A friend recently told me her boss resigned from her position as the Director of a large company - she could no longer juggle her career and family. It’s been years since I had to juggle career and children, but I didn’t think women still felt they had no alternative but to leave their careers to care for their family. I thought Susan B. Anthony’s Law of Progress was rolling along like it should, especially since reports tells us employment has grown among women over the last three decades. In 2005, women made up nearly half the labour force compared with just over one-third in 1976. Societal changes – such as improved parental leave programs and higher percentages of women in university contributed to the growing number of females in the work force (www41.statcan.ca).

If the reports are true, and women are making strides in the work force, then men must be taking more responsibility of the children and household chores. I decided to find out if the woman of today was indeed a different woman from her grandmother or if that old spinning wheel still lurked in the shadows.

Seventy to a hundred years ago, it was rare for a woman to have a career or even further her education. Ruth is 92 years old. She went to university as a young woman but left after only two years. “Once I got married I left,” she said, “Women didn’t work after they got married.”

Joy’s mother worked at Eaton’s Department Store. She got married in 1900.

“She couldn’t tell her boss, they would have let her go,” Joy 82 said. Her mother worked at Eaton’s until 1927, when Joy was born.

Fifty years ago, women left their jobs when their children were born. “Raising children and household chores were considered women’s work back then,” the women from the Sugar and Spice Bowling League told me. They are all in their mid 70s to late 80s.

Once their children got older most of them returned to the work force in female-dominated occupations such as teaching, nursing, and clerical work and they still carried the brunt of caring for the family and household chores.

 

In the 1960s, the second wave of the Women’s Movement started and with it, a mass entry of women entered the workforce. These were the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. Raised in a more prosperous atmosphere and more educated than their grandmothers and mothers, the baby boomer women I spoke to tended to lean towards the arts.

“I wanted to be a photographer but I was discouraged by my guidance counselor,” said Mary, who is now in her late fifties. While jobs in creative fields were considered flimsy choices, “Learn to type and you’ll always have a job” seemed to be the mantra of the decade. So, having no idea what they wanted to do, not encouraged to continue their education after high school and limited in their career choices, they went to work in entry-level positions in offices, taking night courses in business and eventually settling into fields that were not of their choice. If they moved into management positions, it was within certain perimeters.

As teenagers, the baby boomer women were free spirited and often rejected traditional values. Yet, like their grandmothers and mothers, they felt society’s pressure to marry and have children. When I mentioned the Women’s Movement and its take on liberation, I explained that I couldn’t understand how they still felt they had to get married. They said they heard the women libbers but they didn’t listen. With maternity leave and child-care being available to them, they returned to work after having children. Some of them worked to supplement their husband’s income, some became the higher wage earners and others the only earner in the family. However, on the home front nothing had changed since their grandmothers and mothers’ time. In addition to a job, the baby boomer women carried the brunt of the family and household chores —
it was still considered woman’s work.

 

While the baby boomer women seemed to go with the flow, the women between the ages of 35 to 45 always knew they could have a career in the field of their choice. Encouraged to further their education, the women in this age group are intelligent, educated, independent thinkers and confident.

Their university degrees, hard work and their love of learning contribute to their success and they have made dents in exclusively male dominated occupations. They are playing stronger roles in the work place and their profiles are increasing in professional fields. Whether these women are single, ‘solo mothers’ or married with children, they work for fulfillment.

“I would work even if my husband tripled his income,” Kelly, a 35- year old mother of two and a Cost Accountant with a degree in Economics, and a CGA said.

 

Vivian, a Post Doctoral Fellow, with a Ph.D. in computer science feels she would feel more enriched if she returned to her career after having children.

If there’s a glass ceiling, the women in this age group feel it is self-imposed.

“Men have it easier,” Earlene, a 40-year-old Marketing Consultant with a B Commerce and three children said. “If a man makes it to the top, they usually have a woman at home taking full responsibility for the children and household.” Kelly agrees. Kelly thinks about moving up but not right now. She feels she can do it when her children are older.

“I have limited time at the moment to network like men do,” she said.

“A woman can have a career in her 40s but the longer she waits to have children, the more difficult it becomes,” Shannon a, 40 year old, solo mom by choice, and a Marketing Consultant said.

 

These women planned their paths and set their goals for the future and they know how they will reach those goals. However, when I asked them if they felt their male partners could take full responsibility of the family and household while they focused on their careers, they said no. They still want to be the primary caregivers of their children, and they are not ready to give 100 percent of the household chores to their male partner - very few of them feel men can nurture children as well as women.
I saw this same attitude in women aged 25 to 30 years old. Kim, 30, is on maternity leave from her job as a social worker. Her priorities have shifted; she is torn about returning to work after her maternity leave is over. She feels it’s still the woman’s role to stay home and she doesn’t feel staying home with children is in way letting women down.

 

Bridget is 28 years old. She works four part time jobs around her husband’s schedule to be home with her son who she said is her first priority.

“The problem with women is,” Shannon explains, “they don’t understand that men do things different than women, and they nurture different. They don’t understand it doesn’t matter as long as the end result is the same.”

I agree with Shannon. So is the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother? She may be, but I can’t help but feel there’s still a thread to be untied before the spinning wheel is truly banished.

 

 

New Year, New You
How to Make the Most out of Your New Year’s Resolutions

By Souzan Michael, FW Writer

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year! As the clock strikes midnight on the final day of the year, the last thing on our minds is a new diet and exercise plan or how to further our careers. However, the next day, these things seem to be all we can think about. Everyone makes a New Year’s resolution, but how many of us actually stick with it? Rather than losing hope, vow to make 2010 the year you achieve everything you want!

Some goals seem to resurface year after year. So what are some of the most popular New Year’s resolutions?

1. Lose weight and/or develop a regular workout schedule
2. Quit smoking
3. Spend more time with loved ones

While many of us have likely uttered at least one of these in the past, they are all easier said than done. Here are some tips to help you main tain your resolutions and make 2010 a great and memorable year!

Fitness
The holidays are all about socializing and indulgence. With a packed social calendar full of cocktail parties and family gatherings, it’s difficult to avoid the holiday bulge. Rather than continuing to pack on the pounds this year, set realistic fitness goals that you are confident you can achieve. For instance, start with something simple such as skipping dessert once or twice a week and taking the stairs instead of the elevator whenever you can. This might sound too easy, but you’ll notice a difference. This will motivate you to adopt a stricter and healthy lifestyle which includes going to the gym regularly and writing down what you eat. Taking small steps towards your goal rather than setting your aims too high and thus becoming frustrated ensures success and a healthier 2010!

Smoking
One of the most important steps you can take towards a better and healthier life is to ditch this bad habit. While this is certainly difficult, when you believe you can do it, there’s nothing holding you back. Read everything you can about the negative effects of smoking, rather than ignoring the posters and commercials. The more information you have, the more inclined you’ll be to quit. Quitting with others has been proven to be extremely effective. The next time your co-worker or friend asks you to step outside for a smoke, make a plan to quit together. The more support you have, the higher your chances of success. Of course, eating right, getting the recommended amount of sleep, and drinking plenty of water all help reduce cravings.

Friends and Family
With the pressures of work leaving you exhausted after a long day, it’s often hard to make plans with your loved ones. Rather than neglecting your family and friends, make sure to schedule time to spend with the people who mean the most to you. This involves compromise; instead of watching TV for an hour every night, meet your friends for coffee once a week or make an effort to visit family members on weekends. Simple gestures like this will ensure that you don’t lose touch with your loved ones, and a social life is an important part of an overall healthy lifestyle.

Take these tips and implement them into your life to make this year the best one yet! New Year’s resolutions allow us to challenge ourselves and make room for self-improvement. No matter what your resolution is, with a bit of motivation and discipline, nothing can stop you in 2010.

 

Book Nook

By: Ayesha Faruqui, FW Writer

For the Roses by Julie Garwood.

It was the year 1860. They found her in a dark New York alley, stuffed in a basket that was swarming with mice. She was one year old, mistaken for a boy (she was a bald baby, but that oversight was corrected almost immediately) and God’s gift to the four street urchins that had found her. They christened her Mary Rose, adopted the family name of Clayborne and headed west to raise their baby sister to be “proper.” But Mary Rose was a kidnapped heiress, contender to the fortune of one of the most powerful families in England; she was an Elliot, Victoria Elliot.

For the Roses is the story of a family, not bonded to one another by blood but love. Adam Clayborne is a runaway slave from down South, with his own murky past. Travis, Douglas and Cole Clayborne are each also hiding a troublesome yesterday. If anyone wonders why Adam (being African American) calls himself a Clayborne, they don’t ask; messing with the Calybornes is like messing with your wellbeing, your sanity. But there is one exception! His name is Harrison Stanford MacDonald and he has come to Blue Belle, Montana to tear Mary Rose’s family apart, except that he falls madly and violently in love with Mary Rose, and she with him. The story moves from America to England and back with a beautiful flow and rhythm.

Once you pick up this novel, it is extremely hard to put it down mainly because you just want to hang on to the sweet warmth Julie Garwood’s story fills your heart with. Garwood combines love, family and romance very artfully with the American Civil War. She also intertwines the Wild West meets snooty English drama with hilarious outcomes. Although some scenes are too steamy and graphic for minors, all in all For the Roses is a light, entertaining, romantic comedy that avid (female) readers should not miss (I don’t know how well men will stomach some of the mushiness). I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel, The Clayborne Brides, and enjoy it as much as the first!

Eco House Book by Terrence Conran.

Eco House Book by Terrence Conran is a mini encyclopaedia of all matters concerning an environmentally (if not always economically) friendly way of life. To adopt such a way of living, one must begin the change at home. This is specifically what Conran is aiming for in this book. Eco House Book offers its readers a plethora of knowledge of how to be frugal with their finite natural resources and work towards building a cleaner and greener Earth.

Conran covers everything from proper housing structures to preserve electricity to collecting rainwater for gardening and washing cars. He writes about simple things like shutting off the water while brushing one’s teeth, which according to the book will save “6 litres (1½ gallons) (of water) a minute” (Conran, 59), and investing in energy efficient dish washers and washing machines while enumerating several more sophisticated (read expensive) ways of energy conservation like installing Photovoltaic Cells (those which convert the sun’s energy to electricity) or building Retractable Rooflights, in order to lighten up the living space without the use of electricity during the day.

Conran gives detailed information on how to make our homes eco friendly by insulating the windows and walls properly, using bamboo instead of wood for flooring/panelling etc (which looks great by the way), and using recycled even slightly run down book cases/coffee tables thereby increasing the Vintage appeal of the look (if there was any to begin with). He also touches on outdoor spaces like patios and greenhouses.

Eco House Book is not only a book that will be loved by environmentalists but also us simple folk who try to find small ways of returning our thanks to Mother Nature. Certain small things like collecting the cold running water while waiting for the hot and using it later to water plants is something that may not require too much of an effort to implement in our daily lives. And if there are people who are absolutely environmentally-challenged but enjoy looking at and using great home designs, this book is for them too because the interiors in most of the pictures are breathtaking (inspiration galore!!). So grab a copy and enjoy it... whatever category you may fall in.