Careers and Jobs

This article by Frederica Mathewes-Green has more to do with the problems of feminism and is worth reading, but I thought this section was particularly thought provoking:

Take the bad idea that I’m calling “careerism.” I don’t mean by this that women shouldn’t have careers. By “careerism” I mean a half-conscious ideology that holds that the most important thing in life is the prestige conferred by one’s employment, and it’s as bad for men as it is for women.

This is a foolish notion on many levels, not least because only the most fortunate and elite people get to have careers. Most people just have jobs. When I was a young feminist mouthing off about how I was going to be out in the workplace and not stuck at home, my dad gave me a few wise words that, improbably, sunk in even then. He pointed out that most of the people in the world don’t get their fulfillment from the thing that gives them a paycheck. They get their fulfillment from other facets of life: faith, family, hobbies, literature, music. For most people, a job represents only the hours they must spend each week to earn the free hours in which they can do the things they really care about. Careerism is the misguided notion that work trumps everything else.

HT: Denny Burk