Why Women Still Don’t Have Freedom of Choice
In today’s conversation there seems to be little doubt that women need to ‘lean in’ and become successful in the workplace. We assume that only when women work in the same positions as men and are paid equally can we achieve true equality of the genders. I believe that this viewpoint may require some reconsideration because it ignores the reality that women are unique and diverse. Defining success in this way may sacrifice the ability of some women to pursue their dreams and find true happiness.
It is one thing to say that we want to give women a choice to be whoever and whatever they want to be. It is another to expect all women to be career-driven leaders. When we begin to define successful women as only those who achieve greatness in their career, we unwittingly take away women’s right to choose who and how to be.
Don’t get me wrong; I agree wholeheartedly that women should be allowed and encouraged to work outside the home and to pursue their careers if they so choose. But what about those who are not career-focused? My sister once told me that when she was in primary school, her teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered that she wanted to be a mother. Her teacher didn’t accept this and asked her again what she wanted to do when she grew up. I ask, why is it no longer acceptable to say that you want to be a mother? Why must we assume that all women should aspire to work outside the home?
There is of course a key reason for this: paid employment brings money, and money gives power. That is something that deserves a post of its own. For now, let’s remember that we want to give women choice — real choice — and that means that they should be able to choose what they want to do with their lives, without discrimination. Implicit in that is that they should be able to choose to be housewives and mothers without having to be ‘more’; and they should be able to choose that without shame, guilt, discrimination or disapproval, especially from other women.
I am not saying that we should not encourage women to take on roles that have traditionally been reserved for, or dominated by, men. We should foster in our daughters the belief that they can be whoever and whatever they choose to be. We should enable them. We should show them that they can be engineers, businesswomen, lawyers, doctors, IT professionals, and that their potential, abilities and roles are not limited to those that society has traditionally assigned to women and used to define them. But we should not pressure them into any of those roles. If they want to do something that has traditionally been reserved for women, they should be equally empowered to follow that dream. We need to accept every woman for how and who she is and respect her choice without projecting our own or society’s aspirations onto her.
It is all well and good to say that women should have the choice to be who they want, unburdened by societal expectations, but that is not enough by itself. We need to look at why we want our daughters to choose a career outside the home. We fear if they choose to be homemakers they will not be valued, respected or have the power to live by their own rules. This fear is not misplaced but the key is not to tell our daughters what they should be. The key is to educate and change our society so that our daughters can be valued and respected irrespective of their career choices.
Real choice is only possible if we as a society learn to value women and the contributions they make in all their varying roles. We have begun to recognise and value the contribution of women in the workplace, but society still does not value the contributions made by women inside the home. We take those as granted or dismiss it as insignificant work. Only when we, as a society, break free of our prejudicial mindset and finally value and empower women both inside and outside the home will women truly have the freedom to choose.
