What's Important

I picked up “Lean In” a couple of days ago which is written by the COO of Facebook and is about women in the workforce.  Even while I hesitated buying it and as I started to read the book I wondered if the subject was relevant to me at this stage of my life.  I decided that I needed to pause from the reading to consider the question in my own mind.  Just because I am at the last stretch of my working career doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be informed about a subject that has always been dear to my heart.  If the discussion and advice from the book can help me that is great but the knowledge is just as powerful standing on its own merits.  So I continued to read.

       Reading on any subject helps give one perspective because there is always something new to be added to the knowledge already in one’s head.  Often we get caught up in an opinion and it doesn’t ever evolve past the original opinion even though the subject evolves.  Woman’s role in the world, at all levels, has changed many times over the past hundred years and as the role has changed so has the consequences.  We see results as generations age and then we wonder, was this the right path to take?  For instance, working mothers must wonder if they are doing the right thing by putting their children in daycare.  But what else can they do with the economy geared to two incomes, not to mention what women have invested in education in order to earn their own living.  Society today is different but no less harsh on women than it was 100 years ago.  If a woman cannot support herself she is in a very bad way economically much sooner than a man.  Unless she is built like a stevedore an uneducated woman does not have a lot of choices by way of well paying work.  She’s not likely to get a job with the city or province to do road work; instead she will be forced into waitressing or clerking at a store for minimum wage and less hours.

       If a woman chooses to stay home with the family she still has a 50% chance of ending up having to provide for herself and her family because that happens to be the statistics with respect to divorce.  Therefore a woman is always better off taking an education that will assist her in gaining employment with a higher salary.  The world grows more complex and I acknowledge that men now also have choices to make; they are rare of course but sometimes men choose to be the stay-at-home parent while the wife earns the main income for the family.  Parents of sons have told me they find the education system geared more towards girls while the boys are left far behind.  Statistics do show that more females are enrolling and completing university than males but I am not certain that is because education is geared that way. 

       In the final analysis however this is still a male dominated world from politics to business and even in education.  On a side note, I have always thought it odd that a man heads the anti-abortion movement.  Why?