UNIT D: BLOG 34

BLOG 34: Unbending Gender

Unbending gender is the change in gender roles and how we have not made that much progress over the past 2- to 30 years and hot it is not changing and not "unbending." Another the other side she states that this term also means how much unbending we have got accomplished by have more women in a wider variety of jobs and nontraditional jobs. She then goes on to talk about the market work and family work. This is like the two spheres that we talked about in our reading such as the Private and public sphere and how women have two jobs. The market work is the work that these women are doing for occupation and for paid work such as the public sphere. The family work, or the private sphere, is the work that these women do at home such as childcare, cleaning, housework, caring for the elderly, and so on (Interview, Joan Williams).

She explains that some issues with trying to balance market work and family work is that these mothers are being pulled into between these two jobs. For mothers that have market work and have a job feel that they are not really there when they are at work. These women feel that they are, in her words, on the "Mommy track." That these women are not as involved in their Jobs and are not getting the same type of benefits, pay, and are not advancing their careers (Interview Joan Williams).

The reason that these women are feeling this way is because of the structuring of the work market. The work place is still being structured around the idea that in order for a person to be the best at their job or an "ideal work" that they have need to be there full time, working with no time off, and working without taking time off to have children. This is one problem with the work force that is causing problems for women when they want to have a family and a successful career. The work force is still being structured around the ideal job for males. This is the problem, the work force needs to changes its standards of the "ideal worker" because no women that wants to have children would be able to be the "ideal worker." The ideal that people need to be at the work place til 6 or even later to have a traditional job needs to change. This is because now a days both parents are working and this is causing a problem in-between the private and public spheres. These is where the idea of a "suspect parent" comes back into play. People think that women can not be an ideal work and a perfect mother. The problem is the workforce in how the see the hours, time off, and work schedules for these parents (Interview with Joan Williams).


Another example of issues with juggling family and work jobs is when women have to take time off to have children. An example of this is when a women named Karen Deonarian had to take time off for having her child. Her work did grant her this time off and was assured that she would have her job waiting for her when she was ready to come back. When she gave birth to her child she was premature and had to take more time off the usual. When she was read to go back to work her job said that her position was no longer available, but she could apply for a position that was lower paying. She then sued the company for discrimination. More and more cases of discrimination against women, and some men, are showing up in courts; more than 1,150 lawsuits just like this one have been filed. Joan Williams was also discussed in this article and talks more about the problems with juggling work and home life. She states that the conditions and schedules that these women are suppose to be on while juggling work and home are unfair and unrealistic. An a way to help change these unjust regulations is these lawsuits. She says that filing lawsuits and creating lawsuits is one way that these women are finishing the revolution that they have been trying to finish (Family-Leave Values, NY Times).