Press the Issue a MasterWP Podcast

Is WFH A Trap for Women?

As more and more employees work from home post pandemic, we realize more how varied and complicated this change is. For some, it’s a welcome relief and means more freedom, time, and flexibility. But for some, often women, it can mean the exact opposite. In this episode of Press The Issue, Sammi and Nyasha tried to understand how and why working from home ends up a trap for some women.

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Is WFH A Trap for Women?
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Top Takeaways

  • Culture and upbringing already play a huge role in enforcing home-based women’s gender roles.
  • Working from home helps push the expectation that women can and should do both; climb the corporate ladder and attend to a family.
  • The pandemic has shown that women tend to be relied upon most for home and child care, rather than men, even if the woman is the sole-breadwinner.

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Monet Davenport:
Welcome to Press The Issue, a podcast for MasterWP, your source for industry insights for WordPress professionals. Get show notes, transcripts, and more information about the show at masterwp.com/presstheissue. As more and more employees work from home post pandemic, we rea...

Monet Davenport:
Welcome to Press The Issue, a podcast for MasterWP, your source for industry insights for WordPress professionals. Get show notes, transcripts, and more information about the show at masterwp.com/presstheissue. As more and more employees work from home post pandemic, we realize more how varied and complicated this change is. For some, it’s a welcome relief and means more freedom, time, and flexibility. But for some, often women, it can mean the exact opposite. In this episode of Press The Issue, Sammi and Nyasha tried to understand how and why working from home ends up a trap for some women.

Nyasha Green:
Hey, Sammy, how are you doing today?

Sammi Sim:
I’m good. How are you?

Nyasha Green:
Doing well. Doing well. I’m so excited to talk with you today. We’re doing something a little different today. Usually we talk about articles that one of the team or guest contributor has written on MasterWP, but this article we were talking about, it’s outside of MasterWP, but it was something most of the employees really identified with or had something to say about, so we wanted to talk about it. This article is from Bloomberg and the name of it is The Work-From-Home Revolution Is Also a Trap for Women.

Nyasha Green:
It’s by Anne Helen Petersen, and we’re going to link it as well in the podcast info. We just really, really wanted to talk about it and just talk about what we identify, what we like, what we don’t. I just want to start off by asking you a few questions, Sammi. I know you really identified with this story a lot. Can you tell me in what ways it really spoke to you?

Sammi Sim:
It spoke to me in a few different ways, one being the flexibility of working from home and its benefits, being able to prepare for dinners and not being so concerned about what I’m wearing to work that morning, which also could be a pro and con, already being home if one of the kids were out sick, which makes it easier because you don’t have the guilt of leaving work or calling out. That’s just to name a few.

Nyasha Green:
Got you. Got you. I definitely relate with that as well, not having to buy all this business clothes and spending the money on gas and commuting. I just feel like overall you’re saving money, you’re getting more rest, and you feel better because you can kind of control your own space.

Sammi Sim:
Definitely.

Nyasha Green:
With this article, we just talked about the pros, it talks about working from home being a trap. Do you think your upbringing played any part in how you feel about the article and what you do now as for work?

Sammi Sim:
Yes. I think a lot of how I feel and what I do is because of my upbringing. Some people may relate, but for me culturally, the expectations kind of started at an early age. I think we were always just taught that we always needed to tend to household chores, cooking, cleaning, while still always taking care of everyone around us. It becomes overwhelming because it just seems like it’s out of habit. You can’t help but to naturally feel this way. I can’t help myself to still take care of my partner, my kids, the house, but still have the expectation from everyone around me to have a source of income.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah, I definitely understand that. Just a little bit about me, I was raised in… I still live in the Southern United States, so the culture here is that women do household chores, women take care of children. Some women don’t work, but in this day and age, especially financially, you’re expected to do all of that and your household chores and taking care of people and things like that.

Nyasha Green:
Ever since I was a child, it really did seem like a trap for me. Watching my mother work 12 hour shifts at a factory instead having to cook, bathe us, do our hair, watching my grandmother or listening to stories of her be a full-time housekeeper while raising nine children, especially when my grandfather passed away, it just always seemed like, no, I don’t think I can do that to me. How much of your culture do you think played into that?

Sammi Sim:
I think a lot of it, even now as an adult, I think those expectations still sit very high, especially from the male, the men in my family. I still get up and make sure I get my kids ready, bring them to school. I come home and I do a little bit of chores. I log into work. I’m working and then I still have to make sure I have dinner. It’s almost like it’s expected of me. If I wasn’t doing it, I’m not doing what I need to do as a mother, as a wife.

Sammi Sim:
It was a lot. My mom worked the… When I was growing up, she worked second shift so we didn’t get to see much of her, but she got us ready in the morning and she made us food before she left to work, and then she would go work eight hours and come home and have a little time to herself, and then wake up and do it again.

Nyasha Green:
That’s a lot. It’s a lot to put on women. You would think working from home would make it overall easier, because again we talked about pros, but there’s just so much that happens at home, especially when you have children and you have to have them at home, especially when you get out of school and things like that. What do you think would make things easier on you and work from home when it comes to the issue of work falling back on women? What are some of those cons and what do you think would make them easier?

Sammi Sim:
Expectations. I think society just portrays women as someone who can do it all, and we do. But just because we do doesn’t mean we should. I personally think that it makes us think that we need to do that. When there’s doctor’s appointments, it kind of falls on mom. What’s for dinner? Go ask mom. Mentally, I think we become trained that this is what we should be doing and then somehow still be able to excel in our careers.

Sammi Sim:
We still have our expectations in our workload to make sure our tasks are getting done, projects are going out, and we’re still doing what we have to do to provide a paycheck and to keep a stable mental load on ourselves, because we don’t want to identify as just moms and wives. We want to be our own people, and we want to do well and still be able to climb that corporate ladder. I think the expectation of this is what I need you to do or this is what we should be doing, it’s a lot and it becomes a lot.

Nyasha Green:
You’re totally right. I want to just personally say, you are awesome for being able to juggle work and your children and everything else, because I really feel like with what I do now, if someone were to throw a baby into the woodwork on me, I think everything would fall apart. It’s funny because I’ve accomplished a lot and I’ll tell my family or different friends or family friends like, “I got into tech. I’m doing software work, development work. Oh yeah, I’m editorial director of a tech magazine newsletter,” and they’re like, “Okay, yeah, all that stuff is awesome, but when are you having children?” I’m like, “What? I’ve accomplished so much, but I guess I’m not 100% because I don’t have children.”

Nyasha Green:
It’s always funny for me to hear that. I’m like, “Oh, okay. I guess nothing else matters that I’ve done,” but it’s society. I can’t really get mad at them because that’s how we were raised. I always say, “How can I do that, do this and do everything I do and raise children?” “Well, your mom did it. Your grandmother did it. Your aunts did it. Your sister did it.” I’m not them. It’s just always so much, and I always admire women that do do it because I think I would collapse under the work.

Monet Davenport:
Thank you for listening up to this point. Press The Issue by MasterWP is sponsored by LearnDash. Your expertise makes you money doing what you do. Now let it make you money teaching what you do. To create a course with LearnDash, visit LearnDash.com. Our mission at MasterWP is to bring new voices into WordPress and tech every day. The new MasterWP Workshop Series does just that. Our new live and recorded workshops on everything from code to design to business turn WordPress fans into WordPress experts. Find the workshop for you at workshops.masterwp.com. Use the code podcast 10 for a 10% discount. Now, back to the podcast.

Sammi Sim:
I think it’s just a lot of pressure. How our parents were raised and how they grew up, I think a lot of it was just brought onto us as first generations and we don’t want to bring that onto our children now, but it’s a lot. I think that we are more than just that. I want to excel in my career. I want to be more than just mommy. I think it goes back so far that we are still trying to break those barriers now, and I think we are going to continue to be doing that.

Nyasha Green:
Got you. Got you. Another thing in the article I wanted to bring up I thought was funny, because I don’t do this, but how do you feel about the women who lie about how much they make when they’re the breadwinner?

Sammi Sim:
I think it’s a little sad. We should be able to speak about that with confidence. It doesn’t make your partner any less than a person. It doesn’t make you any less if you were making less than your partner. I also think that it has a lot to do with where you are in your career as far as what your partner does and what you do. And then not every job is the same. Not every company holds the same purpose. Everyone is in different career paths. Sometimes it depends on that as well.

Sammi Sim:
I don’t think that we should look at men funny because they’re not the breadwinner. I think it should be an honor like, “Yeah, my wife makes more money than me,” or whatever. It shouldn’t be looked upon. Two incomes are better than one. When did that not become a thing?

Nyasha Green:
Totally. I agree with you 100%. Like I said, it’s something I do not do and, luckily, my partner does not care about stuff like that. I feel like he’s actually bragging to people like, “Yeah, my wife’s big shot.” It sounds like something he would do. There was another thing I wanted to touch on. We talked a little bit about another article. There was a woman, a mother during the COVID Pandemic. She was actually a head at a tech company in San Francisco and she was in charge of hiring. She tried to hire women and minorities, which was really, really important for that Silicon Valley lifestyle. We don’t see a lot of people take the initiative to go out and hire minorities and try to diversify tech out there.

Nyasha Green:
She was doing that. During the pandemic, her husband wasn’t working and they couldn’t get daycare, nanny, anything like that. She asked her husband to watch the child and he lasted three days. After that, she had to quit her job and she started to watch her child full-time. And that article blew my mind because this was a woman… She actually waited a little bit in her career to have children. She was married. She made good money. She was a powerful voice in the community. For the simple fact her husband just didn’t want to take on that role, she had to stop her career.

Nyasha Green:
Because she was such a light in that area, we don’t know how many people that could have benefited from her being there who could have got a spot at the table. They just couldn’t get it anymore. It all came down to gender roles. I told you, to me, it was such a heartbreak for me to see that. How did you feel about that?

Sammi Sim:
If you can see me, I am definitely shaking my head right now. I think that’s very disappointing. It’s almost embarrassing because he should be able to sacrifice yourself a little bit and help your wife and her career path. Not only her, but the opportunity to give it to someone else. With being a woman, you are able to bring other women into your world and teach them, guide them, be a mentor. It’s not easy for a woman to look at a man who is her superior and feel the confidence in wanting to be there or reaching out for the help.

Sammi Sim:
Sometimes it’s a little bit easier when you have a woman in that role. Again, this goes back to my saying of expectations. The expectations seems like it’s on a woman. Maybe he felt like, “I can’t do this. Why should I have to do this? She should do this.” But it does close a lot of doors and it pushes a lot of seats in. It takes away from a lot of people, especially if she’s helping minorities, women in general. It’s unfortunate for sure.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah, that was just a very sad story to see, especially as a woman who was trying to get higher in a company and open the doors for more people. I’m still doing that and I just couldn’t imagine shutting the door on all those people in my career. But also, I will admit, I do not have children, so I probably would feel different if I did have one. It’s just an unfortunate side effect of having to work from home as a woman.

Nyasha Green:
You’re just, as we talked about, still just expected to take on all of these roles. We need to fight to have this change as soon as possible. What if another pandemic comes through? Are we going to be ready? Are we going to have to forgo our careers? We need people to step up. We need more allies. We need more help from companies. We need more help. We need to make all of this more equal.

Sammi Sim:
Mom guilt is very real and it is very hard to deal with and it’s overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine how she felt. But also to be able to take away an income for your family is very upsetting to me.
Nyasha Green:
Yeah, it definitely is. We’re just going to try to work for a better, more equal work from home experience and communities and partnerships. And that’s easier said than done, because again, a lot of us come from different cultural backgrounds, no matter what the year is and maybe certain traditions and roles you want to uphold, but I’m just hoping there’s a better way to do those in the future where everybody can benefit and everybody can share the work.

Sammi Sim:
Absolutely. With work from home, that doesn’t automatically mean that you have a flexible schedule to be able to work for a company that offers flexibility while you are working from home is you’re very lucky, but not a lot of work from home jobs are able to provide that as well. Sometimes when you’re working from home, you have to sit in front of the computer all day answering phones. I’ve seen posts where you’re kind of like on a timer thing or there’s a camera watching you. Work from home doesn’t always mean that there’s flexibility. It’s nice that you’re a physical presence inside your home with your children, but it might just be a trap.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah, definitely. Well, it was so good speaking with you today, Sammy. I can’t wait until we do this again.

Sammi Sim:
Me too. It was good as always.

Nyasha Green:
Well, I hope you have a wonderful day.

Sammi Sim:
Thank you. You too.

Nyasha Green:
All right. Until next time.

Monet Davenport:
Thank you for listening to this episode. Press The Issue is a production of MasterWP, produced by Allie Nimmons, hosted, edited, and musically supervised by Monet Davenport, and mixed and mastered by Teron Bullock. Please visit masterwp.com/presstheissue to find more episodes. Subscribe to our newsletter for more WordPress news at masterwp.com.

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