Expectation vs. Reality

For decades women were seen and not heard, were left at home to do “women’s work”, and were not seen as equals to men. Women fought for rights so they could be seen equal to men and throughout the years they have been able to gain these rights. Nowadays women have the right to the same education, to achieve the same financial success, and the same right to go after their dreams as men do. Women are starting to leave their homes in search of gaining their own independent success. However, women have to deal with the fact that they are not equal to men as shown through pay gaps, discrimination, and the traditional notion that the role of a woman is a “caretaker.” Although women have the right to be equal to men, the reality is that women do not have the same opportunity to be equal due to the simple fact of motherhood that burdens women and propels men forward in the workplace.

The pay gap between men and women continues to make it impossible for women to have the same opportunity to be equal to men. The pay gap has decreased from 38 percent difference in earnings in 1979 to a 16 percent difference in 2014; this shows that women are catching up, but have not yet reached equality. One reason for the pay gap is that most women are found in lower-paying, less desirable, and “care-taking” jobs that are under paid. These jobs are often perceived to be “women’s work” and do not receive the value that they should be given. However, even those women who strive to break free from doing women’s work and join the “man’s world” still fall short of men’s earnings. Women who have received the same level of education of men and appear to be equal to men still experience a noticeable gap in their salaries compared to their equal counterparts. For example, a woman with her Master’s degree makes $1,125 weekly and a man with his Master’s made $1,515 weekly; they both had the same level of education, but the man still had received a salary almost $400 more than the woman’s salary. Although women are equal to men and capable of performing the same jobs as men, they are undervalued in the workplace, and therefore do not have the same opportunity to achieve financial success as men do.

Women also undergo discrimination in their careers after they have children, because employers make the assumption that they become unreliable after having children. Having children is a burden for women that are trying to move forward in their careers, but for men having children is a bonus for their careers. In an article written for The New York Times, “The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus” it was found that this burden for women and bonus for men that comes with having children is not necessarily caused by a change in the employee, but instead they come from the assumptions made by their employers. These assumptions include the idea that after having children women are going to be less productive and less reliable in order to take care of the children, and that men will work harder since they have children to provide for. Studies found that the most valued employees were men with children, followed by childless women, childless men, and lastly women with children. Women that were married with children, with the same qualifications as their male colleagues, were offered $11,000 less the unmarried women and $13,000 less than men. Most men also experienced a 6 percent growth in their salary after having children, but women experienced a 4 percent decrease in their salaries after children. Although most women do tend to take some time off to care for their children, their unequal treatment is due to fact that they are discriminated against for being mothers. The assumptions made by employers after women become mothers hinders their chances of becoming successful in the workplace.

Women nowadays have high expectations for their futures, but the reality is that majority of these women do not reach their expectations because they do not have the opportunity to reach them. The expectations of women is that in their marriages they will be equal with their spouses and share the care-taking role, but the expectations of men is that their career will take precedent over their spouses and their wife will do majority the care taking at home. Studies have shown that more than 50 percent of men’s expectations have come true, whereas almost 40 percent of women’s expectations have fallen short to their reality. Children require the supervision of one parent and due to the traditional ideas that women are the nurturing caregivers, women are usually the ones to take time off work, cut back hours, and possibly quit work altogether to be at home. Times are changing and women are gaining more representation in the corporate world, but motherhood is an unchangeable factor that continues to hold back women from being equal to men. Women are naturally expect to stay home and care for the children while the men go out and provide for their family; women have gained rights but the opportunity for women to be equal to men still falls short in reality.

Women may finally have the same rights as men but lack the same opportunities, so women cannot entirely be equal to men. Even though most women believe that they will be able to accomplish the the same success as men, their reality does not fulfill their expectations for the main reason that they become mothers. Motherhood burdens women as it changes the way employers value them as employees and in most cases the women are expected to be the main caretakers of the children, affecting their ability to have careers. Although in the workplace men and women appear, for the most part, equal, they will never be completely equal until they are equal at home as well.