Essay: Women between career and family life
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Many decades ago, women rarely went to work outside their house. Instead, they usually stayed at home and did the housework. Nowadays, women still play the role of a housewife but more and more women, especially the young ones, attend a school, get some training and become a member of the national work force. There is no doubt that it is not easy for any of them to have ‘two jobs’ at the same time – one at work and one at home. In other words, it is almost impossible for them to be an ideal wife, s devoted mother and a competent employee at the same time. Therefore, it is quite often that they have to choose between their career and their family life. The paper/this essay is about the problems facing today’s women. These problems are not easy to solve at all.
The women of the first type I would like to mention here usually stay single. In other words, they may be successful at work and earn enough money to support themselves and even their relatives; however, they are considered as the ones who lose, not win at all, in the battles for love, for marriage and for the so-called ‘common’ life. They lead an unusual life – the life of ‘a spinster’. Their society accepts them for humanitarian reasons; but, to tell the truth, these ‘never-married’ women have never been accepted emotionally. And this is my own destiny.
Those of the second type face their own problems: they have to depend on their husband financially, and almost certainly they suffer from the lack of up-to-date pieces of information on social life, competition at work, recent changes and reforms in community, etc. All of these prevent them from being a hearty friend, an attractive lover or a reliable comrade. In other words, in spite of their devotion to bringing up their children, taking great care of their husband and doing almost all of the housework, these ideal housewives are still in danger of failing to go along with their husband and of being betrayed emotionally and even sexually. Some of my former friends at high school are nothing but the second-class citizens both in the society and right in their household.
The women of the third type are both lucky and unlucky in their own ways. On the one hand, they are lucky enough to get married and to be able to give birth to at least one child. In addition, they do not belong to the ‘unemployed’ or the so-called ‘housekeepers’. Together with their husband and child(ren), they can build up a common life that all human beings have ever been aiming at and dreaming of. On the other hand, they suffer from doing two jobs simultaneously. It is extremely painful for any woman to combine her successful married life to her established professional career. My elder sister is a typical example of the third type of women. She has almost no time even to sleep! And sometimes I wonder whether it is worth it.
The eighth of March is famous as a day for all the women in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular. That special day contributes to reminding anybody of the real problems facing today’s women. Although we, as women, have been trying our best with what we have in life, we do need some more help and great sympathy form you – those who belong to ‘the fraternal world.’”
