tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3154569229380760325.post6659368248301746797..comments2023-10-10T17:07:36.114+02:00Comments on cross-cultural moments: Italian women and TTOElizabeth Abbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09763064258020825441noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3154569229380760325.post-22269069254946588892007-02-18T09:31:00.000+01:002007-02-18T09:31:00.000+01:00Hi, Elizabeth, here I am, as invited.I do have an ...Hi, Elizabeth, here I am, as invited.<BR/>I do have an opinion about the place of women. I think that many women permit the perception of giving up control or do give up some control in exchange for having real power within the family. It unfortunately gives their sons the idea that women aren't the formidable creatures they are, so in business women are discriminated against in ways that are illegal even here, but nothing is done to enforce that. Men are not ready to allow the power to slip from their hands, and they refuse to hire, to pay equally or to train a woman to rise up in their places.<BR/>An entrepreneurial woman can bypass that, but what about the professional woman? I know a doctor who was left covering all the emergency outcalls for months because everyone else had some excuse and she was single. In the end she had to take sabbatical because she couldn't get holidays off nor could she take vacations. She felt she was losing the ability to do her job because she was so worn down. Unfair, yes! And this was the state health service.<BR/>OTH, women who marry and have a family often have the first and last word about every decision. They may have the sweetest exterior, and the toughest inner fiber. They take enormous responsibility and sometimes rule their children's lives forever. And that wears them down, too. Women my age often retire from all life outside the home. You see them out doing the marketing in the morning and the rest of the time you'd think they didn't exist. <BR/>I don't have a single idea about Italian women, but many. My sadness has to do with that very few of them are available for close friendships with other women unless they grew up with them. It leaves many expat women with only other expat women for girlfriends. Just because you both did something a bit odd, like moving to a foreign country, doesn't mean you necessarily have anything else in common.<BR/>Why are comments allowed only for Google accounts?Decobabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13598924956867139075noreply@blogger.com