Today I took my research topic to the one source researchers strive so hard to avoid: the dreaded Wikipedia. I entered the terms “parental leave gender expectations” into the digital platform and began my search for information. The first article I came across was “Parental Leave – Effects on Gender Equality”. It argued that parental rights are a tool for establishing gender equality, and acknowledges the US as severely lacking in parental policies compared to other developed countries (as it only offers parental leave for women, completely unpaid). This instills the gender expectation of mothers taking up the parental role, while fathers taking up the bread-winner, or worker role. The…

Although paternity leave is largely discussed from a legislative or political platform, social media has offered an additional platform for spreading awareness and driving corporate change. I looked at the two top social media platforms companies use: Twitter and Facebook. Let’s begin with the former. I have not used Twitter until this WGST 106 course, so I did not know what to expect upon searching for discussions centered around parental leave. Nevertheless, I began my search with the rather simple term “parental leave”. What I found were whole accounts dedicated to raising awareness of paid parental leave benefits, both from a corporate management and employee perspective. Accounts such as PledgeParentalLeave…

Thompson, O. O. (2016). Maternity leave, what about paternity leave?: Child care and social inclusion question in nigeria. Gender & Behaviour, 14(1), 6966-6974. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.scu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F1819911860%3Faccountid%3D13679 This article analyzes interviews on a random distribution of working women and men in Abeokuta, Nigeria, about their experiences with maternity and paternity leave. Although the concept of paternity leave seems rather strange, both sides agree that issuing a paid leave for both partners would be beneficial to the couple in the short run, and help support a more gender-inclusive working culture in the future.  Sellnow-Richmond, S. (2015). Communication and identity: The paternity leave decision (Order No. 3723826). Available from GenderWatch. (1730273593). Retrieved from…

This interview explores the perspective of USF nursing student Hannah Harrington on her experience working at the Labor and Delivery sector at Stanford Children’s Hospital. She also shares insights into parental leave in the nursing field. Link to Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMGsf4XqiTA

Although I mentioned in my previous blog that I would be interested in interviewing Janet Walsh, a leader for women’s rights and former attorney for the UN, I could not find documented interviews online. However, I did find two NPR interviews on paid parental leave in the USA that expanded my research. The first was a case study on one parent’s experience at JPMorgan Chase, while the other interviewed a professional scholar on the subject. Both interviewers were men. (As a side note, most of the fact-based and “call-to-action” articles I’ve found on parental leave are from the lens of men – if you don’t see this as an issue…

Janet Walsh, the deputy director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights and former attorney for New York law firms in the United Nation’s legal division, uses her platform to advocate for women’s rights. One of her advocacy programs focuses on the rights of working mothers in the US suffering from unpaid parental leave and family-support. Walsh has spent years reporting working-mothers’ struggles with the social and financial repercussions of pregnancy and maternity leave. One interview that caught my attention was with a working-woman by the reported name of Samantha. Upon delivering her first via C-section, her wound became infected. She then took eight months of maternity leave off…

Hello again – Lauren here with a quick research update. I will be narrowing my research topic of maternity rights and unequal parental expectations placed on men and women to one issue: unpaid parental leave in the USA. I realize that policies on paid parental leave in the United States are not consistent among states. In addition, in the few states that enforce paid or partially-paid leave, these policies take the form of maternity leave only1 . There are some deeper issues here that I noticed immediately. First, the lack of parental leave among states in the US funnel women into sacrificing their career ambitions to run family-life. This subsequently…

Shifting the conversation now to my lovely WGST classmates and knowledgeable feminists, I am going to talk about why I chose parental leave as my research topic for the quarter – more specifically the issue of maternity rights and harmful parental expectations assigned to us based off of our genders. For those of us who are women, motherhood is a concept that has been instilled in our minds all throughout our lives, even as early infants. I’m sure we can relate to the typical birthday gifts of baby dolls, play-strollers, and toddler kitchens that encouraged us to take up the role of a responsible caregiver (at an age that is…

“What do you do?” – ah, the common introductory question asked by typical Americans in the US.  If you grew up in North America, or have even worked here for a few years, then you understand the American value in financial success through participation in the working world. You understand that your identity and worth is embedded in your job status. You are your job status.  But what makes our lives slightly more complicated, is that on top of the pressure we receive to work longer, harder, and smarter to achieve a higher career status, there comes a point in our lives where another social pressure comes into play –…