Why do we have such few women in high level positions and such few men who stay home to parent their children? Why is there such a divide in these roles?

COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg’s TedTalk touches upon the hard truth that since 2002 the amount of women in these high level positions hasn’t increased. She accredits this to many things, but she believes the main reason is that many women don’t stay in the work force. As a mother herself, she knows having children has a huge impact on a woman’s decision to keep working or to stay home.

Throughout the TedTalk, she provides many solutions to those women with children who still want to work.   There was one idea that really stood out to me and that was, as a society we need to make it acceptable for men to choose to stay home and raise the children. In our society, it is very surprising to see a father choosing not to work outside of the home and to raise the children instead of the mother.   This can be seen through the benefit packages offered to men and women at their work places. Mia mentions in her blog post that many companies find it too expensive to offer both, maternal and paternal leave as part of their benefits.

Picture From: http://www.business2community.com/government-politics/u-s-needs-paid-maternity-paternity-leave-0696190

As part of COMM 292 we have learned the advantages of offering these rewards to employees though their benefits and the effects they can have on employee commitment and productivity. Starbucks understands this as Mia also mentioned, by offering both maternal and paternal leaves in their considerably extensive benefit packages. By offering these gender equal benefits, Starbucks is allowing both men and women to take time off to help raise their children,  while advancing the mission to make society more accepting of either gender staying home.

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Work Cited

Sandberg, S. (2010, December 21). Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

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