The recent visit of Dr. Margaret Chan the Director General of WHO who said that Singapore is her second home made me reflect on the following issues.
What do Nancy Pelosi and Margaret Chan have in common?
Apart from the obvious fact that they are women, they share the following characteristics. They are all above 50 years old, and they are contributing actively to society.
Nancy Pelosi at age 66 and a mother of 5, is the 60th and present speaker of the United States House of Representatives which makes her the highest-ranking woman in the US government. She is also the first woman in U.S. history to hold this office
Dr. Margaret Chan at age 60 is the Director General of the World Health Organisation.(WHO). She was the first female in Hong Kong to head the Department of Health and left after 25 years of service to join the WHO.
This brings to mind another famous Dr. Margaret Chan, who breath life into the character Emily of Emeral Hill. At the age of 52 she obtained her PHD and 4 years later she embarked on a new career as a faculity member at the Singapore Management University.
No, this is not another femanist article about how women have managed to break the glass ceiling or that they have managed to break into the stratified world of men.
What strick me was that these are woman who are married, have managed to bring up children and yet at an age where many are contented to retire they have embarked on new careers that challenge their comfrt zone.
I have met several highly educated stay-at-home mum who have taken the courages step to stop climbing the career ladder for a while to bring up their children.
Sometime they will be hit with insecurity and worried that they will nt be able to enter the market once their children have grown up. At other the times, they worried that all their education have been wasted as they spend their time driving their children from schools to enrichment classes and back home.
Yes agesim do exist as expamlified by Dr Chan when she tried to apply for a universtiy post at another local university.
But these three women gave us who are aged forty and above hope. Many stay-at-home mum will start to look for jobs when they are around this age. Like Dr Chan, they must be willing to start work at the entry level or low level. Dr. Chan, armed with a Phd, started work at SMU teaching remedial English. After 10 months she was promoted based on her performance. Later she was promoted to a fully fledged faculity member.
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1 comment:
Nancy Pelosi is just great - #3 in the US govt after Bush and Cheney - definitely someone we can look up to.
If I am back to Singapore when I am in my forties, I'd probably look for a job. However, if I am still in the USA then, joining the workforce may not make sense with the higher than 30% income tax that US residents pay.
If I am employed then I need $$ to dress up, pay for childcare, pay for more expensive meals and at the end of the day, I may be left with zilch.
Have been toying with the idea of working from home... but nothing concrete at the moment.
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