To me, work is work—I don’t really classify or quantify whether certain jobs are white collar, blue collar or pink collar, and I certainly don’t make any sort of judgment about whether or not different types of work deserves various responses, respect-levels or rankings. But, in a recent conversation with a couple friends of mine, I realized that concern over how one’s work will be perceived is a fairly common dilemma—especially for those who work at home…
I suppose there is a common perception that women (and men) who work from home and take care of their children are not really working, or that these businesses and jobs are not “real businesses.” We’ve chatted about that before here in this blog, but I hadn’t really explored the idea that there is a “stigma” associated with various types of work or various kinds of job. Where is this stigma coming from?
I suspect that it’s both something internal that we are doing to ourselves and something that is coming from society at large. Maybe we’re not taking ourselves seriously enough or placing enough value on the work we are doing at home—referring to our spouse or those who work in more traditional employment as having “real jobs.” We might also take on more of the housework and childcare which can contribute to our feeling devalued as a wage-earner. But, I also think we are responding to pressures from the world at large, too. The world values high-powered jobs and titles and values “white collar” jobs over blue collar or pink collar (more for title and prestige than actual income.)
So, my question to you today is whether or not you are letting stigma and “attitude” get in the way of your being successful and serious in your home business endeavors? If we take ourselves seriously and work on eliminating the internal stigma we may be carrying that is associated with jobs and work, we may be able to shed some of the barriers and be more successful in building our businesses.