To Work or Not to Work: That is the Question

The battle of the sexes has been waged since the beginning of time. Are women more suitable to the house and home? Can men adequately substitute for women in child-rearing? Are women less capable in the work place than men? These are age-old questions that even now have no real answer. The modern world demands that women take a stand and fight for their freedom from oppression, and the desire for true equality is the driving force behind the advancement of women. While progress had indeed been reached, women are still not equal to men in society. Take Sarah Palin; when running for vice president, many Americans scorned the fact that her time on the campaign trail took her away from her family. This, in and of itself, is not a major problem. The true problem lies in the fact that the admonishment that Palin received was not directed towards men in the same position. Americans, as a whole, found no issue in the fact that all previous male vice presidents spent less time with their children than they would have had they not been elected. Rather, they only found fault when a woman attempted to followed suit.

This same bias is shown in literature as well as in reality. Nora is scorned by her husband in "A Doll's House" because the actions that she took to save her husband put her children at risk. In Torvald's opinion, the children could have been unconciously influenced by Nora's immorality. Trovald sees her as capable only of performing the duties of a mother and ignores the fact that she was as sucessful in her business endeavors as the situation allowed. Virginia Woolf addresses many of these same ideas in her essay "A Room of One's Own." She acknowledges the fact that for much of fiction, the female sex was written about only in relation to the male characters. Women were wives and mothers, not people in and of themselves. The very women who paved the way for future female writers were spinsters and childless wives, who were independent of children. This freedom enabled them to change the way we see women in fiction.

I think that it is extremely unfortunate that women are always the first to assign the duty of caretaker to. Women and men are equally capable, and thus should be treated the same, whether it be at work or at home. Everyone, male or female, should be able to go for their dream without ever being held back. Having children is a choice that a couple needs to carefully decide, rather than just rush in headlong. Children need guidance and influence by both parents, so if one parent is unable to put their child first, then they should wait to have children. Only by dividing up the responsibilities of the family and household amongst both parents will true equality be reached. Equality, as does much else, starts in the home.