Bearing the Costs

      A group of women working against feminists? I'll start there. It is amazing to me that no matter how conservative they may be, women would oppose those in favor of gaining equality for all women. It just makes no sense. Conservative women have children too, yet it is somehow irrelevant to some of them if they are put at a significant economic disadvantage due to the fact that they are mothers. I will reiterate..it makes no sense! Studies and statistics have proven that mothers are the most disadvantaged people in the entire workforce, earning much less, measurably about 60 cents to a mans dollar, than men. To take this a step further, women with children are not even capable of earning as much as women without them. Since when is inequality between women okay? How can it be that the people with the most difficult and time-consuming job, women raising the children who will eventually take over each role in the workforce, can be so severely penalized for doing it? The "Mommy Tax" that Ann Crittenden discusses in this article is an unfortunate reality. Its existence, though unwelcome by many, is dominant in the economic world today and will be challenging to destroy. Women who hope to have children have to truly consider their willingness to bear the costs of children, as they will not simply disappear any time soon.
      This harsh reality lives beyond the United States, as well. Mothers in third world countries suffer an even larger dilemma in that in order for them to have any chance at a stable education and career, they must leave their countries to find this elsewhere. In her article, "Love and Gold," Hochschild considers the women who are forced to do this. He compares the historical extraction of gold from third world countries to present day extractions emotional resources with the long-lasting emotional scars to both the children and mothers who do leave home. This viewpoint really made me consider how women everywhere are at a severe disadvantage, some more so than others, but still none remain unaffected from it. We have additional challenges in the terms of economics and family responsibilities than men simply do not encounter, and mothers bear the worst of them.

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