concrete time investment which is necessary for any meaningful relationship.

What we have witnessed are, children, being “abandoned” to long hours childcare centre; instead traditionally being taken care of by mothers, they now are being taken care by maids, childcare workers; home, is no longer “haven in the heartless world”, now modern women can “leave behind unwashed dishes, crying baby in cot; resentful teenager, unfinished arguments..” come to work place and say “hi, fellas, I am here.” No wonder, home, for women, is but another work place, while, the work place is more “home”.

It would be easier for women to adapt into this new modernization, if there were no biological urge of mothering duties, nor traditional expectation for housekeeping. Modern women suffer from guilty and regreting of owing the time and energy to their children, the relationship in family. That burden is detrimental not only to her physical, mental health, but more profoundly to her psychological and spiritual well being. Sylvia Hewlet, in her “The cost of neglecting our children”, observed the links between long parental work to a series of alarming trends in child development. Comparing the previous generation, she claims, young people today are more likely to underperform at school, commit suicide, need psychiatric help, suffer a severe eating disorder, bear a child out of wedlock, take drugs, be the victim of a violent crime”. The battle just starts. If there is indeed co-relation between women in work and all society problem, are we ready to challenge the fundamental validate of equality that supports women out of home to be “economically employed”?

After all, can we honestly admit women is not equal to men?