Success or Happiness?

We all want success and happiness, but in terms of women, is it one or the other? In the article  ‘Career Women and the New Definition of Success’ written by Dr. Peggy Drexler she talks about the hardships women deal with, whether to stay at home with their children, to work, or how to manage both.

Drexler discussed surveys that have been given to whose happier, workingwomen, or stay at home moms? One survey conducted by the American Sociological Association noted that ‘mothers who go back to work within weeks of giving birth reported feeling more energetic and less depressed than those who spent months or years at home’. While another survey given by Forbes Woman found that ‘a growing number of women find staying at home to be the ideal circumstance of motherhood’. Well both surveys do protest how to be happy but they are consequently unreliable. They cannot ever be fully reliable because there are too many factors involved. For example, having a bad week at the office, or a bad week a home. There is no way to fully identify which woman is happier. One fact we are aware of however is women are continuously moving up in the work field.

Drexler gives reports from 2011 McKinsey Research which points out that women are acquiring 53% of entry-level management jobs, 37% for mid-managers and 26% for vice presidents. Drexler says ‘these shrinking numbers either mean that the glass ceiling is thicker and lower than we imagined, or that younger women on the way or quite possibly, both.’ I honestly think it is both! These numbers show accomplishment as well as room for improvement. It’s obvious that women are no longer fighting as hard to enter into what society has created to be  ‘a man’s world’ but the fight is not over.  What these women want is to be successful, but is the stress interfering with their happiness? My fear of wanting success is wondering whether it will cost me my happiness.  Is making a lot of money happiness? Sure, I would love to make a great deal of money. Certainly my life would be simpler. But am I putting myself at risk by pushing to be high up within a profession that makes me unhappy? Is the thought of making money becoming more of a priority than happiness? These questions I ask will never truly be answered, but it is true that in order to make progress you must take risks.

Women’s search for meaning is very important whether it’s to raise a family or how they decide to balance work and life, both require patience and a lot of effort.  An article titled ‘Male Decline Is No Myth. Things Are Changing. Why Focus on What’s the Same?’ by author Hanna Rosin is focused on the positive change women have made, and provides an outlook on how to accomplish a more equal lifestyle. Rosin says what’s most hopeful is that ‘women are helping to remake the workplace in an era when men and women both increasingly want more flexibility, the freedom to skip out for a kid’s school assembly or doctor’s appointment.’ Though women do have more difficult choices when it comes to their career, both men and women do want happy and easy lives. Due to where women stand in today’s society, there still needs to be change. But you can bet that women will never stop working towards having equality, success, and happiness.

Melody Bryant

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/career-women-and-the-new_b_2853809.html