careernav.

By Anne Parker

Roles, roles and more roles!

Phase 1

Over your lifetime you accumulate roles and change roles. You begin with being a son or daughter, a member of a family. You go to school and become a student and friend. Whilst at school you gather more roles playing sport, acting, debating and so on. Whilst at school you may get your first job working part-time. So many roles already.

Phase 2

When your formal education is finally finished you hopefully exchange the student role for that of fully fledged member of the workforce. You and your “hot friend” decide to set up house. You may marry and then have some children. So now you are a partner and a parent! You’ll probably become involved with your children’s education. Canteen duty and parent club beckons! You’re trying to remain a member of a team sport and do a bit of acting too.

Phase 3

If you’re lucky you may be able to retire from full time work by the time you are 65 and become a retiree. You may take on some voluntary community roles and you could be a grandparent and have grand parent duties to fit into your more relaxed schedule. You could still be actively playing sport and acting. Wow! You’ve accumulated heaps of roles and changed a few too.

Gender roles

Gender plays a big part in what roles dominate during the family rearing stage. Typically it is women who stay home with their young children thereby giving up the role of paid worker for that of unpaid mother. Men typically become the sole earners during this phase as they take on fatherhood. For both men and women these role changes can be difficult to adjust to but hugely important to the continuation of society. Populate or perish!

The not so typical

Back in 1856 a law was passed in Victoria that prescribed 8 hours of work, rest and play. What happened to that enlightened view? Slowly it is dawning on us that family and hence society is suffering due to inflexible working conditions. Aided by modern technology the more enlightened and creative among us are finding non-traditional ways of successfully combining work and family. Consider the following scenarios:

One scenario is working part of the week at home. Many businesses can allow this now with the advent of the internet and email. Another is for both parents to work part time enabling the children to be cared for at home and both parents to continue with their careers albeit in a limited capacity.

It isn’t necessarily the mother who has to stay home now. Some couples decide to take turns, year about for example. If baby isn’t dependent on mum for feeding there’s no reason why dad can’t stay home. So you don’t have to be constrained by traditional work and family roles. You can find alternatives that work even better in terms of sharing the responsibilities of child rearing and keeping your career going.

Regardless of who does what at work and at home you are making a valuable contribution to society.

Breadwinners and homemakers: stereotypes and biases that can limit your career and life

Until the late 1960’s the male of the species was regarded as the “breadwinner”. His job was to bring home the money, mow the lawn and mete out the punishments to the kids when they got out of hand. Once a woman married she quit her job and stayed home to clean, cook and raise the kids.

Did you know that only in 1966 the “marriage bar” allowing married women to continue working was lifted for women working in the Australian Public Service? How astounding it now seems that such a bar existed! But this was generally the case across most occupations.

The traditional roles described above are now considered discriminatory, limiting the roles and opportunities of both men and women. For men the limitations have been in the sharing of the child-raising. Some men are keen to stay home with their pre-school kids because they really enjoy a “hands on” approach. It can also be a welcome break from being the principal wage earner. Obviously for women the limitations are that their careers were terminated or at the very least interrupted.

Removing gender bias and stereotyping in work and life roles requires not only legislation but a change in attitude by society as a whole and the specific workplace. People need to be valued on the basis of how well they do a job not pre-judged. It shouldn’t be assumed that a 55 year old female can’t drive a truck or that a 22 year old male shouldn’t be in charge of pre-school children. In the 21^st century you are not bound by the stereotypical gender-based roles of the past so explore your options widely.

Pearls of wisdom

• Don’t judge a book by its cover: don’t be one of those who make assumptions about people based on their sex, age, race or disability.
• Don’t allow stereotypes to rule your choice of career; you’re narrowing your options