Eve on Top

12

Working harder?

So do women have to work harder? I don’t think they do actually. (Bella)

The harder you work the faster you get there, but that’s whoever you are. (Helen)

It was always a truism wasn’t it that women had to work twice as hard as men to do the same job; luckily that’s not difficult. (Fiona)

Introduction

We aimed to test out the view that women had to work harder than men to be successful – especially in the upper levels of organisations and professions (see, for example, Lau-Chin, 2007; Kumra and Vinnicombe, 2008). This chapter explores this view through the women’s comments and experiences. It begins by considering the extent to which this was an accurate summary. We then looked at the extent to which the women worked hard ...