A mom who works for a radio station in Ireland tweeted out that she missed her daughter greatly. A random man responded to her tweet saying "If you miss your kid while you're at work so much, you probably should give up your job". Whats interesting about the story is that her husband also works as a radio personality but does not receive the same critiques about his parenting. Whats displayed here is a common stereotype that woman should stay home and "raise" the kids and clean the house and let the men work and provide for them. Well, she tweeted a photo of the letter she wrote back to this stranger on twitter and suddenly the tweet has gone viral. So viral in fact, that it has headlines on ABC News and many other media outlets, all because of twitter. Twitter has revolutionized the way we get our news. This new medium of news sharing allows stories like this to go from nothing to something.
The mom told ABC News this: "I'm not some sort of spokesperson for women who work outside of the
home. I just hope women who are mothers, whether they found it's best
for them to stay at home or go out and work, do whatever they feel it's
best to do. What annoyed me is that guy judged me and I
really don't want to judge anyone."
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/womans-letter-defending-working-mom-viral/story?id=36711629
It is unfortunate to think that women are still being treated with this kind of disrespect in regards to more stereotypical gender roles, which cause us to preemptively judge individuals and place them within more narrow mindsets in regards to issues of the workplace vs. the domestic sphere and so forth (and whether or not gender is supposed to dictate where that means individuals should be placed as a result).
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that women are still being treated this way. It's encouraging and empowering to know that this woman's situation went viral. This type of media is really powerful, true stories of real women operating in the world that are shared by media outlets rather than reconstructed by media. I hope women everywhere can keep working to change the status quo.
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