In 2013, Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo was the subject of much controversy after ordering all telecommuting workers to start working out of a Yahoo office.
Many decried how this affected working parents, especially working mothers. Here’s an interesting opinion piece about Mayer’s decision and Mayer’s misguided criticism of feminism.
There has been a great deal of talk about how men are losing their jobs in the recent recession, but little about how mothers who work outside the home are affected by it. This article describes how the cultural assumptions many employers hold about women in the workplace affects mothers looking for jobs especially. Recent research showed that married women with children who had lost their jobs had a 31% lower chance of finding a new job than a father with children.
Interesting blog from a stay-at-home Mom in response to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. She speaks powerfully of the joys of mothering, its importance in her life, and her conflicted feelings about leaving her career behind for a while. While I can’t say that I agree that, as she states, “socializaton and forced gender roles have nothing” (emphasis mine) to do with the joy she experiencing in her children, this doesn’t take away from the depth or the authenticity of the feelings. Just because we’re socialized in a particular way doesn’t make our joys and sorrows associated with that socialization less authentic.
I think this also points to the need to value choices to parent, work, or a combination of these equally, regardless of the sex of the parent. All three roles are vitally important personally and at a societal level.
Here is a link to an article about the young boy who decided to dress as Daphne for Halloween one year. The blog the mother wrote about it is also very interesting – both the blog and the comments responding to her give insight into how closely many people believe gendered norms should be followed, as well as the assumptions people make about sexuality and decisions to act outside of gendered norms.
As discussed in the audio lecture, after IA college student Zach Wahls testified about being raised by lesbian mothers before the IA judiciary about a proposed new law, the video of his testimony went viral. Here is his response to this event and a discussion of his upbringing.
Click here for some of the studies referenced in the online lecture about outcomes for children raised by parents who are lesbians.
Click here for an article written by a woman who was raised by lesbian mothers.
Click here for additional perspectives from mothers who are lesbians.