Women in the Workplace

An essay authored by an employee of the world’s largest bank needs some explanation in the context of a theological journal. While it may not be academic fashion to describe the point of view of the author, in this situation and for this topic I believe it is important that readers know aspects of my personal biography. It will help to explain the background of my argument. A woman in the workplace writing about “women in the workplace” may be very close to her subject, or indeed guilty of special pleading. Our personal history fashions our intellectual habits and often causes us to value or discredit another’s perspective. On the issue of women’s employment it is evident that many people, men and women, feel a high degree of ambiguity about the subject. I was raised in a middle class, professional household with the typical sex role distinction between my parents. What was perhaps atypical was that both of my parents had degrees and that my mother had worked at paid employment prior to marriage. Like many other women in the 1930s, marriage represented for her an involuntary (or voluntary) exit from the workplace. During the war years, however, she worked at cooking for a firestation and was an air raid warden. The model of women’s role as married women I received as a child was standard for the post-war generation of middle class people. A married woman’s role was in the home, often struggling to make ends meet, caring for children, marketing, sewing, cleaning, and supporting her husband’s career. In my mother’s case, her return to occasional paid employment was gradually made by turning a hobby into a skill that could be sold on a consulting basis. My mother would not have conceived of going permanently into the workplace, even during those years when four children put a major strain on the family budget. How is it then that I, having been raised with such a role model, find myself at my place of employment from 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. fifty weeks a year?