What is the most challenging issue facing married working women today?

Question

Jane Ngiam, Editor of The Singapore Women's Weekly, asks about the obstacles that married women in the workforce face in current times. What are your thoughts on the subject? Share your views with us!

Answer 1

It always comes down to trying to juggle your private life and work life in the air and making sure none of them falls on top of your head.

I have only recently started working and already I find my life is changed completely:
-- To start with I can not stay up late and watch Grey's Anatomy or 24 till well gone past mid night;
-- I can not arrange anything with anyone without first consulting my diary;
-- Taking a day off seems a rare luxury. (never thought about holidays before as we use to get so much of them at uni);
-- When I get home at 7 o'clock in the evening I feel so tired that cooking seems an unbearable thought...

All these, and I am not even married!! Can anyone just imagine looking after your husband and kids, and going to work, AND keeping your fat-cat boss happy, it sure doesn't come easy.

Overall I'd say married working women have got a lot to worry about than what we can put down on paper...
Good luck to them

Answer 2

I think, its not only the working married women today.. Whatever challenges are faced by working married women, married men with a working wife also face the same challenges.
And the challenge is to bring a balance between work and home so that both gives a fruitful and expected results at the end of the day.
Being a married man, i think if my wife is sharing the half of my monetory issues, then I should also share a half of the household work. And if I don't do this, I think this will be the biggest challenge my wife will be facing, taking care of both the things without any support.

Answer 3

I think the most challenging issue today remain on how to juggle and balance the demands of work and home. Expand that equation a little more and you will see that works means more than meeting deadlines, expectations of bosses, subordinates and peers and even external stakeholders, then on the home front we have our spouse, children, in-laws and parents and other relatives. In trying to juggle and work out a balance, these women often forget that they themselves have their own needs too which are not or seldom met. In the Asian context of society, the family life is still very much helmed in by the "woman of the house". However, if this very important person fails to find that balance, the latent impact can be large and certainly exponential but is not immediately felt or seen. Instead of pulling the family together, the disastrous opposite of breaking up a family can happen. This is why many problems we see today has its root cause traced to this, e.g. children, teenage problems and parental control issues, problems in family relations, problems in communication and etc. There is no simple solution but each of us married working woman have to take time off to seriously search deep and hard and ask yourself what your priorities in life are and write those down. At least, that hopefully will provide us with a starting point to ponder.

Answer 4

I feel that spending equal time in the office and at home is a great challenge. I have 4 kids and have worked all my life. My children were in the care of their grandparents (one still is) and my parents were a great help. If there is no support at home, then I think, as a woman, we should really decide if working full time is worth it. Even though my kids were looked after by their grandparents, I still felt that I wasn't spending enough time at home. Right now I am working on a half day basis since my fourth child was born and though I earn less, I don't feelso much stress.

As for women who really need to work fulltime, then the other challenge is to find good childcare facilities and/or fulltime/partime maid service. Going home after a full day in the office and having to tend to the kids and household chores etc can add to the burden. In the end, it's the woman's choice really because the hubby can give you support but the burden is more on her shoulders.

Answer 5

Problem Faced By Working Women

Answer 6

emotional- it is a stressful situation where the women will need to balance both work and children and the married life itself. As a growing children they need a lot of care and attention, the mother will need to be there eg when the child is sick. With divorce rate on the raising, the married life itself is a hard maintence due to the stress and the commitment to work, as they will be outstation often for the high flyers and overtimes for the normal working mothers. On the long term the mothers will not have time for themselves, which is not good on the long term

physical- it will be a tiring, to wake up the look after the kids, the go work, reached home more work(housework) and then maybe bring home work from office then husband finally then sleep. It is physical draining and there will be little exercise little time for personal welfare, and physically by the time of menopause there will be aches everywhere.

mental- mentally many people are not prepared for the big package of commitment when got married, and for married woman, it is even more stressful, as woman are more emotion orientated, the stress level will result in mental disorder such as depression, this will not only disrupt in the family life but also the work, which may result in another divorce or abuse in many cases.

personally, i always believed that it is important what u are getting, and wat is the package that you signed into, just like appointment letter in work or credit card interest when applied into, which most people take little time to think about. Many cash on convinence, feelings or focusing on the pros of things. there is the double side of a coin, so married working woman got a tough life ahead

Answer 7

hi I am not a woman but my view is :

Today's woman can be viewed like an Octopus with great IQ and EQ.

In Singapore, which other country is not, woman has to

a. Get a gd education so a gd future including marrying into gd family

b. While having a career, one must excel both as a wife and also a mother to avoid the stigma the culture have for them when they fail

c. Fairness of sexes makes woman psychologically confuse as the husband still expect the wife to be submissive at times or most of the times. So man in Singapore adds stress to the woman's complicating lifestyle. Not supportive enough.

d. Boss in the office expects the lady staff to put work first and family second but their wife must put him first. Mind boggling

Thus I think the biggest problem is the present society has change but only the surface as the equality issue between man and woman still exist and shockingly Chinese are still pretty traditional. "Housework is woman's area we man look at others." So if man and society dont change, woman suffers

I hope u comprehend my thoughts. I am sorry if I dont write too well.

Answer 8

Women who's married with kids or pregnant. I am a mother of 2 and I face this challenge with my 2 other female colleagues, 1 married with no children and the other still single. Since the business started 11 years ago, I am the first female staff who's pregnant while working. Sometimes due to some reasons, I felt the people around me may not fully understand the situation I am going through.

Answer 9

Today women are very independent, and regardless of marreid or single, they do their job well. Thus, the challenge do not come from the workforce, but it's mostly from the family.
No doubt today most family financial is being shared with the hushand and wife, but alot of people still believe that a husband should not rely solely on his wife income. But the vice versa is fine.
Therefore, regardless how well the woman performance in her job, if she neglient the family, people will not see her as s successful person. Unlike a man, people always link his successful with his career solely.
Thus, most career women need to be multi-task. Be a good worker, good wife and good mother. And even a good daughter-in-law. Sad to say, career women are under more stress than men. But their achievement in the workforce are not as recognised as man, unless they also manage the family well.

Answer 10

Definately family planning! Gone are the days where women sit at home and wait for the men to bring the money home. Women also have to play their part in contributing to the home especially when it comes to having a new member to the family. The government is trying so hard to promote family life. Unfortunately, even MOM does not protect the working pregnant women from discrimination. I am a very good example, having being retrenched in the first trimester of my pregnancy. The reason the company gave - The division is downsizing and because of my present condition (of pregnancy), I am no longer suitable for the position. No alternative work arrangement was offered and so I left. 3 months pregnant and all maternity benefits vanished into thin air. I lodged a complaint with MOM and after a tedious process trying to get some justice done. Everything came to naught with a reply that MOM found 'that it was not found to be without just cause or excuse'. What has the government done for employees like me? Without holding a permanent job, will the goverment still offer to pay my 3rd month of maternity leave not to mention the loss of the first 2 months which I should be entitled to? It is very obvious that there is a very big loophole in our labour laws! Why? Because, our labour laws only protect women who are within 3 months of their confinement (which means from their 7th month of pregnancy onwards). What about the first 6 months? Scheming employers know of this loophole and take full advantage to oust whoever they deem to be a burden to them. I am very sure there are other women out there who have similar experiences but do not come out to voice out their displeasure because ultimately we are at the losing end. If only there was some other body / association dedicated to addressing such issues. Such unethical employers ought to be taught a lesson!