Blog # 4

As I have gotten older family has become more and more important to me. When I was younger I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents and be independent. I never understood why my Mom would get so upset when I wouldn’t come home for dinner or why my parents told me they couldn’t sleep until they knew I was home safe. When I decided to come out to Arizona for school from New Jersey I really didn’t think about the impact of being so far away from my family. Since I have been out here for the past three years I feel like I have grown closer to my parents.

Personally I think I have a good functional family. Some characteristics of a good family life are that everyone gets along. In my family there are the day to day stupid fights but everyone respects each other and cares for each other’s feelings. In order for a family to succeed they must be open and have a balance of duties. If only one member of the family is responsible for most of the work with no help from others they will start to feel underappreciated and throw off the balance of the family. I was always told when I was younger you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends so pick wisely. In a large family different people have different needs and views, it is important to know how to compromise. A good example of this is when I was younger my sister was really good at soccer so every weekend we had to travel up to 3 hours away to go to her games. No one else in my family was as particularly fond of soccer as Ashley was but we all supported her. A few years later when my youngest sister got into gymnastics Ashley realized how much she had to compromise on the weekends like the rest of the family did for her.

I don’t think there is a clear definition of what is meant to balance a career and family. Every family handles things differently, but it my family when Mom and Dad were happy; things were good. I think in order to balance a career while raising a family you must have an understanding that family comes first. I think that this is a value that has been forgotten within the last few decades. To balance your family and career is to be living a “good life.” The reason this is so hard to achieve is because even though we may want to put family first we cannot always because of financial needs. We are torn between going to see our child’s basketball game or putting in over time to pay the mortgage.

Changes in traditional gender roles have made family and work issues more complicated. Now that more women are in the work force and most families have dual incomes there is not a single one person to put the blame on for the care work issues. As more men are staying home now than ever the changes in family duties are bound to change.

I really liked the solution the UK is trying out in some of their companies to help employees deal with the hardships of raising a family, while still going to work. Employers need to be more sensitive to their employees needs by offering hour differences, compensated time off, and an overall respect for a person. It only makes sense that if a company is willing to stick by your side and help you out when you need assistance that in return you will be a better employee and work harder. Having the support from family members and neighbors can be a great help and relief for most. Even something as simple as having your neighbor gets your kids off the bus for you and watching them for a half hour until you can get home. The simple effortless deeds we can to do help others really do cause a great impact. Balancing your priorities in a family is very important so the family can learn how things work and stay on track. One of my favorite solutions for parents having a hard time raising their family and working is to be able to work from home either part time or when needed. If employers can learn to work with families I believe that in return they will produce better work.

Blog # 3

Care work is described in the clips as all the unpaid labor it takes to raise a family. This can include raising children, taking care of elders, maintaining family relations, and the basic daily duties. My family is a “traditional” middle to upper class family. My father is self-employed and my mother has been a stay at home mom since I was born. I am the oldest in my family followed by two younger sisters. Before I was born my mom had a successful job, but my Dad wanted her to enjoy being a mother and not have to work. I couldn’t imagine what my childhood would have been like if my mom wasn’t always there to bring me my lunch when I forgot it or pick me up when I was sick. Recently since the economy has been hurting my mother has gone back to work. Although it has been 21 years since she has worked in the public, her time as a mother has not been easy. Even though my mom only works part time and my dad works full time when he can my mother is still responsible for all the care work in my family.

“Juggling Work and Care” talked about the efforts being made in the UK to help care work employers in companies succeed. In the UK they carefully addressed that when large groups of woman join the workforce the standard of raising a family is lowered. The more woman work the more they feel they have to keep up with the house to compensate for being the number one bread winner. The UK has really started to ask the important questions of what is more essential woman’s right to work or woman’s right to raise a family the way she wants.

Society needs to reconstruct their notions that household work like laundry, raising children, cooking, cleaning, and shopping are not only woman’s work. Men are just as capable of doing this work as well. As more and more woman our going to work to help manage families financially, males should step up in the households to keep the family lifestyle balanced.

Blog # 2

Sex segregation is found in almost any common working place. Sex segregation is the separation of people according to their sex, male or female. In the clips we viewed for this section sex segregation is still an issue here in the U.S. for woman. Sex segregation can be found in ASU’s employment, the best example I can think of is the Faculty of professors. Most and almost all math and science related teachers are male. As touched on in one of the clips this has been the long going understanding that men are better at math than females. Also our University President is male, controlling everything.

Socialization is the process of learning your identity through the social norms per say. I am a female who grew up being taught to wear dresses and high heels. I was told how pretty I was and that I could do anything I wanted when I grew up. Growing up in that environment shaped me to be the girl I am today. If I had not had a mom who liked to take me to get my nails done and go shopping, I’m sure I would have turned out a little different. Constantly we are reminded how we are supposed to act or look. At school it is almost a fashion show walking through ASU's campus. The clip that talked about patriarchy was very interesting; our society does favor men greatly in ways we wouldn’t even think about. Our government system is mainly run by white males; this does not portray our population with 51% female.

Even though more men are unemployed than woman it still does not effect the sex segregation and the wage gap issues females have in the workforce. Most males that were unemployed held top positions that females don’t have access too. Many of the jobs that females have do not even encompass benefits or salary. Men claim that woman’s wags have gone up increasingly faster than theirs. This does not have anything to do with the fact that a dollar should be a dollar for everyone. The discussion on” Moms Become Breadwinners as Job Losses Hit Men” was pretty heated. The issue seems simple if two people are equally qualified they should get paid the same.