Why do some people make it seem as if there is such a dichotomy between "career women" and "traditional women"

Question

Some people make it seem like a woman has two choices: either be a "career woman," or be a "traditional woman" who stays home. They make it seems like there is no in between, and make it seem like there is much hostility between the two.

In reality, I know many women who stayed at home full time when some of their children were young, and worked full time with others. My aunt was a homemaker for 30 years, and all of a sudden at age 51 she decided she wanted to work outside of the home, and has been working at a doctor's office for the past 6 years. My best friend's mom was a homemaker for 15 years and after her youngest was in third grade, she started to take cosmetology classes, and 9 years later she owns one of the most prestige hair salons in our city. There are many women who do both: at one point they are "career women," and others they are "traditional women."

Answer 1

Agree with dsds :P

There is a dichotomy because while you're doing one, you can't do the other :P

Nobody said that you couldn't change it, you just can't do both at the same time :P

Answer 2

no spuddy-puddy. The fact is you cant be both at the sametime without one aspect suffering. either the career or home. I want you to be my librarian. You teach me to read and we hav sexe.

career woman and traditional are opposites. that why there dichotomy. It got nothing to do with what people choose.

Answer 3

It is a limited way of thinking, popular with the anitfeminist crowd.   You'll find they are black & white about other issues as well.

Your question gives women the opportunity to grow and change as their life circumstances change.  The dichotomy does not.  One might even speculate that dichotomy is a form of thought control.

Answer 4

I think it's because people have a need to put women in the box, a lot like the madonna/w***e complex. I realise both are polar opposites compared to career/traditional complex but in many minds, even in the workplace, people try to box who they believe are career & who they believe are traditional women.

You're right that many women are at points in their lives are career & traditional woman. My own mother stayed at home & now she works because all her babies have left the nest.

Answer 5

I totally agree with you.  A woman can have a job/career and still be a "traditional" woman in that she loves and cares for her kids, husband, and home very much.  It doesn't have to be exclusively one or the other.

Answer 6

First, all people not just women will be "put in a box" depending upon what they choose to do with their lives.  Second, of course women can do both.  However, if you do both at the same time, both roles will suffer.  This is even true with men.  Most of the richest and most successful businessmen have children who either hate or don't know them.  It takes a certain commitment to be the best in a professional field.  If you choose to be the best, most of the rest of your life withers.  This includes family.

Answer 7

I don't think there is any reason why a woman should not be both.  but there is a clear hostility towards housewives by some career women, and it is not likely to please any 'traditional' woman to hear housewives described as 'brain dead robots' as we were so designated by someone on this site yesterday, for example.

Spending even a few years at home with your children is, I feel,enough to d**n you in the eyes of a lot of these women.  if you don't go rushing back to work the minute you're out of the delivery room, like some primitive peasant woman giving birth and then going straight back to labour in the fields, then you are a lost soul.

However, I see no reason why a woman should not do both.  My sister was a nurse when she was a young woman, and then she was at home for twenty years.  Then after she left her husband, she went back to working, doing community nursing care.  I think she quite enjoys what she does, she's met some interesting people doing it.  I don't think she would think of what she is doing as a 'career' though, it's just a way to make some money.

I think another point that career women often overlook is that most women who work don't actually have 'careers', they just have jobs, they work to make some money, they're not busy climbing the corporate ladder or trying to bust through glass ceilings or anything like that.  To hear feminists talk, you'd think it was a choice between being a 'brain dead robot' at home, or being a high court judge or president of the Bank of England or something.  Most working women are not high-flying career women.