Bondarenko E.M.Scientific supervisor: Kyslytsyna O. V. Donetsk national university of economics and trade named after Mykhaylo Tugan-Baranovsky
WOMEN AND CAREER
The problem of career
obsessed women is rather burning in our society. It is very important to
analyze all the aspects of this problem in order to make the right choice:
career or family? The arm of this work is to investigate main aspects of the
life of women connected with their career. Many working woman have problems,
especially in the beginning of their career because they cannot answer two
questions: do they want to work in order to have money or to make career? Do
they need to display their feminist at work? [1]
Research showed
that there is a stay in every woman’s career after about 10 years of work. Some
of them have already shown their business qualities and at their 30-35 they became middle managers, having
started as secretaries. But the majority didn’t make any career. They have been
working hard and truly as secretaries or office-workers.
So, the researchers
had two groups of working women. In the first group there were women, who
didn’t make any career irrespective of their wants and abilities. Most of them
had married in the age of 25-30, though they continued to work. These women
divide their work and personal life. It means that they life a tense, two-faced
life: these women don’t want to allow bad words about them and sometimes they
exhaust themselves at work.
At home they have
to take care of children and serve to husband. It is clear that not very woman
can bear such amount of work. So, time comes, when she starts to give up both
at home and at work. Even if a woman has been working happily for 20 years at
the same firm, she comes of age, when birthdays are not celebrated officially.
The situation changes again: grown up children have left home, her married life
turned into a significant ritual; her work became a boring routine, because she
has the professional duties at her fingertips. If her husband doesn’t earn much
enough, she continues working another 15 years. Her boss is pleased by the fast
he has a reliable worker, though he doesn’t pay much to her. But one fine day
she realized that she has been working all her life in her firm and gets less
money then young specialists and her pension will not be big, and so on.[2]
Those women who
belong to the second group have made career. After 10 years of work they became
department managers, they are respected. Their male colleagues say about them
with admiration: “They are as capable as men!” That is and rejected their
feminity. They were rather reserved, wore quiet suits and severe hairs tiles.
Some of them felt offended if a man paid a compliment to them.
In the age of about
45 they made a shocking revelation: suddenly they realized that as woman they
have missed everything in their lives. They have neither husband, no children,
no family life. Their lives turned into live of a working bee: a life without
excitement and emotions. Is this the sense of life?[1]
All the 25 women who
took part in the research came to the same decision: they granted a moratorium
on career growth, they became less active at work and for the first time in
their life they were thinking about life during the whole year. This mental
process led them to the same result: from now on they decided “to be women” and
to eat as women.15 from 25 of them got married. Their husband was usually, at
least, 10 years older. They did it in order to feel what family life is though
being late. The other 10 participants were staying single. However all the 25
participants started to attend beauty centers, wear make-up and fashionable
clothes.
Thanks to this they
improved their communicate abilities, their environment liked the changes. All
the men-colleagues said: “Such you we like much better “. Changes in
professional life were just striking. Step by step those women started to
delegate their powers to the others and to workout the decisions together with
subordinate men. They stopped to worry about every trifle and it gave them
opportunity to continue their career growth to the level of top-managers.
In order to help a
woman to become a good worker and an attractive woman, her husband has to set
himself the task in upbringing children and house holding. A woman shouldn’t be
deprived of her chance of self-realization according to her own idea. It could
be a job or studding. In our society you can meet more and more marriages,
which have partnership as their basis. The researchers think it is a very
hope-rising fact. Emancipation problems can be solved only by common efforts of
men and women.
One more type of
women should be mentioned here. These are women who can allow themselves to be
managers without suppressing their feminity. The question is about independent
businesswomen. From the first day of their work they were the bosses, that’s
why they could allow themselves to be both women and chiefs. There is common
advice to all women: become independent!
Considering the fact that women
receive the majority of college degrees and that women are well represented in
entry and mid-level positions, it is easy to think all the challenges are over
and that women can do anything they want. However, a benchmarking study by the
White House Project showed that women account for only 18% of our top leaders.
How do you provide role models for the next generation of women and help close
the gap?
Research shows that 62% of Gen Y women
don’t want the high-powered, extreme hour careers that their mothers had. Gen Y
women are more educated, face less discrimination and have more opportunities
than ever before, but many of them are saying that they don’t want the top jobs
and they don’t want to break through the barriers. The challenge moving
forward, is to help women find their own way and chart their own paths. [4]
Women are bringing
increased income home to their families and creating jobs through the
businesses they run. While governments and private sector leaders discuss new
economic models, they should not forget that there are new economic
players--namely, women--who are already transforming local and national
economies. Women are critical to economic recovery, both as entrepreneurs and
workers, and so it is essential that they are at the heart of stimulus packages
crafted by governments worldwide.[3]
Therefore, our so
often criticized capitalistic society has one great advantage: every
hard-working, success determined person can become independent and successful
even without starting capital.
Sources
1. http://www.careerwomaninc.com/blog/
2. À. ×èðèêîâà// «Ïñèõîëîãèÿ è áèçíåñ». – 2008
3.
I.Nativitad// «Woman and the global economy» http://www.imow.org/economica/stories/viewStory?storyId=3636
4.
GlassHammer, «Intrepid
Woman» 2012 // http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2012/02/17/intrepid-woman-bonnie-st-john-former-director-for-human-capital-issues-at-the-white-house-national-economic-council-paralympic-champion/#more-8210