Balancing Family How Women Are Successful at Home and Work

By Mike Parson

Women leaders in education struggle to balance work and family life.

Historically, this struggle has stemmed from attempts to manage societal expectations of balancing work and family. In managing these expectations, women leaders face many challenges, which have made it difficult to maintain home responsibilities and deal with increasing demands at work. For women, these dual responsibilities sometimes make it seem impossible to find the balance they seek in their lives. Although they have made great strides in the past century, women fill only 18% of the superintendencies in this country—even though they dominate in numbers within the classroom. There are women successfully finding balance; however, what is not clearly known are the support systems and strategies that assist with this success in both the family and work domains.

The purpose of this book was to identify support systems and strategies that allow women in leadership positions—specifically the superintendency—to maintain balance in work and life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: vincenzo nappi
• Release date: Aug 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201410940

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW

Background of the Problem

Women leaders in education have long struggled to balance work and family life. Historically, this struggle has stemmed from attempts to manage societal expectations of balancing work and family, which are intertwined with traditional social roles and gender stereotypes. In managing these expectations, women leaders face many challenges and internal and external barriers such as lack of support at work and at home, which have lead to work-family conflicts. These challenges have made it difficult for women to maintain home responsibilities and deal with increasing demands at work; in short, making it tough for them to find the balance they seek in their lives. For purposes of this study, balance is defined as meeting and fulfilling the demands of personal and professional life and satisfying one’s needs, values, priorities, and demands. Many women see balancing work and life as an impossible task and end up choosing between the two. Factors forcing women to make this choice go back many years.

For decades, women have fought for equity with a passion for justice and social change. Although women have come a long way since the Feminist Movement in the 1970s, society still has predetermined expectations for and limitations on women. Society can limit the vision of what individuals can achieve based on perceptions and reality. In this case, perception refers to the views that others impose on a woman’s circumstances and capabilities. In reality, women have many personal choices to make about seeking leadership positions. Both perceptions and realities create challenges for women. Society’s cultural views about time and gender roles must change for women to find success in balancing work and family. Her study showed that society still expected women to maintain all of their domestic responsibilities such as childcare and housecleaning while meeting the increasing demands of an educational leader. If women choose to enter the workforce, the expectation is that they will manage a career and family, or choose between the two. Not only have women continued to struggle with an expectation that has not been equally imposed on men, but they have also had to overcome challenges to reach the top positions in educational leadership.

Research has shown many of the challenges that women face in aspiring to leadership roles in education; however, women continue in their efforts to overcome these challenges while attempting to find balance in work and life. Almost four decades after the women’s movement, women have only moved to the half-way point in organizations in this country; most are stuck in middle management and make less money than men. For example, women hold 50% of all management and professional positions in the United States; however, they only represented 2% of Fortune 500 chief executive officers in 2006. The research has found that internal and external barriers are challenges preventing women from moving past middle management positions. Internal barriers have been described as personal barriers in which the individual needs to make changes related to such issues as values and self-efficacy. Women have faced external barriers in the form of societal stereotypes and organizational structures.

Organizational barriers emerge as women rise to the top and attempt to balance work and family; these barriers have been referred to as the glass ceiling