A Year of Blogging: September 22, 2011

September 22 was 'Business Women's Day'. It is a day to celebrate the contributions women make in the business world. I think we should celebrate all women in the workplace. For women, it is so much more than just going to work each day. At least, for most women I know. We do the laundry so everyone in the house has clothes to wear to work. We go to work, giving 100% or more for 8 hours. When we come home, we are met with that horrendous question. "What's for dinner?" Then we make dinner, eat dinner, and pick up after dinner. Even if you have a dishwasher, it still has to be loaded. When we sit down we realize the carpet needs to be vacuumed, or the dogs need to be fed. Too tired to do much cleaning in the evening, we put it onto the ever-growing 'to-do' list for the weekend. Whereas, for instance, in our house, Erich eats dinner and goes upstairs for the evening. Sometimes he loads the dishwasher. But when he unloads the clean dishes, he piles them on the dish drainer. I'm not sure why. He claims to know where the dishes go. Yet they never find their way into the cabinets. He also loads the dishwasher backwards. I don't want to say incorrectly, because the dishes get clean the way he does it, just as they do the way I do it. He just puts the plates and bowls in the reverse of what I do. I honestly don't know how women do it. Especially those like my sister, who has children to juggle as well. I don't know how Mom worked full time, had a healthy, fulfilling meal on the table, and juggled the house and my sister and I. I have the house and work and the dogs and I can barely keep up. I have one day on a weekend to truly enjoy. Friday nights I'm too busy unwinding from the week and Sunday I'm decompressing for the upcoming week. That leaves Saturday as the day to go shopping or run errands or do anything else I didn't have time for during the week. Women in the workforce deserve a big hand. And yet, for all that we do, we are still rewarded with smaller salaries than our male counterparts. If we're really lucky, we also get to deal with bosses who treat us like inferiors. It's no wonder some nights we come home and flip out when someone cheerfully asks 'what's for dinner?'