Working Women’s Barriers and Challenges

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Current Role
Reflection
Conclusion
References

Introduction

I decided to interview the Working Woman from the nursing field. For the purposes of privacy, her hypothetical name is Mary, and she has almost 20-year experience in the healthcare industry. In 2001, she received a Bachelor’s Science in Nursing degree, which allowed her to look for positions in nursing management roles. Up to now, she has worked at the University of Michigan Hospital and the Lake Huron Medical Center as a nursing manager. During her career, Mary regularly participated in professional training sessions and events to improve her skills and expertise as well as enrich her knowledge of the profession. She has additionally cooperated with multiple people, faced many challenges, and coped with different problems. All this information demonstrates that Mary is a valuable person for this assignment since this Working Woman has rich professional experience.

Current Role

Currently, Mary is a Nurse Manager at the Lake Huron Medical Center. Her responsibilities include making budgetary decisions, managing nurses, developing schedules, coordinating meetings, and making staff decisions. The Lake Huron Medical Center is a successful and requested healthcare facility in the community, and it provides high-quality service to meet patients’ health needs. According to the organization’s official website, it relies on four specific values, including quality, compassion, community, and physician-led (Lake Huron Medical Center, n.d.). Even though it is not mentioned explicitly, the medical facility is woman-friendly. The rationale behind this statement is that females represent a significantly higher portion of the workforce. However, Mary admits that the organization does not offer any effective policies to support women’s needs. The Working Woman stipulates that she has come across various adverse phenomena in her professional experience because of this fact.

The largest portion of the interview was devoted to the barriers that Mary has experienced in the workplace. At her first employment position, she faced a type of discrimination based on her family status. Since she had a 4-year-old son, she frequently asked for days off to take care of her child. Her employer did not like that fact, and the Working Woman started receiving reprimands, which worsened her psychological well-being. That challenging condition led the Working Woman to a decision to leave her first employment position.

However, Mary stayed home for a few months and decided to find a new job because she could not limit herself to the role of homemaker. It was a challenging task, but Mary did not lower her hands, and she kept looking for a suitable employment opportunity. The rationale behind that fact was that the Working Woman already had a 4-year-old son. That is why she was forced to deal with work-life balance issues. According to Mary’s words, she successfully coped with the challenge because she settled to take work home if she needed to take care of her child.

In addition to that, the interviewee admitted that she suffered from harassment at the workplace. The patients and male colleagues could rely on verbal and even physical violence as well as try to coerce her into a sexual relationship. Even though this phenomenon was rather an exception than a rule, it is challenging to overestimate its negative impact on the Working Woman. Mary also stipulated that many of her female colleagues faced the same problem, which denotes that multiple women suffer from harassment in the workplace.

Reflection

This interview is informative because it allows for making a few essential conclusions about the state of women in the workplace. Mary is not unique in the fact that her role as a mother resulted in various problems for her professional practice. According to Verniers and Vala (2018), females are often subject to recruitment, salary, and promotion discrimination. The rationale behind this fact is that women are more often responsible for homemaking, and this role can interfere with their professional sphere. That is why many employers are not willing to hire females or promote these individuals to significant positions because these individuals are likely to ask for additional days off. This information denotes that the Working Woman suffered from a widespread issue that adversely affects many other women from various companies. It is good that Mary’s current employment position is free from this adverse phenomenon.

Another essential aspect of the Working Woman’s interview refers to her discussion of how she was forced to deal with a work-life balance. According to Powell (2019), employers should understand that their employees “have a life outside of work” (p. 180). This information denotes that individuals should not be expected to devote all their time and effort to perform their professional obligations. Mary was successful because she managed to find a job where she could balance her roles as an employee and as a mother. Powell (2019) explicitly states that individuals are not obliged to limit themselves to a single role. In the past, society believed that males did not need to deal with domestic chores, but this stereotype is not active today, while females were expected to devote themselves to homemaking. That is why Mary’s interview clearly demonstrates that it is possible to reach a work-life balance and perform various roles successfully.

Finally, it is worth attention to discuss the harassment that the Working Woman experienced. Even though men are subject to this problem today, women are historically the most common victims of this violence type. Mary reported the problem and stipulated that it was rather an exception. Raj et al. (2020) stipulated that women experience less harassment in female-dominated industries. This information demonstrates that the problem is more widespread in the workplace if employees represent an even distribution according to their genders. This information is essential for my future professional activity because it is necessary to be prepared for potential challenges. If I know that the problem is likely to occur, I will develop a potential response in advance. For example, if I experience harassment, I will immediately report this fact to senior management or even the police. This statement denotes that Mary raised an essential topic in her interview.

Conclusion

The interview of the Working Woman was a valuable and informative activity. On the one hand, a female with rich working experience has presented useful information about the industry that I would like to work in beyond graduation. This activity provided me with a better understanding of what it means to work in the healthcare field and manage a medical facility. On the other hand, Mary raised a few essential topics that introduced barriers for women in the workplace. Additional research has indicated that these issues are widespread, which denotes that women should make an effort to address them. The Working Woman is a suitable example that a female can reach successful outcomes in the workplace even despite various challenges.

References

Lake Huron Medical Center. (n.d.).Mission & values. Web.

Powell, G. N. (2019). Women and men in management (5^th ed.). SAGE.

Raj, A., Johns, N. E., & Jose, R. (2020). Gender parity at work and its association with workplace sexual harassment. Workplace Health & Safety, 68(6), 279-292. Web.

Verniers, C., & Vala, J. (2018). Justifying gender discrimination in the workplace: The mediating role of motherhood myths.PloS ONE, 13(1), e0190657. Web.

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Working Women’s Barriers and Challenges

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