All working women face the same concerns as a group: job discrimination based on the perpetuation of the myth that the woman's place is in the home. In society, men tend to be defined in terms of their occupations whereas women tend to be defined in terms of family or sex roles. Thus the ideal continues to be that women seek marginal employment in anticipation of their futures as wives and mothers. This creates a "mommy track" mentality in the workplace in which a woman's contribution is viewed as temporary at best, and therefore is not valued as highly as a man's.
Harley sums up society's gendered differences toward occupational status in terms of black women: "For most black women, opportunities for social status existed outside the labor market--in their family, neighborhood, and organizational and church lives" (25). This statement was made in the context of black women in the Progressive Era, but it applies to modern minority and white women as well. As long as women are pigeonholed into traditional female occupations such as clerical and service jobs, they will continue to seek confirmation of their status outside the workplace.
Although the notion that a woman's place is in the home appears to be part of a white, middle class value system, the ideal permeates all segments of society, regardless of race or income. Men, especially in working class communities, pride themselves on the fact that their wives do not work: " . . . it has always been a source of status in working-class communities for a woman to be able to say, 'I don't have to work'" (Rubin 171). Working wives and mothers reflect poorly on their husband's abilities to support the family. Harley found less opposition to employment among professional black women married to professional spouses, mainly because professional status is highly regarded in the black community and it did not imply that the husband lacked the means to be the breadwinner of the ...