Monday, July 30, 2007

Family Values: What Do You Think?

Just after I was chatting with a female friend on-line about being "traditionally minded" vs. "career minded," I read this NY Times article. It's on the long side, so you may not have the time or patience to read it all, but whether you read it or not, tell me: what do you think about work/life balance and gender roles in the USA? Is everything fine? What's wrong or right with this part of our system (or lack of system)?

I don't often try to start discussions here, so I don't know if anyone is up for it, but I'm very interested in your opinion, so if you have a minute, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

In other blog news, I don't know what happened to my picture.

4 comments:

Shanel said...

See, it's happening to you. Stupid blogger is messing with your photos. It is just a matter of time before they take over your blog like some form of aliens.

SamErika said...

Its possible you've exceeded your limit, blogger only allows so much space for photos, which is easy to overlook if every one of them is 5MB or so. :-)

Ricardo said...

I think it's funny that you are getting more responses about the photo issue than the original posting. Including this one.

Anonymous said...

I can’t fit all my thoughts about gender roles and work/life balance in a post, but here’s a few thoughts.

I don’t think it is rational for a woman to take 10 weeks off for maternity leave, spend less time at after hours company functions (you can’t go to happy hour with the boss if you need to pick up the kids from daycare by 5:30), work from home when her child is sick, and expect the same career progression as a man or woman that does none of the above.

I think unintentional gender bias is alive and well in the workplace, but I rarely see intentional bias. Usually, people assume that the mother of a one year old doesn’t want to go on the week long business trip to another state/country so they ask a non-mother to go. They think they are being thoughtful, not biased.

Men still hold the majority of high ranking positions in corporate America. Men are more comfortable mentoring other men. It can be hard for women to find a strong mentor who is willing to give them a boost up the corporate ladder.