Career women.
What is the first thing that comes to your mind with those two words? For many of us it can be one word, phrases, or multiple thoughts. As for myself, when I think of those two words I think of women balancing a career, life and motherhood. This has been a pair of words that I have grown fond of recently and have wanted to learn more each day about.
I recently took a class here at Arizona State University, titled Gender in the Media Workplace, my two professors were the actual authors of the textbook we used in class, “There’s No Crying in Newsrooms: What Women Have Learned about What It Takes to Lead” by Kristin Grady Gilger and Julia Wallace. https://www.nocryinginnewsrooms.com/
This class and textbook was eyeopening to a topic I had not been aware of, women in the media workplace and the continuous struggles that have always been a part of that gender. As a woman who works in media already, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t aware of most of the gender challenges women had been dealing with since before our parents generations. I had always thought since we are in a different day and age now, such gender inequality in the workplace was well on its way to being resolved and no way was history repeating itself time and time again.
I have grown a strong interest in this topic due to the fact that I am a young woman in my 30s, recently married, and just now receiving my bachelors, plus attempting to start a career in journalism and at some point wanting a family of my own. Women often struggle with the fact of career advancement desires colliding with family and motherhood desires as well. Many fear the fact of not advancing due to motherhood or family duties, or just simply for being a woman in the workplace. This often can and has lead to women leaving the workplace a lot sooner than expected, thinking they’re doing themselves a favor and removing themselves from a potential non career advancement.
It seems unfair, because more often than not, women can be the leading contenders for top position advancements throughout their company but never actually get that opportunity because of prematurely leaving their positions for a multitude of personal reasons. Those multitude of reasons have one common denominator, the simple fact of the unknown of what can happen once a women reaches a point in her career where she may decide to have a family.
https://fortune.com/2020/01/24/how-to-ease-the-return-to-work-after-maternity-leave/
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/4/8523753/mommy-track
