Is It Easier For Married Women To Take Career Risks?

Society rarely expects married women to make anything of their careers; is that an opportunity to take more risks and do the things we love? So argues Natasha.

A couple of years, I met a lady who told me, “In our society, there are not much expectations from women (profession-wise). So why not take advantage of this?”

The lady in question is a corporate soft-skills trainer. Interestingly she had changed her career path quite a number of times. She is an qualified architect who didn’t find the profession interesting once she started working. So she enrolled herself for MBA and chose Finance as her discipline. Once again, when she started working in the Finance field, it failed to gratify her. And finally a few years later, she started her career as an soft-skills trainer.

In our paternalistic households, it is true that women do not have the pressure to earn, unless there is no earning male in the house. Yes, we are educated and urged to become someone but that is primarily by our parents. Once we are married, most in-laws hardly bother whether we are working or not as long as we are managing our household responsibilities as well. Teaching is still considered to be the best profession for us as it gives us sufficient time to cook and clean, and raise our children. Jobs are considered to be an activity to pass our time and earn some pocket money.

I have seen many, many women give up their careers after getting married or having kids. Either she manages both her career and home or gives up one. And of course we are conditioned congenially to choose home over career. After all, what kind of a woman chooses career over family; the worst kind, isn’t it?

All the married women out there, honestly think, why are you working? We work to be financially independent (to be able to shop without being taunted!), to be our parents’ pride and justify their sacrifices, to be someone, to have a say in matters, to support the family and mostly for our self-esteem. And when we earn, we feel powerful, don’t we? May be that’s why my mother always said, “First become financially independent, then you can do whatever you want.”

Anyways, what I was actually talking about is that since nobody expects us to earn millions or to be featured on the covers of the leading business magazines, we can try to do what gives us happiness. A dear friend of mine after studying history, mass communication and working in media houses, discovered that her true passion lie in baking. And I am so proud of her yummy creations and the fact that she finally found the conviction to turn her passion into profession. There is another friend who gave up her job to start her own online kids’ channel. Cool, isn’t it! Then there is a colleague’s sister who is a qualified physiotherapist but had to give up her career for the time-being to raise her son. She loves to cook and recently started taking orders from her friends to make sweets.

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May be, someday, I too shall be able to make out a profession of the things that I love doing. May be I shall get paid to read books! The point is when our passion becomes our profession, we cannot fail (this was quoted by a young colleague of mine). This is true for men and women alike. But I think when it comes to career, it is much easier for us women to take risks rather than the designated bread-earners of the family. What say ladies?

First published at author’s blog

Top image is a still from the movie Tumhari Sulu

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