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