Day 5- Reading Response

The readings today were all about women and the workspace. The main ideas I think are about how women have never been seen as really anything more than a caregiver to the family, even when it is not truly the real mother. The articles took a deeper look at the roles that women have been pigeonholed into.

The first text, Maid in LA, looked at the idea of an absentee mother. The text focused on nanny’s and housekeepers and how children become attached to their nanny’s. When a child does not have a true mother figure they attach on to their nanny and treat her as a mother. Many of the nanny’s have their own kids back in their home countries and are not able to be mothers to their own children because they are busy being mothers to other peoples children, an idea that has been called transnational motherhood. It was really interesting that almost 75% of the nanny’s that were surveyed were Latino. I’m from California and I guess I never really realized how many of the nanny’s in my area were Latina’s. The article I think brought up some interesting views as to how many mothers are scolded in the eyes of society for not being there for their children however, at the same time there has been a huge push for women’s rights in the workplace.

The second text, Making a Home Making a Living, brought up a great point however about how women are being treated like second-class citizens in the work place. Many women are place on the “Mommy Track” or become victims of the Glass Ceiling. This is interesting because yes, while many women have been afforded opportunities in the work place the opportunities that are available for them are the low-paying jobs. Even if a woman is just as capable and smart as her male counterpart she often times does not receive the same good acknowledgement. This is ironic to me because the last text was about women and how they have nanny’s and housekeepers (granted that the article was focusing more on the job of being a nanny rather then the women who employ the nanny’s) but still it seems that women leave their children at home to go out and be treated poorly by male bosses. The whole notion to me is just so backwards.

The articles today really took a look at women in the workspace and how they negotiate their individual lives and their jobs.