My Extended Family Originates From The Rural Areas Of Pakistan,

“The Importance of Work” is an essay from The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan. The whole essay talks about how humans can contribute to the society with their full capacities through work and that women should hold jobs equivalent to men. Friedan insists that men and women need work that satisfies their creativity and contributes to human society. Today, doing paid work is a necessity because it helps us get through the day wether for our needs or our pleasures. The money earned from work supports the whole family. According to Mrs. Olive Schreiner, “if women did not win back their right to a full share of honored and useful work, women’s mind and muscle would weaken in a parasitic state; her offspring, male and female would weaken progressively, and civilization itself would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8) I strongly agree with this statement. I believe that the work ethic of most generations are influenced by parents. It is obvious that we look up to our parents. If the parents do not show any desire to work, their children will copy them and will not contribute to society. If a mother who is a stay-at-home mother or has a different job does not work hard or does not show any work ethic, her children will look up to her and follow her footsteps and eventually “civilization would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8)

First, there are two roads: men and women. These roads run parallel for a considerable amount of time, until the woman has a child and her responsibilities automatically double. As she splits from the road of man, she sees the responsibility of providing for her family, but also providing for her child as a mother. Suddenly there is a fork in the woman’s road: the financial identities of women. Women who had a substantial amount of money were not plagued by the problems that women of a lower socioeconomic status faced every day. More affluent women had the option of “hiring household help and limiting market work to part time”, essentially granting them an ideal balance of ‘the double day’. The women on the other side of the economic spectrum “did not have the luxury of being part-time or secondary earners”. These women had to take into account that a portion of their salary would be funneled directly into the pocket of whoever takes care of their children while they are working. An examination of the intersections of gender and socioeconomic status

However, “all work makes an economic contribution, but the unpaid work activities related to the home have been marginalized in economic rendering of production” According to Riane Eisler (2007:16 as cited in Lindsey, 2011, pg. 277). Meaning that for human survival, and human development to be successful women’s work needs to be valued, while women are taking on the responsibilities of caregivers to others; as well as their own. In addition to the many task these women provide such as their contribution to their household chores, managing the household income, childbearing; and caring for the elderly; these jobs are all considered unpaid work to which these women will never receive any form of income for the work they provided. In the United States alone more than 40, 000 dollars annually would be paid out yearly, if these women were being paid for services rendered in those areas; such as cooking, cleaning, ironing, care givers; and financial advisor. Meaning, “at the global level, if the unpaid work of women were added to the world’s economy, it would expand by one-third, but on the positive side, the economic reality of women’s unpaid productive work is gaining public and government attention (Lindsey, 200. Pg.

In the fall of 2009, Alison Jaggar wrote a paper detailing the struggles that females face in society titled “Transitional Cycles of Gendered Vulnerability; A Prologue to a Theory of Gendered Global Justice.” After reading and analyzing her work, I would like to counter-argue against her denial that the effects that typical family roles play in society, specifically in regards to the upper and middle class; that men should be the breadwinners and women should be the caregivers. We live in a world where all different types of people face injustice and receive less opportunity in the workforce because of the way that society is set up. Since before we even immigrated to the New World, men have been the workers, whereas women have been domesticated. Today, if a wife were to be divorced from her spouse, she would not have as much working experience as her husband, because she had played the domestic role at home; taking care of children, cleaning, keeping bills on track, etc. It’s due to this that women rarely get a taste of what it’s like to work in some of the higher paying jobs. Furthermore, in a typical family role, men go on to make the money of the house, the children are educated and told to pursue their careers. However, when discussing children’s family roles, the son typically goes on to be the scholar and to seek the higher paying job that could be offered to him, whereas the woman is encouraged to pursue

History has proven that even in the early rural communities, along with the traditional role, women would do work outside with men on farms. At the end of the 19th century, in Canada, when factories started replacing the family as the main productive unit, women comprised of thirteen percent of the labor force (“Women in”). During WWI women replaced many men who had to join the army. After the WWII, during the great depression, women were hired to do men’s jobs (“Women in”). Even today women continue to contribute economically through their domestic and professional work. In fact, it has been found that a homemaker’s work alone is worth approximately 100,000 dollars in the job market (Moran). Their area of expertise varies from being a teacher, finance manager, cleaner, gardener, chef, driver, to personal child care provider (Moran). Women have proven their capability and shown their multi skills, but they are still the victim of gender wage

Women are generally responsible for caregiving (children and elders), volunteer activities, domestic duties, and social reproduction at an average rate of 2:1 (50 hours per week) compared with men (25 hours per week), regardless of how much paid work they are committed to (Milan, Keown, & Urquijo, 2015). Men are freer to pursue paid opportunities (and investments in human capital) and women are restricted by unpaid obligations, which perpetuates inequity. Some solutions to gain equity include social welfare reform programs, universal/affordable dependents’ care programs, and the shift of unpaid duties to men, as sociologist Nancy Fraser (1997) theorizes in After the Family Wage: A Postindustrial Thought

Within a household, women and men, mothers and fathers, have different roles and responsibilities, much of which are based on the person’s gender. Typically, women or mothers are “responsible for the emotional, social, and physical well-being of her family” (Lober 80), “most of the hands-on family work” (Lorber 81), and keep up of the house. The men or fathers are usually seen as the “bread winners” of the family. Due to this and the work they do outside of the house, men usually have little to no responsibilities to the family and within the home. It is not unusual for women to clean the house, make sure the children are well taken care of, and cook while the man, or father, is at work. When he gets back home, after work, it is expected for him to relax and unwind. Although they are a couple with similar obligations, the divide of them is not equally distributed among the two and offer either one different results.

It was a common understanding prior to this time period, that a family was only successful if each member fulfilled their independent and significant role. Men were expected to work outside of the home, their support for their family came from their labor and toil. Women were expected to work inside of the home, and their support for their family came from doing things such as housework, raising children, and fulfilling their wifely duties. Women’s work was often considered less valuable than a man’s, but it would not be until now, that women and men’s work and their skills both become trivial. The traditional customs that have been followed and practiced for so long have abruptly come to a halt since capitalism has been incorporated into American

The days of mom staying at home full-time are long gone for most families. More women are their family’s breadwinners than ever before. Heather Boushey in The New Breadwinners, states “Women are more likely to work outside the home and their earning are more important to their families well-being than ever before in our nation’s history” (31). In families today there’s no one staying at home in the day, so there no one there when kids come home from school with everyday life.

Typically female role is taking care of house works, and Male’s role is to taking care of outdoor works. Female of the family cook, clean,

In the quite hours of early morning my mother rises out of bed, as she has done every morning for the past twenty-two years. She quietly begins her long day by making tea and cooking breakfast. Before the day ends, my mother would have cooked several meals, cleaned several times and worked a full time job. My mother’s daily routine is not unique and has historically been done by women for centuries. Even today, women are supposed to do it all, have a family, and take care of the house/children and work full-time. Women who are in the workforce are unpaid and the work they do at home is viewed as inferior. They often deal with sexism and racism in the workplace. Changes in law and our thought process need to occur to create and an equitable system of work for all women.

Depending on their cultural background, many families will often have different understandings or ideas of what a family is and how it should be structured.

Society is patriarchal and male domination is a factor in everything, including the family setting. In the past, the father was seen as the authority figure and disciplinarian while the mother's job was to cook and clean. This is visible in advertising where the proper woman is wife and mother, cleaning house in heels and pearls while cooking a

“From a traditional view some may believe that women should be nurturing towards their family and the male is believed to be head of the household” (Blackstone, 2008:337). In some traditions and culture men believe that women should stay at home, cook, clean and look after the children, while the man is the breadwinner in the household and provides a stable income.

Conventionally, females played a very insignificant role in the paid work force of a society as many times they were expected to be home taking care of their family. Their roles at home can often include grocery shopping, meeting all the needs of her children and husband. As time moved on, our society became more accepted of sharing housework between the couples, but even so, the traditionally more feminine housework such as cooking, caring for sick children, and shopping for the entire family are mostly done by the females of the house. It is argued in a research journal Work and Occupations (Witkowski & Leicht, 1995) that in an average North American family, females take on roughly three-quarters of the housework. Even though we are in a democratic society, parenting roles in the household are assigned based on gender rather than in a democratic fashion (Winslow-Bowe, 2009). Because of the many responsibilities and obligations that are associated with the female gender, their career paths are eventually affected for the worse. According to Statistics Canada (2001), for every dollar a man earns, a single woman earns 93 cents and a married woman earns 69 cents. These statistics