While careerist women move up the ladder and leave their spouses behind, marriages go wrong and the women end up with paying alimony and child support to their economically weaker spouses. According to the AAML, more than 56 percent of divorce lawyers across the United States have reported an increase in the last three years of women paying child support and 47 percent of lawyers report a rise in the numbers of women paying alimony.
Alton Abramowitz, the president-elect of the academy is elated with proof that the glass ceiling is finally shattered. He said “It shows that women have really moved up financially and that in many instances they are the major bread winners in a lot of families.”
Abramowitz further opined, “The glass ceiling has been pierced and more and more women have taken over the financial responsibilities and have been saddled with them as well. It is a fact of the way our society has evolved over the last number of years.”
According to the Academy, the number of women getting law degrees has nearly doubled. The divorce rate in the United States has remained more or less constant but women have been moving up professionally with greater speed than ever before. But just like men who grumble about paying alimonies, women too are unhappy with the prospects.
“We see women who are every bit as angry as their male counterparts, maybe more so, when they are confronted with the concept of paying spousal support to a man.” While fighting for women’s rights is a separate issue altogether, bearing responsibilities equally with men seems hardly agreeable as it is a reversal of culturally imprinted social roles and traditional division of family responsibilities.
That, we would guess, is really the response of only some careerist women and not most. Our experiences in culture, history and society have shown a greater frequency of men abandoning families and responsibilities, while mothers and women faced all odds to bring up their children. It happens every day, and everywhere. Sacrifices are made by women who are just homemakers and whose success in life is in being good mothers, not good executives. Nevertheless, they bear their love for their children and give up their own dreams and lives without any protest. That some careerist women do protest while paying for child support, really sets them apart from other women, whether homemakers or careerists. And that some men ask for alimony from their former wives also sets them apart from ordinary Joes.