Author: Lucy Feickert
The debate over whether or not women can have it all – a career and a family – has been of great concern as feminism has ebbed and flowed over the past few decades. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women are earning more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men are, but only 14 percent of women are in corporate leadership and only 20 Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. Clearly women are able to get the education they want but are less able to transfer their education into high power careers. For women today, it’s important not necessarily for women to consider how it is possible to have it all, but also to consider what makes life fulfilling for them.
Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg urges women not to treat professional empowerment and family life as mutually exclusive in her new book, “Lean In.” In her work Sandberg observes that as women plan for a family, they retreat from their jobs and don’t do enough to compete with their male counterparts. Sandberg bluntly expresses this occurrence, prompting reflection and awareness from both men and women. Many women may not be cognizant of how they hold themselves back, possibly contributing to their inability to reach this work-family balance.
While voices such as Sandberg’s are important for instigating change in the realm of gender issues, it is paramount that like-minded advocates capitalize on her momentum. So far, responses to Sandberg’s stance have been skeptical with people targeting her success and privilege and accusing her of assuming everyone wants what she has – wealth, a family and a corporate job. However what Sandberg is doing with this advocacy is far more important than the place from which she is doing it. Her influence and notoriety has provided her with a unique forum to raise awareness of gender differences in the workplace.
While it is reasonable to assess that not all women want the same things, men do seem able to “have it all,” and women should too. Perhaps inherent gender differences are too great to be bridged for women to inhabit the traditional family role that men have lived for so many years. Husbands appear content working a typical nine to five job with their families waiting when they come home. Many women, on the other hand, don’t think this way. Women instead seem to be intrinsically linked to raising the child in a way men are not. Maybe it is impossible to be fully committed to a high-power job and raising a family, but women tend to take into consideration the work-family dynamic more so than men. The balance of work and family should rather be sought after by men and women equally.
Ultimately, it does not really matter what professional level women wish to achieve. The argument for the empowerment of women is not contingent upon the job for which women will be prepared. It is about empowering women in the larger sense to create a more equal society and to be able to have the choice of what they wish to do. While equity can be exemplified with more women at the top of companies and governments, the move toward gender equity will be much stronger if women and men are equally assured of themselves and their abilities. Regardless of women’s jobs, it is essential that they are confident that their voices mean something. Even if that voice is not asking for a well-deserved promotion, it can be advocating for friends or children to demand recognition of the problem and the potential to solve it.
Lucy Feickert is an undeclared first-year. She can be reached at feickert@oxy.edu.
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