In the office, some single women find themselves fighting their married-with-kids co-workers for a decent time to clock-out. In a Marie Claire article, one woman says that when she began her job at a law firm, she had plenty of free time after work, but just several weeks later her schedule drastically changed.
Instead, she's spending most nights poring over her cases—and she's one of the only ones working such intense overtime at her office. With more than 100 lawyers on staff at her firm, fewer than five are single and do not have kids, says Allen, and overwhelmingly, those are the attorneys juggling the extra load. "My coworkers with families make a point to get home by dinnertime," says Allen, who often works through the weekends. "But if they stay late, their families will still be there. If I have to cancel a date for work, that guy won't be around the next night. I figured I'd be married by now, but I'm honestly working too hard to find the person I'd want to marry."
It's the newest form of workplace discrimination: single women who carry an undue burden at the office, batting cleanup for their married-with-kids coworkers. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's best-selling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, makes a strong case for women fully committing to their careers, but this kind of non-optional "leaning in" is not what she's advocating. Instead, it's an inequity simmering under the surface in many corporate cultures, says social scientist Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., author of Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It.
Read more at Marie Claire.