UNIT D - Blog 34

The work/life balance problem is that women often find it difficult to balance work life and family life. Women are under such scrutiny when they are needing to work part time schedules in order to take care of their family, many jobs don't want to give out part time schedules and would much rather fire the woman instead. Also, alot of companies might be hesitant to hire a mother because they see this as a financial loss for their company because it might be possible that the woman will have to take many sick days to take care of their child or if their child needs something they might have to leave work early or take the day off in order to tend to their child. Even if a woman applies for a job and is childless an employer might see her as a future threat if she were to ever decide to have a family. Women are faced with so many issues when they have to deal with family life and work life and it shouldn't have to be so hard but employers make it this way. Women are being discriminated against for being mothers and this is absolutely unfair. It's tough enough having to work a full time job in order to make ends meet and get bills paid but when you have to go home after working forty plus hours and have to attend to housework and taking care of kids, it starts to take a toll on you. These women need some sort of a break and need to be able to expect job security. In the New York Times article the woman left work for a while to have her premature child and was told over the phone not to worry because her job was stable and they understood her situation. But weeks later she found out that her job was given to someone else and she was left jobless with a premature child to provide for. I don't understand how companies can get away with this kind of discrimination against mothers, it is absurd. In "Gender on Trial" part time work is discussed and it talked about how women with part time schedules were given less responsibility and weren't seen as being serious lawyers because they weren't working the same long hours as some of the other lawyers out there. It's not fair that because a woman has to take a part time shift to accommodate her home life she is seen as a less worthy lawyer, this makes no sense to me at all. Chapter seven discusses work life balance and how this has been advancing in the legal field. Clients aren't worrying so much about full time or part time labels because they just want their work to get done and that's all that matters to them instead of a lawyers title. Companies also don't want to deal with any legal matters or law suits presented to them on work discrimination and they are also dealing with high turnover rates when they aren't offering more flexible schedules to their employees. This is a positive advancement because the more flexibility that is offered the more the employees will experience a positive work environment and will be much happier at work.