Bringing Home the Bacon and Cooking It, Too

Carol Greider was folding laundry when she received the 5 a.m. call that she had won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I wonder how many of the male recipients were up that early with household chores when they got the news?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women make up 49.9 percent of the U.S. labor force. Yet it seems that although most women are employed outside the home, there is still an expectation that they will continue to take on the majority of household duties and childcare. Not only are women expected to bring home the bacon, we have to cook it skillfully and clean up when we’re done. It’s a tenuous balancing act.

This is why the women’s movement is as important as ever, because women’s issues still need advocates, and when women win, families win. Families need pay equity, families need proper health care, and families need flexible work schedules and leave policies. These are the new family values.

The reality of family life is not what it was 60 or even 40 years ago. According to the Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, only 20 percent of families with children have the traditional structure of a male breadwinner and a female homemaker. Government, business, the military, and higher education all have to shift with the tide of this new reality. I’m thankful for changes like the health care reform law, which ensures preventative care coverage for women among other things, and the Internal Revenue Service’s recent ruling on lactation expenses as medical expenses, which allows mothers to use pre-tax medical spending accounts to pay for breastfeeding supplies.

Until I got involved with AAUW, I did not understand the depths of inequity that still existed for women. I can now advocate for women’s issues, whether for pay equity or just getting some help with the laundry. Maybe I’ll even get a call for my Nobel Prize someday.

This post was written by National Student Advisory Council member Lisa Blanchard.