CARRER WOMEN
We expect that marriage and family will be
more important to women than to man. Some people say that a woman must choose
between having a career and being a mother, while others encourage women to
have two roles – one at home and one at work. But men combine fatherhood and a
career without anyone’s thinking about it, and very few successful businessmen are praised for also being devoted
husbands and fathers.
Most women hold office positions, as
secretaries, file clerks, typists, or bookkeepers. Many stores also hire women
to wait on customers, but men sell most of the automobiles or household
appliances, expensive jewelry, and furniture. Most factories that employ women
carry on light industry, such as canning food, packaging drugs, or assembling
small appliances. In Indonesia no women work in iron and steel production.
Women’s jobs also include the service
industries: cleaning homes and hospitals, working as waitress, and working in
laundries and hotels. Most of these types of employment do not require much
skill or training, and many more women than men hold unskilled jobs. Factories
and offices have few women supervisors or managers.
Among the professions that require a college
or university education, teaching and health care provide most opportunities
for women. In general, however, in these areas women hold the less important
positions. Women nurses are plentiful, while women doctors or hospital
directors are rare. Many more women teach in elementary schools than in
universities, and fewer women are school principals than men.
