The Problematic of Work Life Balance Part 3: To Be or not to Be Gender Differences

This is the third and last (for now at least) of Debjani Chakravarty’s series exploring work life balance through the lens of economic and political culture. in this post, she asks the question of whether work life balance can or should be gender neutral. Debjani is a graduate student and artist, currently pursuing a PhD in the Women and Gender Studies Program at Arizona State University. She has worked as a journalist and social worker in India.

Rebecca is a grad student, and she works part time at Starbucks. She is getting a degree in social work, hopeful of pursuing a career she’s passionate about. She also works as an editor and ghost writer on the side. When I ask Rebecca about work life balance, she says, “Strange I never think about it. My parents never went to college and they never left their little Ohio town where I grew up. For them, my life’s a dream come true, and they are hopeful that someday I’ll be able to do all those things that they only planned about, travel, work a respectable job, buy a big house. Work life balance, let’s see. For me it’s about taking the occasional Adderall, so that I can keep working. My life’s on hold right now, work is all that matters.”

Smithson and Stokoe (2005) contend that “work-life balance” represents a kind of gender blind organizational term that over generalizes women’s experience. It is often about a woman who’s in an un-gendered workplace, with enough resources to make life altering choices.[1] She has equal opportunities, equal access and the privilege to enter and leave the workforce at will. Work-life balance, in the context of corporate management becomes a de-gendered term that does not “in practice change the widespread assumption within organizations by managers and employees, both women and men, that these issues are strongly linked to women.” Instead, the authors argue that organizations should find ways to allow for gender differences, so that women do not feel compelled to perform “macho maternity.” Motherhood and maternity are not “personal” issues, and they need to be viewed as such.

The Swedish approach of a long period of paid parental leave, of which two months has to be taken by each parent, or be lost, demonstrates an attempt to de-gender parenthood and caring responsibilities, in contrast to the UK system of six months’ paid maternity leave but a minimal (two weeks) paid leave available to fathers (Nyberg, 2003). Some UK organizations have implemented unpaid leave and flexible working opportunities policies available for all employees, although in practice patterns of leave-taking remain highly gendered (Smithson et al. 2004). It is likely that in a context where many more men do take part in flexible working schemes such as parental leave agreements, a backlash becomes less of a deterrent as flexible working is normalized (165).”

In a similar vein, Caproni argues that the language of work life balance is the kind of language that is used to create bureaucratic organizations. This language is rampant in the boardrooms of fortune 500 companies, strategy lesson in MBA classrooms, as it is in women’s lives. The work life balance discourse reflects individualism, goal focus, achievement orientation and instrumental rationality devoid of emotion that is fundamental to modern bureaucratic thought. Such language begins to govern our lives, and colonize our lifeworlds. Discourses focused on the individual detract attention away from the complex power relations that shape and restrict the individual. [2]

Therefore, not only is the Cosmo (or Oprah, or Good Housekeeping or Women’s Health) take on work life balance heterosexist, narrow, consumerist and privileged, erasing complex realities of racial, sexual, aged, class based and numerous other identities, it is also a part of the post feminist project of the ‘self.’ There is nothing inherently wrong in taking quizzes to find out what one’s role juggling coefficient is, or how one can prioritize, remember to breathe or invest in technology and a balanced diet, what is problematic is the pressing individualism of these discourses that allows policy makers to conveniently wash their hands off collective responsibilities and shroud their failings in a language of individual responsibility. A positive attitude is as important to successful work life balance as family friendly workplace policies that do not view women’s work as optional.

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[1]Smithson, Janet & Stokoe, Elizabeth H.(2005) Discourses of Work–Life Balance: Negotiating ‘Genderblind’ Terms in Organizations. Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 12 No. 2 March 2005

[2] Caproni, P. J (2004) Work/Life Balance: You Can’t Get There From Here. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science; Jun 2004; 40, 2;