How can I reflect on society whilst still respecting a family’s choice? Why do we expect women to have to choose between children and a career in the first place?
How can I reflect on society whilst still respecting a family’s choice?
When we listen to women…
When we ask women (or families) and actually listen to them, in most cases we also learn the reasons behind their decisions. It is a simple principle: we (as researchers or critical members of society) should take women seriously as competent actors and always assume that they have good reasons for their decisions, which they are also able to explain. The stories from women that we then hear will also provide us with insight into structural constraints: were household financial considerations important in agreeing on a division of labour? Was the time spent with the newborn exhausting, and was the planned maternity leave insufficient? Is the job exciting, fulfilling and well-paid?
…and not generalise our own criteria
What we should avoid: generalising our own criteria for a good life for women and elevating them to an abstract principle. For this inevitably leads us to judge women by the ‘progressiveness’ of their life choices (and thus by our own criteria). As historians or social anthropologists, we try to understand people in different historical and cultural contexts and to make sense of their worlds (with their own criteria of what is good). In other words, we want to learn from them and, as far as possible, avoid exporting the concepts and categories of our own world into other contexts.
Why do we expect women to choose between children and a career at all?
Children and a career
Most women today are faced with the expectation that they should balance children and a career. At the same time, achieving this so-called work-life balance is particularly difficult in Switzerland. Most families rely on two incomes, whilst state support for families is minimal (very short maternity leave, no parental leave, high childcare costs, long weekly and annual working hours, etc...).
Heavy workloads and significant loss of income
Under these circumstances, many mothers opt for part-time work, thereby accepting a very heavy workload (paid and unpaid work combined) whilst also facing a significant loss of income. As a society, we should consider what policy measures are necessary to expand the scope for action available to mothers (and fathers), to reduce the overall workload (which is very high by European standards) and to (equally very large) gender pay gap.