Superwoman

This past week I have been examining volunteerism for a paper I am writing for another class. In particular, I have been examining who volunteers based on gender, race, age, location, etc.

After reading what feels like every scholarly article ever written, I have a pretty good handle on the topic. Who volunteers, you ask? Well, first it came as no surprise that women volunteer more often than men. This could be credited to many different reasons, all explained by men, of course. The way I see it however, is simple. Women are better at multitasking. Study after study examines women in the volunteer force, taking all aspects into affect… occupation, children, location, blah, blah blah. The result is constantly still the same. At the end of the day, women are better at scheduling their time and as a result, are able to accomplish more, and thus have time to volunteer. Of course, this is never straight out said because it would offend men, and we could neeeever do that!

Chapter 8 briefly touched upon this idea when talking about household labor. When it comes to such work, women seem to be better at multitasking. I’m just going to go out on a limb here, but I do not think women are so good at multitasking because they want to be. I think women are good at multitasking because they have had years and years of practice.

Whether it is in the home, at the office, or out volunteering in the community, women can truly do it all! On one hand I think this is something to be proud of, but at the same time I have to wonder if it is bad that women have perfected multitasking. Once you get good at something it is usually hard to stop.