What happens when we move from the theoretical descriptions of women's lives and the sociological and psychological studies of their self-perceptions and aspirations to the realities of their participation in the work world? Even here the data can be somewhat shocking, especially to the high school boy or girl who may find it difficult to internalize the information. While there are numerous myths about working women, there is an abundance of data available on the nature and extent of women's participation in education and work-data gathered by occupational analysts in the U. S. Department of Labor.
Women and Employment
It is well-known, for example, that there are some 32 million working women, comprising one third of the labor force; that 42 per cent of all women are working, over half of them married; that most women work for economic reasons; that the number of employed mothers, even those with small children, has increased; and that there is an increasing proportion of female heads of households.
We are told that the average woman marries at 20 (although some women appear to be marrying later and having fewer children), has her last child at age 26, her last child in school by 32. The average age of women in the labor force is now 42. With a life expectancy of 74 or 75, the average woman can expect to have 30-35 years after children (if she has them) are in school to develop new meaning and interests in the second half of her life. A chart prepared by the California Advisory Commission on the Status of Women presents very vividly a typical married woman's life. Of course there is considerable variation in work force figures, dependent on whether the woman is from a minority or poverty family, her marital status, the number of children she has, the amount of education she has, and her work motivation. But the long-range Labor Department projections are that 9 of 10 girls will marry; 8 of 10 will have children; 9 of 10 will be employed outside the home for some period of time; 6 of 10 will work full-time outside their homes for up to 30 years; 1 of 10 will be widowed before age 50; 1 of 10 will be heads of families; probably 3 of 10 will be divorced; and 1 of 5 will obtain a college degree (Impact, 1972).
It must be apparent that the obstacles to the development of women are real and pervasive. While they have been alluded to, the most common ones are summarized below:
1. Sex-Role Conditioning and Socialization. If it is true, as appears increasingly to be so, that on many of the major variables in human development (self-concept, moral development, career aspirations and peer evaluation) female development levels off in early adolescence, counselors need to be justly concerned. The image females get of themselves through our curriculum and child-rearing practices seems to have taken hold, the self-fulfilling prophesy comes true, and 78 per cent of women end up in the same role despite their individual differences.
2. Role Conflicts about Fulfilling Multiple Roles in Marriage and Work. While there is a natural expectation that men will be able to fill multiple roles of employee, husband, and father, we do not have that same expectation for women. Thus the woman who is considering both career and family may experience role conflict. Besides the fear of success and concern about feminity which Horner (1968) found, the woman may be caught between trying to vie with men in jobs, career, and business and at the same time trying to find an identity as wife, mother, and woman. She may face the problem of meeting the multiple demands on her once she has accepted multiple roles and may find she has to be a superwoman to meet those demands-to organize her time, to manage the household, to attend to her children, to have an abundance of energy-unless she has a partner who recognizes that such roles and household tasks can be shared. If she has small children, she may be criticized for not spending enough time with them-although the literature on the employed mother suggests that her children are no less well-adjusted than other children, that they are more independent, that they have more career aspirations and, when asked to name the person they would most like to be like, most frequently mention their mother (Bern and Bern, 1971).
Counselors increasingly must recognize that women's development is both a male and female concern, for when women increase their participation in work and community the lives of men and families will be affected. The problems of the re-entry woman with children, for example, may include the way in which her husband and children cope with her transition from a traditional to a contemporary woman. Problems associated with the changing roles and status of women require not only (1) the re-socialization of men's attitudes towards women's roles, as Farrell suggests, but (2) the re-socialization of women's attitudes towards men's roles and (3) of women's attitudes towards women's roles. As we move toward an androgynous society, we may see a greater variety of life patterns-the equal partnership marriage, in which both partners have professional careers and share that part of their career that is in the home; the two-person career, in which one job or appointment is shared by two partners who want to work 20 hours or so and have more time for other parts of their lives; the extended family, in which members develop alternative life patterns for work and family and leisure; or the single parent, who prefers not to marry but adopts a child. One of the ways we can reduce the role conflicts is to be more accepting of a variety of life patterns and life styles.
3. Focus on Marriage or Its Prospect. We know that the modal role is still marriage, in spite of increasing choices of the single life. But we as educators and parents need to make our young men and women aware of the fact that life does not end at 40 and that Prince Charming is not going to take care of his Princess forever. The modern fairy tale of "Atalanta" in Free to Be You and Me provides an excellent antidote to this myth. Young people need to be made aware of those last 25 to 35 years of a woman's life and to do some conscious planning for their preferred life style. Consistently studies have shown that girls lack planfulness, that they tend not to seek occupational information, that they lack realistic educational-occupational plans. If it is true that both boys and girls "do not know what information they need, do not have what they want, and cannot use what they have," we as counselors have a responsibility to help them get this information, to use it, and to internalize it in terms of their own goals, plans, abilities, preferred life styles, and self-images.
4. Lack of Work Orientation. While junior high girls and upward are beginning to see themselves in multiple roles, especially dual roles of career and marriage, women simply are not as work oriented as men, nor are they expected to be. Working outside the home in the past has not been as central to women as to men, and those who have career motives at the head of their motivational hierarchy are labeled "unusual" as Zytowski (1969) suggests. Concern for women's career development is not a movement to get every woman into the labor force but, rather, a concern for her uniqueness and individuality as a person and for her right to have some freedom of choice in both her personal and work life. It is concern about the overwhelmingly subordinate nature of women's roles-as nurses rather than doctors, teachers rather than principals, assembly workers rather than supervisors, secretaries rather than bosses, bank tellers rather than lending officers, administrative assistants rather than deans. It is concern about the ancillary nature of women's careers, with only small numbers in banking, engineering, medicine, and management. It is concern about the passivity and dependence that keep her from finding room at the top even if she has ability. It is concern about fear of competency that keeps her from maximizing her potentials and from making what Tyler (1972) has called first-class rather than second-class contributions to society. It is concern about the complexity of demands, pressures, and conflicts facing women at different life stages and the limited reward system which denies them the range of options and rewards available to men. What counselors need to do here has to do with changing self-concepts and expectations, opening up opportunities, and upgrading aspirations so that more talented women will be able to say not "What can I do?" but "What I can do."
5. Sexism and Sex Discrimination. While it is true that some of the barriers between women's work and men's work are being broken down, the discrimination in hiring, wages, and promotion is still very real, affirmative action programs notwithstanding. The problems of conscious and non-conscious sexism (Bern and Bern, 1971) are as prevalent in education as in other parts of society. The Minnesota Board of Education passed a position paper offering nine suggestions for what school systems could do in "Eliminating Sex Bias in Education." There was little action in implementation until the Human Rights Division hired a person to coordinate implementation efforts around the state. Areas of concern include athletic budgets, promotion to administrative positions, curriculum texts and materials, counseling, career education, and the like. As educators, we need to look at ways in which we perpetuate discrimination and sexism through our actions, inactions, and even denials that a problem exists.