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Is there place for love in your life career?

Helena Gandra
Nov 9, 2017
2 min read

I don't want to be much of a spoiler but the immediate answer is... "YES!"

Nowadays everybody keeps talking about crisis in millennials' relationships mainly due to the fact that some people defend that there is only place for career or love.

I was once in a conference where I was accused by a "supposedly feminist" to be an "anti-feminist" because I said that I wanted to get married and have a family. My first reaction was to think that this was ridiculous, to undermine other women for having other objectives than you, which is not even necessarily true. I have always defended that women ane men and, actually, all humanity should have equal rights. Nevertheless, do I think, therefore, that the concept of family life should be erased? No!

The other day I was reading an article in The Economist that was explaining about why women still earn less than men. And it stated that the problem was not that employers wish to pay women less, but rather that when women have children and they are away for some time it is obvious that, unfortunately, this will have financial implications, namely due to the fact that when they go back to their works they wish to work less hours and therefore become economically dependent on their partners. Women are still in most countries the responsible for the household and therefore this makes them less 'career-oriented'.

They have also suggested that indeed the secret resides on education and that men should be as "excited as girls about becoming teachers, nurses and full-time parents" to end the gender inequality in payment that still exists.

This brings me back to the discussion in the conference, where one of the participants said "I believe that there should be equality and as a man I would like to contribute, however, what is our role (of men) in order to achieve this?"

A very legitimate question, however, to which the answer from this "feminist" was a sarcastic "poor you guys, that you don't know your role. Indeed this is nothing you can do, because you are a man".

I do not believe that a battle of sexes as well as auto-exclusive behaviour can ever be the solution if we want to achieve something positive in society. We all must find our role and work together in order to achieve a common good.

Motivating men to take parental leave and educate girls to be professionally ambitious are both key issues I believe. Now, career and love can both work perfectly together, all you have to have is ambition and an open-minded and supportive partner Luckily I do, so Yes, they do exist! :)