Last weekend the New York Times published an article called The Home Tool, about women working from home.
This piece develops the idea that the home is the Headquarter of women and that it has been superempowered by women empowerement. Multitasking and well-organised, women absolutely could enjoy all the benefits of working from home, leaving to the alpha males the wolf packs duties of face-to-face interactions and “all those deals that were supposed to go down on the golf course or at the urinal — they probably still happen there’’.
Working from home would also be the best way to skip the ‘second shift’ – nightmare consisting in a workday followed by another 8 hours of household/home/family duties, all magically within 24 hours.
I think this article quite resonate with this white paper from Advertising Age New female Consumer: The Rise of Real Mom (By Marissa Miley and Ann Mack).
The main idea developed in this research is that women have fought for their emancipation, education and access to work, however, on the top of –still!– being paid less than their male equivalent, they are not happier. This frustration would be mostly due to the double hat of careerist and mother they have to wear and the terrible pressure to be perfect with both of them. Would working from home ease this bottleneck?
I actually took a look at WAHM organisations – that’s how they call themselves Working At Home Moms – on the internet: this appellation gather lots of different structures with different level of activity. You can find the full webzine/ job board site, full of tips and advices (for example here and here) or just a forum for selling and swapping items and services (here). The general feeling is that the WAHM concept is much more developed in the US and Canada than in the UK.
From the employers’ side, home working has a great value too: pretty often, home workers show a better loyalty to their employers as they allow them to balance work and private life. Another bonus comes from the flexibility of their hours that enhance the hour coverage for global businesses. Finally, recruiting for home workers broadens the pool of candidates and raises the chance to have high quality employees. However, it seems that this fantastic move from the office to the home is just babbling. Most of the witnesses I found are women who first left work when they had a first or second baby, and then realized that they could craft & sell or telecommute thanks to the internet to bring some extra-money to the household.
Personally, I’ve already considered working, probably freelance, from home, at some point in my career. But I must admit I’ve always thought this option as the best work-life balance option, especially when the time to have kids and family will come.
Hence my question: is working from home the solution to women’s Dilemma? Or would it be considered as a step back in the feminism fight to equal rights?
