In the movie “Sex and the City 2”, Miranda’s character quits her job at the law firm where she’s just become partner, something she’s been trying to accomplish since the series began. She quits because she becomes aware that her boss is treating her with disrespect. After realizing she is the only female partner, she understands that his disrespect stems from her being a woman. What’s more, once she quits, she manages to make it on time to her son’s science fair, something she would have never made it to. This example illustrates not only the sexist regime governing most of corporate America, but it also sheds light on the fact that many women are being forced to choose between being a career woman and being a mother.
The glass ceiling is something successful, career women are being forced to face. It marks the level of not only salary, but also of respect women deserve to reach yet never get the opportunity to. It is glass because it can be seen, but they can’t get through it. It is a physical barrier. Miranda seemed to have broken through the glass ceiling after making partner, yet once there, she didn’t receive the respect she deserved from her sexist boss. He continued to literally put his hand up every time she would offer an opinion and give her cases away to the other male lawyers. Once she opened her eyes and began witnessing this blatant gendered division of labor, she knew something had to be done. She, like many career women in our society, gave up almost everything to achieve success, but it wasn’t enough.
Miranda gave up being an attentive mother to be an attentive lawyer. In our society, motherhood itself isn’t necessarily oppressive; however, it has become constructed in such a way by society that makes it oppressive (Kirk and Rey, p. 307). After quitting, she got to see her son win the science fair, illustrating the many landmark events she had missed while she was working.
Unlike most women, Miranda has extra help at home. She has an attentive husband and hired help. Most women do not and they have to deal with the “second shift” of working all day and coming home to work all night as a mother. These are all sacrifices women in our society are forced to make. In order to avoid these obstacles, many modern women have chosen to pay the “ultimate mommy tax” and remain childless. A steady increase in the percentage of middle-aged, educated, American women who remain childless went from about 9 percent in the 1950's to 10 percent in the late 1970's, and in the 1990's about 17 percent (Kirk and Rey, p. 344). Women choose this route because it has been statistically proven that the longer a woman postpones family responsibilities, and the longer her 'pre-parental' phase lasts, the higher her lifetime earnings will be (Kirk and Rey, p.342). And ultimately, in our society, money equates to power.
You have done an effective job of analyzing the glass ceiling as it relates to women in power. Two questions for you: do you think that quitting her job solves the problem; what does it say about women's work and race if Miranda has hired help in order to "break though" the ceiling?
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