research paper

Thesis Statement: Many women are struggling in achieving a balanced life style between work and family regardless of their job in today’s society not only in the United States but also in other countries due to socially-constructed gender role.

Blithe, Sarah. Gender Equality and Work-life Balance: Glass Handcuffs and Working Men in the U.S. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Sarah Blithe is an assistant professor and undergraduate adviser in University of Nevada, Reno who is also a gender and organizational communication scholar. The book describes the work-life practices of men in the United States who has difficulties to achieve a balanced lifestyle between work and family to people who are interested in employment relations and gender roles. The book indicates men is experiencing "the glass handcuffs," which prevents them from leaving work to participate in a good amount of families, homes, and other life events.Therefore, it’s not only women who have long noted the near impossibility of balancing multiple roles. This book can be a naysayer for my argument due to the oppose to Anne-Marine Slaughter’s article that “women can’t have it all” and men are supposed to help women balancing their life and family by sharing duties. I will use this source after Greenhaus’s source to show contrast.

Boloorizadeh, Padideh, Farshad Tojari, and Tayebeh Zargar. "Work-family Conflict among Female Head Coaches in Iran." Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 84 (2013): 1403-410. Web.

Padideh Boloorizadeh is a female athlete of field and track in Iran. Tojari Farshad, Zargar Tayebeh are both professors in sport management in islamic azad university, central tehran branch. This article is for people studying or working in psychology field. As more and more women participating in sport, now there are conflicts occur between family duties and work as coaches in Iran. Female head coaches are now tending to leave their careers because of the conflicts of work and family spill over. Just like Anne-Marine Slaughter’s article, women can not have both career and family. Women are ought to scarify one in order to have another that socially-constructed gender role and expectations pressure women to follow stereotypical way of how to live a life. As a support of my argument, situation of women not able to obtain a balance lifestyle between work and family does not only occur in the United States, but also in other country, such as Iran. I will use this source in the body paragraph before my conclusion.

Devor, Holly. “Becoming members of society: Learning the social meanings of Gender.” Rereading America. Colombo, G. Et al. Boston. St. Martin’s. (2001). 415-423. Print.

Holly Devor is a professor of sociology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. He is a member of the International Academy of Sex Research and an author of writings about gender as well. The common ideologies about gender roles he writes about is that “it seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination” in North American mainstream society that male should be the dominant one as female being passive. Therefore, women are ought to rely on men, such as men making money for the family and women being households who stays at home taking care of the kids and cooking. Devor disagrees with these common stereotypes about gender roles that he demonstrates but he gives readers, mostly students, spaces to think of their own view about gender role problem in the society. This article can be used for the introduction of the gender role expectations for women which leads to an expectation of taking care of family. Therefore, growing up with the socially-constructed gender role, it is difficult for women to obtain a balanced lifestyle between family and career. This is because they are expected or they expect themselves to be a good wife and mother while there is no exception for women at work that they can work less or have more flexibility. Anne- Marine Slaughter’s article can prove how hard it is for a woman to have a balance between family and work.

Gracia, Pablo, and Matthijs Kalmijn. "Parents' Family Time and Work Schedules: The Split-Shift Schedule in Spain." Fam Relat Journal of Marriage and Family 78.2 (2015): 401-15. Web.

Gracia Pablo studies at European University Institute in Florence who does researches in Family Sociology and Social Stratification. Another author is Matthijs Kalmijn who received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked at other three universities, such as Princeton University after he graduated. He is currently studying in family sociology and social demography. Because these fields have some huge social and demographic changes in all developed societies in the past decades. This article shows data from surveys in Spain to analyze how work schedules are associated with family, couple, parent-child, and non-family leisure activities under the split-shift schedule. The schedule is to divide a day in to two by the long lunch break. The result of the surveys indicates that women spent much more time in parent-child activities and they were more responsive to the spouse's work hours. At the same time, men were more active than women in non-family leisure, considering both individuals' and their spouses' work schedules. This matches the traditional ideology that women are supposed to focus more on family then men while men do more at work as what Holly Devor indicates in his article. Women are more likely to take care of family in Spain, as the traditional ideology while men is focusing on work and make a living for the family. This proves the socially constructed gender role actually exist, not only in North America. Therefore, socially constructed gender role can be one of the reason why women struggles in having a balanced life between work and family. I will use this article before Iran’s article.

Greenhaus, Jeffrey H., and Saroj Parasuraman. "Research on Work, Family, and Gender: Current Status and Future Directions." Handbook of Gender & Work Handbook of Gender & Work (n.d.): 391-412. Web.

Jeffrey H. Greenhaus is a Professor of Management and Director of the Ph.D. Program in Business at the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University. He studies health and workplace flexibility and gender. For the readers who are interested in psychology and relations between work, familt and gender, this article leads the topic of work-family balance due to gender to a new level because it illustrates the current status of it and predict the future directions. This is a research article backs up my argument about women in the United States are struggling in achieving balance between work and family. The article is prove Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article to be true. I will use this article after Slaughter’s article.

Slaughter, Anne-Marie. "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Atlantic July-Aug. 2012: 1-42. Web.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of Princeton University, who was a former government official worked in the White House for the president of the United States. In her article, she claims that women can rarely obtain balance lifestyle among their personal careers and families due to the inflexibility of work to the readers of the magazine who are mostly adults women and men. She also demonstrates how much she wants to involve in her son’s life and do what a household do, go to her son’s game, Christmas shopping and so on. However, she has to scarify one for another because it is too difficult for her to keep up with both family and work. This article supports my thesis that in the United States, women can not achieve a balanced lifestyle between work and family. This shows no matter how high positions women are in, they can not get rid of their socially-constructed gender role in order to meet the gender role expectation which related to the main points of Holly Devor’s article. I will use this article after Devor’s.