Your colleague with children leaves at 5:30 every evening, while you stay until 7:30 to pick up the work that needs to be finished. You are the only one asked to take weekend shifts and take Saturday conference calls because everyone else has to take time to take care of their children. If there is a problem that needs to be taken care of after six, you are the only available person to go to. What you do after work is clearly not a priority for your employer.
So Why are Single Women Discriminated Against?
Does this sound like you? You might be a victim of what Marie Claire calls, “Single Women Who Carry an Undue Burden at the Office.” Amanda Byrd describes this scenario as employers that have gotten used to parents leaving at reasonable hours while single women had to pick up the work that mother employees couldn’t finish that day. The end result of all this is that single women have no personal life. This limits their well-being and their ability to find future spouses and start a family of their own.
Be Assertive and Speak Up
The hard part is saying no to what you have been assigned, especially in this fragile economy with unemployment being very high. Why are we unable to strike a balance for what is acceptable? There needs to be an increased awareness towards unfair workloads that single women have to put up with at work. The only solution to this problem may be that women need to speak up for themselves and show their bosses and coworkers that they are not available 24/7. Poker teaches you to be assertive so that you can speak up to your employer and get treated fairly like you deserve.
