The White House Project

Every Tuesday we have been featuring women who inspire us. While so much focus has been placed on women in the news and women in history, we cannot forget to find inspiration in the women around us and faith in ourselves. Angela’s words below reflect questions and frustrations we all have, but we also find  her story inspiring as she is willing to pursue her education, find ways to balance a career in the medical field and care for her daughter, and question how women are perceived in society. Read below and let us know how you answer these difficult questions and find inspiration in those around you. 

I am a single mother, and like many mothers in the world, I struggle.  I don’t know if it’s because I was told I would never be able to have children, or if it’s because my daughter has heart issues and I’m afraid to lose her; but for me, the miracle of creating and sustaining life is the most powerful thing I have ever done.  When she was first born, even after her heart surgery at 1 month old, I had a job, and basically worked just to afford daycare.  I spent every day apart from her, only to spend all the money I had earned paying someone else to care for her.  After a while, I broke down; I just couldn’t do it anymore.  For me, the most precious time that I had with her was the 5 years of her life before she started Kindergarten and continued on her own journey in life.  I wanted to share that time with her, to play and teach her; to watch her grow and explore the world. In this day and age, it is almost as if women are constantly held in check by all the double standards that apply to us.  We are expected to be the ones to raise the children and do all the housework, yet if we do; they are looked down upon and scrutinized for not working and “getting paid”.

I can’t even explain how many times people have scoffed at me for not having a full time job, or how many times I have been downright degraded because of it.  Although I am a student pursuing my education in the medical field, to many, it just doesn’t compare to bringing in the money.  In fact, most people treated me with more respect when I was working a minimum wage job and never seeing my daughter.  For some reason, it seems that our society is so caught up with the idea of money being the standard in how we measure ourselves, often overlooking the benefits of an education.  Why is it that we put so much value in money as power?  Isn’t it more important to love and teach our children the values in life?  I think women have so much transformative potential, and any woman who has raised a child knows that it is not an easy task. We should not be shamed for raising our children simply because we don’t get “paid” to do it. Any woman who has the patience and endurance to raise her children can certainly excel at an executive position in any field!  How do we get rid of all these double standards of what women are “supposed” to be?  Why do women bear the double responsibility? Why does society expect women to stay home and then ridicule them when they do? 

Danielle Firsich, Intern

A recent article from The Chicago Tribune interviewing a literary mother-daughter duo discusses career women’s endless pursuit for a perfect career and family life, and the impossibility of a real balance in a reality that doesn’t allow for both.  While I appreciate the author’s brutal honesty, I believe the piece fails to address many important aspects of women’s lives that either support or hinder their ability to achieve balance and success in their private and public lives.

As an early-20’s woman without children, I can only imagine how difficult being a working mother can be, and I absolutely applaud the women who find success and fulfillment in pursuing both spheres of their lives. I believe that some women may not be prepared for the stress and complication of chasing their dreams and creating and nurturing a family of their own.  But this balance, as many things, comes with growing as a woman and finding new life challenges. Difficult trade-offs will present themselves in the path of any woman balancing a career and family life. The unfortunate reality is that many women are forced to give up aspects of their career in order to cater more efficiently to building a family.

Yet this discussion of the often difficult juggle between women and their careers and families ignores the fact that Americans today are engaging in a huge and differing array of non-traditional family structures.  The private lives of the American public do not exist on a single, shared plane. Women are living in non-heterosexual, unmarried or single living environments that are not conducive to the traditional lifestyles experienced by the women of the past. Not all women want to have children. Bearing children is not an obligation, but a privilege enjoyed by women around the world who find true fulfillment in establishing and caring for a family of their own.

As an unmarried lesbian woman living with her partner I grow tired of how often I am excluded from discussions of “women’s” experiences. As a feminist, I am sick of the constant assumption that heterosexual partnerships are expected to replicate the uneven power-sharing that has historically been pushed upon us by sexist cultural and political institutions. I will also never accept traditional heterosexual marriages as some “norm” that limits the discussion of women living differing lifestyles. This article has nearly zero relevance to the majority of the women who exist in the two communities that have become my chosen family over the years: feminists and the LGBT/Queer population. Their voices are silenced too often, and I hope to always challenge discussions or streams of thought that refuse to recognize the accomplishments, lifestyles and incredible determination and ferocity of these communities.

Educated, professional career women rightly expect and deserve a career and family environment that supports their personal ambition and provides them with supportive and plausible avenues through which to control and direct the various aspects of their lives. Those who are struggling to navigate their professional and familial pursuits are not being hindered by their own blind ambition, but by the failure of public and private institutions to support working mothers and ensure they are provided with the necessary systems to support their success.

Women are not naive in believing that, as the author says, the “grass is greener on the other side” when it comes to their careers. They are right.  Women all over the country recognize or are recognizing the disparity between men and women in the workplace. They are recognizing the lack of equal pay, maternal leave, childcare services, inability to break the glass ceiling and access the positions of leadership they are qualified and determined to occupy, and absence of understanding and support in their decisions to either have or abstain from building a family. Women are demanding equality. They are demanding support from their partners in managing a family as they navigate a career path that both enhances their professional ability and fulfills them as a human being.

It’s forever important to challenge and question the “why” behind the problems women face. We are looking for real solutions, not limited discussion that perpetuates and supports the institutions that continue to keep women from successful positions of power. We need to be truly concerned with supporting women leaders with diverse voices and backgrounds, whose forward-looking policies can systematically change the workplace and eventually the culture that caters to backward and harmful policy. If women are given the support they deserve, they will someday truly have a choice about “having it all.”

The young women of my generation understand the obstacles ahead of us. We have witnessed and processed the barriers that have been erected against women who determinedly pursue positions that are or have been male-dominated or completely inaccessible to the women before us. We just refuse to accept it.

And to me, this is anything but naïveté. It’s revolutionary.