Sexual harassment and time constraints experienced by working mothers

The Plight of Working Mothers Struggles women face with sexual harassment in the workplace Working mothers across various races, ethnicities and socio-economic status encounter a number of different phenomena related to their statuses as working mothers. Some of those phenomena, however, pertain less to the fact that these women are mothers in the workplace and more with the fact that they are simply women. For instance, sexual harassment is still pervasive for all women in the workplace—whether they are parents or otherwise. Thus, mothers are included in the harassment which is currently stratified in a number of different ways. Perhaps the most eminent of these is in the example where female workers are “subordinates” (McLaughlin et al, 2012, p. 625) to male workers. In these instances, the harassment is typically based on constructs of power. For instance, women might find themselves in sexual harassment situations because their superiors are utilizing their authority in ways in which subordinates feel as though they must endure such treatment in order to keep their jobs. Thus, working in a subordinate position is one of the primary struggles women face with sexual harassment in the workplace. Nonetheless, women also encounter sexual harassment in instances in which they are the superiors. In fact, research indicates that women in authoritative positions tend to experience sexual harassment more frequently than those in other positions do (McLaughlin et al, 2012, p. 625). This fact is indicative of yet another acute struggle women must undergo related to sexual harassment. Even when they are able to work themselves up the corporate ladder, they are still pursued by this phenomenon. As such, they have difficulties at most stages of their careers. Scholarly articles that address the following: Struggles women face with sexual harassment in the workplace Struggles of a working mother Nevertheless, there are a number of struggles which women encounter that are specifically endemic to their statuses as working mothers. The principal conflict for the very definition of a working mother is that she has constraints on her time. Those circumscriptions affect women in the working world because they monopolize time they could spend at home fulfilling their domestic duties. Concurrently, women also encounter situations in which they are not able to adequately parent because of their work schedules. These facts become amplified when working mothers have fulltime jobs. Again, the main point of contention between each of these vocations is that parenting innately requires copious amounts of time. Simultaneously, a career (specifically one rooted in working full time) also requires a significant temporal commitment. In fact, the tension between these two spheres of life is so pronounced that not infrequently, the working mother must oftentimes consider “the decision of whether to participate in the paid work force while mothering or to disengage from the paid work force and make mothering her sole social role”, (Pare and Dillaway, 2005, p. 66). It is worth noting that this decision becomes all the more salient in Occidental society, particularly in the U.S., in which women are expected to have both professional careers and raise families. Typically, this dimension of working mothers is horizontal across races and ethnicities. Women from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds, of course, experience much less pressure to work. This primal conflict is oftentimes exacerbated by the perception that mothers who do not work and devote the entirety of their time to their children can rear superior babies simply through constant maternal contact (Pare and Dillaway, 2005, p. 66). Power dynamics of working parents in the household Some of the more interesting facets of working mothers pertains to power dynamics of working parents in the household. Oftentimes, the mother is still viewed as the domestic authority figure. What is notable about this fact is its correlation to factors pertaining to ethnicities and socio-economic status. In cultures that are at variance with Westernization, the expectation for mothers to remain at home and not pursue careers is particularly “very difficult” (Almani et al, 2012, p. 164)—particularly for Pakistani women. Thus, one can logically infer that expectations for women to not join the ranks of the working world are greater in less developed countries than it is for those in developed countries. In these instances and those in which both parents work, women are still considered the principal domestic authority, regardless of which particular “parenting style” (Terry, 2005, p. 87) they employ. In fact, this double responsibility for women is one of the reasons why many feel forced to make a choice between their careers or their families. What is significant about this fact is that women will have varying degrees of assistance from their husbands when both parents work. Some willingly abjure domestic power to their wives, especially in instances in which the males are the primary breadwinners. However, there are also situations in which the power of domestic roles are more evenly balanced when both parents work. In these instances, the men may be responsible for transporting children or even some culinary responsibilities. Thus, working women may encounter struggles with their dual responsibilities when their spouses work as well or when they do not have one. These struggles include sexual harassment and coping with the temporal constraints of a career and domesticity. References Almani, A.S., Abro, A., Mugheri, R. (2012). Study of the effects of working mothers on the development of children in Pakistani. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. 2(11), 164-171. McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., Blackstone, A. (2012). Sexual harassment, workplace authority, and the paradox of power. American Sociological Review. 77(4), 625-647. Pare, E.R., Dillaway, H.E. (2005). \\\"Staying at home\\\" versus \\\"working\\\": A call for broader conceptualizations of parenthood and paid work. Michigan Family Review 10(1), 66-85. Terry, Danielle J. (2004). \\\"Investigating the relationship between parenting styles and delinquent behavior.\\\" McNair Scholars Journal: 8(1), 87-96.