Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Sorry Girls – You can’t even have One Special Day of your Own

This Thursday is officially Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.  Yes, you read that correctly – our daughters & sons.  I find this extremely frustrating.  This special program was originally designed to encourage girls to learn about various careers – especially focusing on non-traditional fields for girls (science, engineering, etc.) and management positions.  There was and STLL is a need to focus on careers specifically for girls. 

Somehow a group of people began whining that boys should be included too, and the ‘official’ holiday now includes boys.  Let me be clear – I am not anti-boy.  Of course I want boys to learn about career fields too.  I want boys to find their passion in life and be excited about their futures, but that is NOT why this event was created.  Girls around the world still face significant struggles simply because they are girls. 

The facts are pretty clear.  Woman still make significantly less than men.  Women make only 79 cents for every dollar a man makes. The pay gap has barely budged in a decade. At the current rate, the gap won’t close for more than 100 years.  The gender pay gap is worse for mothers, and it only grows with age.  Women face a pay gap in nearly every occupation.  Thanks to the pay gap, women struggle to pay off student loan debt even more than men do.  [1]

Leadership is another area where women still lag far behind.  American women hold fewer than 20 percent of leadership jobs.  Women only make up FOUR percent of the CEO’s for Fortune 500 companies. 

As a mom of two amazing daughters, I feel very passionately about this issue.  I encourage parents to go ahead and bring their daughters to work this Thursday, especially if they work in male dominated fields or in management positions.  Teach girls to strive for leadership roles, but please leave your sons at home this Thursday.  They can go to work another day – Make this one just about the girls.  We owe it to them. 

4 comments:

  1. Honestly, that's what PC has done to this country. I agree with 100%. That day should have been left to the girls! I would have fought that like the dickens! I hope they hear your voice loud and clear!

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    1. Thanks so much - I really am not anti-boy but I do think girls need a special day. Thanks for stopping by my blog

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  2. I didn't even know the history of this day. Thanks for sharing. We wanted to do this with our oldest daughter this year and then realized it fell while we were both on family leave with the baby. However, we're both teachers so an already very female dominant occupation, but my husband is technically third in charge in his school as a hopeful soon to be administrator so she could see leadership with him I suppose.

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    1. Thanks Angela - it is hard for every family to make just this one day work, but I think making sure to show your daughter strong positive role models everyday and always discuss her goals is more important than one single holiday and I know you are great at doing that.

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