To the Editor:
I did a double take of recognition at these sentences: “But many women who started out with all the ambition in the world find themselves in a place they never expected to be. They do not choose to leave their jobs; they are shut out by the refusal of their bosses to make it possible for them to fit their family life and their work life together.”
While struggling to balance working full time as a physician with caring for my dying father, my special-needs daughter and my 90-year-old aunt who had fallen and broken her hip, I requested that my boss allow me to go part time or telework. He denied these requests and explained to me how many other physicians were successfully making it all work. (Really?) I loved my work passionately, but I took an unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. In his world, where his wife was primarily caring for his children, my boss (a caring and thoughtful person) could not understand my struggle.
There remains a profound misunderstanding in the workplace of the toxic level of expectations and stress under which women are working. Does anyone really wonder why there are so few women “at the top”?
RUTH RODGERS
Corte Madera, Calif.
Note from KBJ: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
