Are Working Women Happy on the Job?

Are Working Women Happy on the Job?

Date: Monday, September 05, 2011, 6:20 am
By: Zack Burgess, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

For some reason, depression and unhappiness seem to be wreaking havoc inside the American home, writes Zack Burgess.

For me, women have always had this image as a larger-then-life hero. In my family, they were the engines that made us go, the mavericks who were feared and respected. They were the ones who taught you to work hard, dress well and always be a gentleman.

And no, I don’t come from the stereotypical fatherless home. There was a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather - who all worked, by the way. But in their households, all of the women worked as well. That’s why the phenomena known as the “working woman” is puzzling to me.

As far as I know, black women have always worked.

So, as I watch people - men and women - complain about finding the so-called “work, life, balance” thing, I can’t help but think back to parents who made it through layoffs, graduate school, night shifts in the factory, job losses, raised children and still dealt with the customary rigors that go with life - without complaining.

It’s great that women have pushed, shoved and kicked in the door for equality. But for some reason, depression and unhappiness seem to be wreaking havoc inside the American home. I hear the grievances, as men have lost their jobs at record levels - not of their own doing, by the way - only to be berated as they have trouble finding work. Bear in mind, their wives or significant others have relatively good jobs.

I wonder: Are women really happy in the workplace?

“I’m very happy to be an achiever. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said a young lady, a third-year law student at an Ivy League university, who did not want to use her name. “It’s just our expectation that a man should work. I know that I will probably do very well in life if everything goes to plan, but there’s an expectation that I have for my husband. Ultimately, I think it’s really a gender thing.”

That seems to be the answer from every woman I talked to. And while many admitted that working put a strain on their marriages, made them tired beyond belief and/or gave them little time for dating, they also said it gave them a sense of empowerment and leveled the playing field within their relationships.

“I think every woman would love to be able to raise their children without the distractions of work,” said Shirley Brooks of Detroit. “For many of us, we don’t really want to work, but we don’t know any other way, especially black women. It gives us a sense of control that I don’t think we would have otherwise. Do we wish things could be different? Of course, we do. But I was always taught to have a back-up. And for me, that’s my job.”

Since the 1960s, tens of millions of women have reinvented their lives as they worked to accommodate careers. They married later and had fewer children. They turned to labor-saving machines and paid others to help handle household work, while men dealt with the reality of role changes in their households. At the peak in 2000, some 77 percent of women in the prime ages of 25 to 54 were in the work force.

Unfortunately, these changes have been proving harder to achieve, as many mothers of all income levels have reached their breaking point.

"What happened on the road to gender equality?" said Suzanne M. Bianchi, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, to USA Today. "A lot of work happened."

For example, Cathie Watson-Short, 37, a former business development executive at high-technology companies in Silicon Valley, admitted that it has been very hard for .....

Are Working Women Happy on the Job?

Posted in: