Challenges Faced by Professional Working Mothers (Research Paper Sample)

Challenges of Professional working mothers
Student’s First Name, Middle Name, Last Name
Institution Affiliation
Course Code and Number
Instructor’s Name
Assignment Due Date
Literature Review
A few years back, women worked as secretaries of personal assistants but nowadays many work as entrepreneurs ('Disturbing findings': Survey reveals the challenges faced by working mothers | Parent, 2020). Even with their important role in business today, they are faced with great challenges such as sexual harassments, working extra hard than men in order to earn the respect and be treated equally as the men as well as being paid less than the men in the same profession. Pregnant women and mothers who work may face discrimination and harassment in their workplaces, difficulty in juggling home and work life and unpaid family leave.
Many women, especially mothers have reported discrimination and harassment in work place. According to Ndoga (2017), these working mothers have complained of lack of rightfully earned promotions and denied increased payments. Gender inequality plays an important role in professional discrimination. Motherhood penalty has been used to describe incidents where working mothers deals with payment disadvantages compared to those women with no children (Ndoga, 2017). Moreover, there are cases where women have been harassed for arriving at work late or leaving early due to family emergencies. Every mother has to tend to their child’s needs. However, some employers have created a hostile working environment for these women to the point where they may be fired for attending to unexpected emergencies. In United States of America, pregnant women and mothers with newborns are entitled to maternity leave as stated by the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993(FMLA) but have to meet certain policies such as having worked for their employee for 12 months and a total of 1250 hours (“Challenges faced by working moms”, 2019). Some women fail to qualify for FMLA and end up unpaid during maternity leave.
One of the biggest problem professional mothers face is balancing their work and home life. However, women of today are able to manage their personal and professional relationships (Vermont, 2019). It can be very difficult for a mother to fully concentrate on their work when their children are sick. Parents have the responsibility of attending parent meetings in school, taking care of sick kids either in hospital or home and even attending to their children’s plays and games. Some women claim that they feel guilty when they leave work to attend to their families’ needs and even more guilty when they fail to attend to their children ('Disturbing findings': Survey reveals the challenges faced by working mothers | Parent, 2020). Others end up developing emotional stress, especially new mothers (Vermont, 2019). Mothers are indeed the backbone of the family.
Working mothers should be acknowledged and appreciated for their important contribution to their families, society and organizations. They are selfless and try so hard not to fail anyone. Organizations should come up with ways to help working mothers such as paid maternity leaves, establishing daycare facilities, offer equal pay and reprimanding those who harass and discriminate them. The fact that professional mothers cannot attend full time office hours does not mean that they cannot deliver a good job.
Justification
Working women across the world are faced with various challenges. The purpose of this research is to examine the challenges of professional working mothers. With previous research and studies done on working mothers (Vermont, 2019), some challenges have been identified. Living in the 21st century, most of the women’s rights have been practiced and implemented. This happened after years of struggling and fighting against gender inequality and for their voices to be heard. As women are regarded as the pillar of a family, there main role was taking care of their kids and husband at home by fulfilling their needs. Nowadays, many of them work as business managers, executives, politicians and even chief executive officers. The result of this research may provide the insights of what problems working mothers encounter as many people assume that they are okay.
According to “Challenges faced by working moms” (2019), pregnant women and working mothers still face various obstacles when trying to balance their parenting and professional roles. These includes workplace discrimination, little or no pay during maternity leaves, difficulties in finding the best child care that are affordable and employer reticence. The exposure to hostile working environments and lack of polices that protect professional mothers could lead to negative effects in their physical and mental health as well as their productivity in the organizations. Data collected through this research could be use