Should Women Work?

 

'Should women work?' is a question often asked – even though the answer is clearer than the morning sun on a cloudless Friday. It's a resounding YES. In our day and age, such questions are similar to questioning the roundness of the earth: redundant contemplations that shift our focus away from important issues. But, apparently, there are people from the Stone Age living among us today who argue that women must stay at home to uphold their sacred duties of cooking, cleaning, raising kids and such. How ridiculous.

  Simply put, both men and women have a head on their shoulders. Females actually get better grades than males; the yearly results at my university testify to this consistently. Moreover, women are half of the world's population. Therefore, entirely excluding them from the workforce will decrease production dramatically. In the past few decades, the increase in female employment in the first world has been the main cause of growth. Over the coming years, prejudices will slowly disappear giving women a chance to increase their productivity and income even more.

  Throughout history, many prominent women have impacted the world: visionaries, warriors, humanitarians and leaders. Names such as Florence Nightingale, Benazir Bhutto, Rosa Parks and Margaret Thatcher are instantly recognizable to most people. Dorothy Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for confirming the structure of penicillin, and then the structure of vitamin B12, which improved healthcare by a milestone. Joan of Arc led the French to victory against the English at Orleans - at the tender age of seventeen. Yes, that's right, only seventeen.

  An issue of The Economist mentions that some people think that if more women work rather than mind their children, this will cause lower birth rate among other negative social phenomena. Yet developed countries where more women work have higher birth rates than other countries where women stay at home. Lois Hoffman, a professor of psychology in the University of Michigan, published a study called The Effects of the Mother's Employment on the Family and the Child with very interesting conclusions, most of which are positive: 'the higher academic outcomes for children, benefits in their behavioral conduct and social adjustment, and the higher sense of competence and effectiveness in daughters'.

  Women should have the right to choose the way they would like to live their life, without pressure from others. It's also necessary to create a balance between family and work; being a workaholic is an extreme that's wrong for both men and women. In closing, life is not a war between both sexes, but a cooperation for a better future.