Career

If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?
-- Linda Ellerbee

How powerfully you are drawn to a career is ruled by the Tenth House, while your job itself falls into the Sixth House.

Job or Vocation?

Women with the strongest Vestal influences may be born with a vocation -- they know from birth that they will be artists, clergy, teachers, or other professional when they grow up. You might try to escape your calling but in the end it always returns.

Those who are less affected by Vesta may pursue a career. Or, we may prefer to find a job that supports us but does not consume all of our energy. And we may choose to devote ourselves full-time to our households and families.

Making the Choice

Before World War II, such choices were beyond the realm of possibility for most women. Those jobs that we were able to get were low-paying, requiring little skill.

But with the advent of the War, women began to fill in at the factories, in the offices, even on the baseball field. We proved something most of us already knew: we were as able as men to do just about anything. We found a sense of purpose that went beyond the jobs we were doing -- we were making a valuable contribution to our country.

And for women who felt restless and confined in the traditional role of homemaker, this sense of greater purpose was too precious to lose.

The Glass Ceiling

Today the struggle for equality in the workplace continues. We still are not paid as highly as men, and while the glass ceiling has been raised a notch or two, we are still under-represented in the higher echelons of management.

Women who take time off from work to have children face even greater obstacles to promotion when they return to the office.

Some of us try to break the glass ceiling by working three times as hard as anyone else. Work becomes all-encompassing, the only thing that matters, and we do not allow ourselves time to rejuvenate or play or relax.

Workaholism

This is the negative side of our Vestal devotion to our careers. When we move beyond devotion a nd into addiction or fanaticism, our lives wobble out of balance.

Addiction in any form is a way of refusing to deal with our problems. If you're caught up in a workaholic cycle, it's time to take an honest look at your life and see what you're trying to escape.

Combining Work and Family

We also find ourselves struggling to devote 100 percent to both our work and our families. (Even Vesta didn't have to split her energies this way.) Women still do the majority of household chores and childraising, and we often feel guilty when we can't do it all.

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
-- Gloria Steinem

In response, many of us are starting our own businesses -- women own two out of every three home-based businesses in the United States. We find career and creative fulfillment along with flexibile schedules and time to be with our families.

Women are in the workforce to stay. We must continue to press for onsite child care, flexible hours and telecommuting, paternity leave policies so our husbands can help with a new baby, and other corporate policies that will allow us to flourish as both professionals and mothers. If we don't speak up, who will?

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