Women have come a long way in the past several decades, or at least that is what the rhetoric would have one believe. Since women have begun to become more integrated in the workforce and professional world, it would appear as if gender equality has greatly improved. In some aspects, equality between sexes has advanced, but there is still the ever-present struggle for women to balance both work and home life.

Even with more women than ever now working full-time jobs and pursuing careers, they are still somehow expected to be the same nurturing mother, doting wife, and keeper of the household that society painted them as in the early 20th century. Women face the unique challenge of balancing both work and personal life that often forces them to scale back on work or even leave the workforce altogether. These challenges can be combated with implementing more women in leadership positions on both small and large scales.

In America, there is no law guaranteeing maternity leave to pregnant women. We are the only industrialized country in the world that still lacks these regulations. Often, when maternity leave is granted it is unpaid. Even when maternity leave is granted, it is relatively short, averaging just twelve weeks. This time taken off also results in a loss of relevant time at work, causing some employers to only pay women a percentage of their pre-maternity leave salary or allow them to work only part time when they eventually come back to work.

Since men are not granted paternity leave in America, women staying home with the baby is the only option. These barriers, such as short maternity leave and no paternity leave, cause some women to have to scale back hours of work or even leave their jobs altogether in order to take care of their children. When women are essentially forced by the current maternity leave system to choose between work and family, family often comes first, causing work to suffer and women to step down from their jobs.

In addition to the lack of quality maternity leave ushering women away from the workforce, there is also the unique factor of women having to balance three “jobs”: their career, their kids, and their housework. Anne-Marie Slaughter claims that the balancing act required to partake in all three roles equally led her to believe that “[she] could no longer be the parent and professional [she] wanted to be,” ultimately causing her to scale back from her demanding job to be at home (681).

Traditionally, before the women’s rights movement, women stayed home while their husbands went to work. This left women at home all day, so naturally, the children and the home were her primary responsibility. Somehow though, this belief that women should take care of domestic duties has carried into today where both partners work full-time jobs. This leaves the wife with extra work that her husband does not feel the responsibility to do. According to Laura Kipnis, “We are convinced that these social arrangements are the ‘natural’ order of things” (35). Society’s view that women are naturally meant for the home and naturally meant to take care of children leaves them with an unfair and unequal responsibility, as those duties are thrust onto them and off of their male partner. This consequently forces women to take on less demanding jobs or leave their careers in order to take care of affairs at home, a task that is disproportionately given to women.

This push from society to cut back on work and focus more on family and home life does not start only when women become married, but long before. Even unmarried women struggle with the balance between work and domestic duties, as external pressures from friends, family, and society in general coerce them into making decisions regarding their work based on the possible anticipation of a family. Sheryl Sandberg states that she decided against going abroad because “a foreign country was not a likely place to turn a date into a husband” and moved to Washington D.C. because it “was full of eligible men.”

This societal pressure to get married before a woman is even in a relationship is detrimental to professional life, as it sets up the structure that causes women to feel the need to put work last. There is also the pressure to start a family early on in life. This rhetoric often includes references to a woman’s “biological clock,” suggesting that she should hurry up and have children before she gets too old. This premature thought of motherhood causes women to second-guess career moves and shy away from jobs with heavy responsibility or many hours. Even before a woman is married or has children, she is still practicing a delicate balance between personal life and work, as the patriarchal society urges women to not be overly ambitious when it comes to work and to always be searching for a domestic role.

The struggle for women to balance work and personal life exists because of the patriarchal structure within the United States and male-dominated politics. As bell hooks says, “The work does not end with the fight for equality within the existing patriarchal structure.” With primarily male leaders, women are simply working within an already established, discriminatory system trying to get ahead and failing. To see any real changes aiding in the work/life balance for women, we must have more women in charge. We may even “need to put a woman in the White House” as Slaughter suggests.

With more women in charge in the workplace as well as in the government, they may be more sensitive to the needs of women who have responsibilities at home. They may allow them more time off, guaranteed paid maternity leave, or myriad other helpful implementations. Having more women in charge could also shift societies’ perceptions of women’s roles, consequently changing the patriarchal structure of America and allowing for gender equality in the workplace as well as at home. With better conditions for women who work through more women in charge, they would feel less pressure trying to balance work and home life, causing them to not shy away from better job opportunities, more responsibility at work, or leave the workforce.

Women face unique challenges in balancing work and domestic duties that many men do not. With issues such as maternity leave, having copious work at home, and the pressure to start a family, women often have to scale back on work or leave their careers altogether because of the struggle to maintain a balance. Although women deal with the issues of balance under the current male-dominated, patriarchal society, there is hope for reform through the implementation of more women leaders. With more women in leadership positions, conditions would improve by passing laws and regulations that better suit the needs of female workers. With this change, cultural attitudes toward women would in turn shift to allow for a more understanding and equal society with regards to gender.