Gender and Family-Conscious Career Counseling

Gender and Family-Conscious Career Counseling

Application: Gender- and Family-Conscious Career Counseling

Gender has wide-ranging effects on career counseling—from influencing people’s career choices to institutionalized discrimination that has resulted in disparities in salary, prestige, and benefits for men and women. Family life is also significant in how it supports or limits the opportunities and priorities that individuals may have with regard to career options.

Counselors need to examine and reflect on their own gender-based beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, while also being conscious of how gender may be influencing their clients’ choices. They also need to be conscious of how their own ideas about the role of family and the meaning of work-life balance may influence their approach to counseling clients.

To prepare for this assignment:

Review the week’s Learning Resources. Focus on the case examples of Maria and Richard, on pp. 515–517.

Think about the similarities and differences in the daily lives of Maria and Richard and the role that gender expectations, bias, and discrimination, as well as the role that family life, may play in each scenario.

Reflect on how a counselor might engage in a holistic approach to career counseling with Maria and Richard using one of the following holistic approaches: Self-Efficacy Beliefs (p. 92), Learned Optimism (pp. 93–94), Planned Happenstance (pp. 94-95), or Positive Uncertainty (pp. 96–99). Consider how a counselor would honor each individual’s unique needs while also being conscious of how expectations, bias, and/or discrimination related to gender and family life may influence them.

The assignment: (1–2 pages)

Explain how you would work with Maria and Richard using one of the following holistic approaches: Self-Efficacy Beliefs (p. 92), Learned Optimism (pp. 93–94), Planned Happenstance (pp. 94–95), or Positive Uncertainty (pp. 96–99).

Analyze each case (Maria’s and Richard’s) in terms of the influence of gender and family life on their career decisions and development.

Support your Application assignment with specific references to all resources used in its preparation. You are asked to provide a reference list only for those resources not included in the Learning Resources for this course.

Learning Resources

Readings

Course Text: Career Counseling

Chapter 16, “Career Counseling with Couples and Families”

Chapter 17, “Gender Issues in Career Counseling”

Website

National Career Development Association: www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/resources

Case MariaCase Example:1 Maria Rodriguez is a 24-year-old unmarried woman who lives at home with her parents and her two younger siblings. She seeks counseling because she wants to learn to be less self-critical and figure out “some goals in my life.” She works in a technical support staff position at a cellular communications com- pany. She says she enjoys her work, but that she just took the first job she was offered after she graduated from a community college and has stayed there ever since. She would like to pursue a 4-year degree but questions whether she would be able to succeed academically. When asked how she fared with her grades at the community college, she replies that she graduated with a 3.7 grade point average but that a “real university would be much harder.” Besides, even if she could do well in her studies, she has no idea what major she would pursue or what career goal might suit her. Maria adds that it would be difficult for her to juggle the demands of her job, college studies, and her household responsibilities. Her youngest brother, age 16, has cystic fibrosis, and her mother depends on her to help with his physical care as well as with the cooking, cleaning, and other household chores. Her other brother, age 19, works at a full-time job and is rarely home when he is off work. She describes her father as the dominant force in the family, even though he is sometimes absent for extended periods of time as a result of “getting into trouble when he starts drinking.” She states that she realizes she would have more control over her time if she were to move out on her own, but that would not be possible because “my mother could never manage without me during the times when my father is gone

In our view, a holistic approach is indicated in Maria’s case, one that considers cultural issues along with career exploration. Maria seems to have internalized several gender role expectations, such as the belief that women are responsible for caregiving and household chores. She also appears to have lowered self- efficacy expectations with respect to her academic abilities. She questions her ability to succeed in a 4-year university despite having achieved a 3.7 grade point average at the community college. She may also lack assertiveness skills because she has remained in the same position at work since she was hired. Maria’s career counselor needs to remain sensitive not only to gender issues in working with Maria, but also to expectations associated with Latino cul- ture that may be influencing her decision making. If her counselor is cultur- ally different from Maria (e.g., Caucasian, male), the counselor might assume she could benefit from learning to be more independent, moving out on her own, and pursuing her baccalaureate degree. If her counselor is culturally similar to Maria (e.g., Latina, female), the counselor will need to remain alert to the possibility that cultural differences are present even though coun- selor and client are trait-factor matched. In any event, the counselor must understand and respect Maria’s cultural values. The counselor should explore Maria’s self-efficacy beliefs with her. Cognitive–behavioral techniques might be used to help her identify her cog- nitive distortions with respect to her ability to succeed academically. Feminist therapy strategies such as gender role analysis and power analysis, as well as a narrative approach to careers, might be useful to increase Maria’s awareness of her competencies and personal power. Then Maria will be able to choose which of her internalized gender role expectations she wants to continue to live by and which ones she may wish to modify. Maria’s counselor needs to ascertain the role of work in Maria’s life. Does Maria envision that she will get married and have children? If so, how will her work role relate to her roles as wife and mother? Depending on her answers to these questions, she may or may not want to focus her career exploration on jobs that have flexibility to allow her to balance work and family responsibilities. Career counseling with Maria needs to include helping her explore her interests. Because she enjoys her work providing technical support services, a career in the technology field, although nontraditional for women, might be an option she would want to investigate. At age 24, with her academic talents, Maria has a vast world of possibilities open to her. The counselor’s task is to help her become aware of her choices and make decisions that are in accordance with her value.

.Case Example 2: Richard Richard Johnson, age 52, has sought counseling at the suggestion of an emer- gency room physician. Richard has made four trips to the hospital emergency room within the past 3 months, each time because he was certain he was hav- ing a heart attack. Each time, his electrocardiographs and other medical tests were normal, and he was discharged. In his first session with the counselor, Richard described the symptoms that had led the physician to refer him. They were textbook symptoms of a panic attack. Richard’s wife accompanied him to the counselor’s office, and she was included in the first 15 minutes of the session while initial informa- tion was gathered. She appeared to be very supportive of Richard’s decision to seek counseling and provided this occupational information about herself: She works part time in a small Hallmark shop, taking care of sales, inventory, and general store management duties. The counselor noted that Richard is highly verbal and articulate. He is well read and can quote entire passages from Kafka and Tolstoy. He did not finish high school. At age 20, he enrolled in several courses to complete his GED but quit because they were boring. He has been employed for 18 years as a forklift machine operator in a warehouse. He and his wife have been married for 24 years, and they have no children. Richard describes his work as dull and unchallenging but adds that it com- pensates him well financially. He says he is lucky to have such a good job despite his lack of education. When he is asked about what he does for enjoyment, he talks at length about his love of woodworking. His wife chimes in, stating that he does beautiful work with refinishing old furniture and has designed and created many small wooden objects as gifts for friends. Richard’s goals for counseling, other than to “stay out of emergency rooms,” are ill defined. He feels as though his life has no meaning and that he is just “drifting through.” If we were counseling Richard, we would want to deal with his immediate presenting problem first. Cognitive–behavioral techniques could be applied to reduce the frequency and severity of his panic attacks. Then, Richard and his counselor would be able to focus on longer term goals. The counselor, working from a holistic framework, would want to understand what brought on Richard’s series of panic attacks at the age of 52. They may be related to his sense of meaninglessness and his belief that he has no alternative work options to his dull and unchallenging job. He may be feeling trapped, not only by his lack of formal education but also by gender-stereotyped thinking that he must be a good breadwinner even though he does not enjoy his job. His physical problems could also be a result of long-suppressed emotions. A positive asset search would reveal that Richard has some important strengths: He is intelligent, is a steady and reliable employee, and has a stable and supportive marital relationship. Despite his intelligence, return- ing to school may not be a viable option for Richard, given his experience with GED courses. He and the counselor might instead work from his demonstrated interests and talents and explore ways he could convert his love of woodworking into a paying occupation. He might be interested in entrepreneurship. Possibly, he could take a course or two in small business ownership at a community college without having to enroll for course credit. Opening a business that would offer a service (restoration of antique and old furniture) and a product (his own creations) might give him a sense of control over his life and provide him with work that he loves to do. It is possible, too, that he and his wife would want to consider making the business a shared entrepreneurship, as she already has skills in sales and small business management.