This article explores the tension between women's desire for financial independence and traditional views of femininity.
It is the end of term for most university students. For those graduating, it is the beginning of something new, the next phase of their lives, another step towards independence and adulthood. Many of these graduating students haven't got any idea of what they will do next.
For many women, figuring out what to do next is problematic. Women get mixed signals about their status as independent adults. Yes, you are expected to be financially self-sustaining. But women still only make 72% to every guy's dollar, and women still get messages that a career is not as important as motherhood - or is something to juggle motherhood around. So, many young women fail to make career plans that maximize financial gain in favour of convenience in raising their hypothetical children. While this may leave them, years later, questioning their earlier priorities, the very fact that young, childless women consider childcare demands as relevant to career choices, speaks to the challenges faced by many women today. Could it be that women's double work day, both in the paid labour force and in the domestic sphere, is so widely experienced, that it has become just something to plan around?
Lets look at two of the messages that women receive about their roles in Western society, messages that 'normalize' their double work day. First, Western feminism and its liberal ideals of equality have impacted on women's identities to suggest that a 'liberated' woman is one who is financially self-sufficient. That in itself feels like a great start. However, according to Lois P. Frankel PhD (2005) women receive conflicting messages about financial independence that suggest their independence makes them less feminine, and therefore less desirable as potential life partners to men who may be caught up in their own role as the breadwinner. This ambivalence typically channels women into three possible scenarios. They are left striving for independence and financial security in low paying, service-oriented jobs that do not maximize their financial worth. They spend their financial resources on others to alleviate guilt about being paid well, especially if their career is regarded as 'natural' for women. Or, they minimize their capabilities in careers that are popularly regarded as the natural domain of men in an effort to maintain their femininity.
So, women are pushed towards financial independence but not necessarily provided with the skills and emotional foundations to achieve it. Many remain frustrated by their desire for more balanced work and home life, held back by the view that motherhood is their real work, and settle for work that just pays the bills for now. And without the financial means to provide care to their children when they are too tired, drop the laundry at the cleaners when the piles are too high, or pick up a take away dinner when the groceries haven't been bought, women will remain chained to the double work day.
