Vanya’s Blog

I recently had a work trip to our second office, based in the city of Veliko Tarnovo, and on that trip in the car I read three articles by The Economist. Why was it so important that I read them on that particular trip? Well I just wanted to mention it because I was thinking about my job and how will things go when we get to the office, because I had to interview new people and so on. I have a very stressful job, I love it but I am tired all the time. There are rearly work weeks that are just article writing and editing and nothing else. Most of the time we either have many new staff or we have a new project and it is stress all the day.

So when I read those articles links here — 1, 2, 3. //What also might interest you (well, it was interesting to me anyway) is The Economist live debate on Women link here.// I completely understood some of the problems they were addressing. The surveys and polls made among companies and staff concern other countries, mainly the United States, th UK, Sweden. I do understand that to get information about the working women of Bulgaria I would have to wait a while. Anyhow, I wanted to write about my experience with making a career here in my country.

The most important thing is equality. I have never experienced sexism or discrimination at the work place myself or never have heard women here talk or complain about it.

I first worked in the University in Sofia and there most of the staff were women, including our teachers.

Then I was a teacher myself at a high school in Sofia and the majority of my colleagues were women.

Now I’m working for a Bulgarian news agency and more than half of the staff are women and over half of the senior management positions are occupied by women.

And it is not a only in the education or media sectors. I have a friend who works in a bank and she told me that most of her colleagues are women.

My mom worked for a company which sold computer software and hardware and the staff there was dominated by women too.

So I can say that in this regard women in Bulgaria are OK

There was a time, however, when the employers wanted to know when were you planning to get married so as to guess if you’re going to get pregnant soon. I know that girls have complained of getting those questions during their job interviews. I think that still happens here — they ask you and if you say you are married or in a serious relationship you may not get the job, because the employers think soon you will have to go on maternity leave (in Bulgaria you can be off work for around 2 years). Well, not all employers do it , but still.

The problems of working mothers here are the same as they are for women in any other country. I personally am concerned how am I going to make it if I had a child. Me and my husband will not have the luxury to get help from the grandparents as many people in Bulgaria do, because we live in different cities. So, if I had a child I would have to juggle work and taking care of the baby. It is something which kept me away from motherhood for a long time. Other big reason is that I adore my job and do not want to leave it for long.

Another big problem I see is that I would probably not want to leave my kid with some strange woman. Why should I have to. It is just heartbreaking. And it is an extremely tough choice — work or child.

What the Economist said about that choice I liked a lot and I loved the fact that they did not try to hide or cushion the problem but discussed it head on.

“If the empowerment of women was one of the great changes of the past 50 years, dealing with its social consequences will be one of the great challenges of the next 50.”

From the article "Female Power" Economist print edition Dec 30, 2009.

Yes, there are consequences and there is a big amount of guilt. Especially here. I do not know how other societies cope with women with demanding and stressful jobs, but in Bulgaria there is little understanding for them. I personally have a negative experience in this regard. Some of my friends and some other people around me judge me for not having a baby. They think I am wasting my life working and that I will regret it later. I do not know if that is true, but it is not making things easier for me now. I do not think that I should excuse myself for having chosen my work over having a child at 22 or whatever.

What makes women special in the work place? — The Economist names several abilities that are typical for women, which make their presence in the work place irreplaceable.

“The new feminism contends that women are wired differently from men, and not just in trivial ways. They are less aggressive and more consensus-seeking, less competitive and more collaborative, less power-obsessed and more group-oriented. Judy Rosener, of the University of California, Irvine, argues that women excel at “transformational” and “interactive” management. Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham, the authors of “A Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom”, assert that women are “better lateral thinkers than men” and “more idealistic” into the bargain.”

From the article "Womenomics" Economist print edition Dec 30, 2009.

I personally have seen that women are better in multitasking than men.

Another interesting point raised by The Economist was whether women are really less aggressive and competitive than men. Maybe that is the case with many working women, but there are those especially tough ladies which I think would not be worse at running multinational corporations or even countries. Margaret Thatcher did not earn the title “iron lady” for nothing. I loved the joke about her which The Economist has included in one of the articles:

“…There is a joke about her going out to dinner with her cabinet. “Steak or fish?” asks the waiter. “Steak, of course,” she replies. “And for the vegetables?” “They’ll have steak as well.”

From the article "Womenomics" Economist print edition Dec 30, 2009.

I would like to conclude with this. Even though we women are fighting to be equal on all levels with men, there are some places where we will be missed if we do not visit, the  childern’s room above all.

Thanks to Amadeu Sanz, the UN photographers, gcoldironjr2003 and David Velasquez for the wonderful images.

Posted in General, Work stuff career, female management, female work, feminism, motherhood, The Economist, women, women at work, women working, work, working mothers

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.