Chasing Success, Losing Herself? When Career Becomes a Woman’s God. When did Career Become a Woman's god?🤔
We have turned career into a god; look down on others who refuse to worship it, and abandoned having balanced conversations that delve into richer areas of life such as marriage, motherhood and faith.
When did career become a woman’s god? 🤔
When did we start worshipping it?🤦🏽♀️
When have we begun to sacrifice our family, health, and even our happiness for it?
Numerous studies point to the 1960s, a time when feminine activists, most notably Betty Friedman, sold the idea that being a stay-at-home wife and mother was not enough, suggesting how suffocating and oppressive it was.
They argued that American women should pursue work outside the home for ultimate personal fulfillment.
Friedman’s message during the second-wave feminist movement influenced the lives of modern American women and millions of women worldwide.
Jamaica, where I was born and raised, just a little under two hours away from Florida’s soil has experienced the impact (whether positively or negatively) of the radical political arguments and policies that the United States frequently undergoes.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am not against women having a career, job, or being financially independent.
However, I’m against what I’m observing now—we have turned career into a god; look down on others who refuse to worship it, and abandoned having balanced conversations that delve into richer areas of life such as marriage, motherhood, and faith, which have proven to contribute more to a woman’s lasting fulfillment and joy.
In this article:
1. 💁🏾♀️ How My Black Mothers View Work Then.
2. 📍 7 Signs that Career Has Become Your god.
3. 🏃🏽♀️ The Truth: You Can’t Make Me Happy baal.
4. 🛠️ Placing Career in its Rightful Place.
5.💡 Conclusion: My Idol Revealed.
💁🏾♀️ How My Black Mothers View Work Then
The relationship that the collective of black women has with work is uniquely different from that of other racial groups. This is because work for most black women is historically shaped by social, economic, and political challenges.
Let’s briefly look at how women view work then vs now with a particular focus on black women.
“an enhanced depiction of historical African women”
Before slavery
From the time when Mother Eve formed from Adam’s rib to the transatlantic slave trade that began in the early 16th century, work for black women primarily involved tending home. They work alongside their husband in caring for the family.
Many people believed that pre-colonial African women were ‘oppressed’, but they were not. Some hold work outside the home but for the service of the home and neighboring communities.
Many were craftswomen, traders, farmers, queens, princesses, and influential religious leaders. However, these women generally did not idolize their work but rather viewed and used their gifts and monetary rewards to support the collective well-being of the family and community.
During Slavery + Emancipation Era
Sadly, when slavery began in the 16th century, it severely affected the black man’s ability to properly support his wife and kids.
As a result, work for enslaved black wives and mothers became an inescapable, and cruel experience. They saw their forceful labor as a sufferable condition to support their slave masters and their children, while their own children were barely provided for nor protected.
When emancipation came (hooray!), work for black people became a means of survival and necessity as they relentlessly fought to reclaim their livelihood.
However, career and work opportunities for Africans, African Americans, and Caribbean people were limited, forcing them to the bottom of the socio-economic class, while the colonizers of the Caribbean left the islands in shambles!
Even during this time, career and work were not idolized. It was rarely an individual or selfish pursuit, but rather a collective effort to uplift the black community, demolish lingering discrimination, and gain economic empowerment.
Modern times (applies to all women)
I’m beyond thankful that I was not born in that dreadful slave period. Shout out to my foreparents who fought for my freedom 🙌🏾, and who, by the sovereign power of God, made it possible for such a time where I can freely write, read, travel places, gain employment, and show up for my future family in ways they couldn’t.
As black women and other ethnic groups in Western nations gained greater access to education, professional opportunities, and increased control over their fertility, there’s barely anything now that can get in their way of pursuing their grandest ambitions.
Personal freedom, titles, seven-figure careers, climbing up the ladder, or running a successful business are the desires of many modern women.
As I said before, I am not against a woman having a career or being financially independent.
However, I have seen, both online and around me, how much modern women are placing their entire identity and worth in what they do and gain in the marketplace.
Where do we cross the line by allowing career and money to become our idols?
Here are the signs.
📍7 Powerful Signs that Your Present or Future Career and Pursuit of Money is Your god.
When you place your security in it more than you do in God.
When you’re willing to ignore your most fertile years, postpone or reject having children for the sake of career and economic advancement.
When you’re willing to terminate pregnancies for the reason that a baby will interfere with your career and personal fulfillment.
When your marriage and family evolve around it, instead of the other way around.
When you see it as your main source of feeling worthy and special instead of Christ’s sacrifice for you.
When you constantly stress, worry, and get all anxious to make money and prove your worth to others.
When it becomes your ultimate purpose.
(bonus) when you're willing to sell your soul or trade in integrity for success and fame.
🙅🏾♀️ The Truth: You Can’t Make Me Happy Baal
I strongly believe that an idolized career is shallow in comparison to the gospel, being a loving and submissive wife to a strong and godly husband, and raising your children in a joyful home.
At age 3, I began school, and for the next two decades, I have been essentially being prepared to secure a good-paying job.
All four educational institutions I attended, and the 40+ teachers who taught me from basic writing to complex biological processes, groomed me and others for an idolized work life.
And even though I deeply enjoyed attending classes, learning new exciting things, and being able to get jobs along the way, looking back, I wish the conversations at home, school, and within mainstream media ( I didn’t grow up in a church) were more diverse and balanced.
I wish we had also talked about the beauty and joys of marriage, family, home life, and faith.
These timeless blessings to me, and countless other women add more to our happiness and satisfaction than careers ever could, and this reality can also be proven in numbers.
For example, a 2022 survey revealed that marriage and parenthood contribute significantly to a woman’s happiness.
Another study exposed the dramatic decline of happiness in Western women because of the pressure to keep house and career simultaneously. Notably, happiness for blacks has increased due to the Civil Rights Movement which helped diminish racial discrimination and created economic opportunities for African Americans.
Another interesting study proves that alpha women and breadwinner women are more likely to quit their jobs as family demand increases.
Plus, there is a growing number of women in their forties expressing on TikTok how lonely, empty, and miserable they feel after dedicating the majority of their younger years to pursuing top-income careers, often at the expense of meaningful relationships and family life.
All I’m trying to say is this:
If you look solely or mainly to your career and net worth to make you feel happy and fulfilled, you’ll be greatly disappointed.
Our feminine heart and makeup don’t ultimately yearn for a paycheck, a 9-5 job, fame, or people’s validation. It longs to connect, love, bond, nurture, be provided for, and be deeply known by God.
I think it’s time we put career in its rightful place — a tool.
🛠️ Placing Career & Money in its Rightful Place—a great tool
The top reason why most women pursue careers and higher education is to become financially independent.
Other valid reasons are to help support the family, assist others in need, or an outlet for passionate creativity.
However, I DO NOT recommend women to view or use careers as a pathway to finding themselves, feeling worthy, or needing to prove their value to society, or for self-glory (I’ll tell you why in a bit.)
Rather, use your career, and its financial rewards as a tool to
cover daily expenses
help support the family
help those in need
support your local church and community
support Kingdom projects
buy resources to help further your skillset
buy back time
invest and steward properly so that it multiplies and works for you in the long run.
💡Conclusion: My Idol Revealed
Not too long ago I was highly motivated to become super rich and famous and die with an undied name (you know like Bob Marley, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey & Beyonce).
However, when LIGHT💡 struck me, my entire mindset radically changed to something BIGGER, and that is, to live for the GLORY OF GOD.
My motivation and drive have been redirected to Him.
Christ, the light of my world, has become my Idol. My identity is rooted in Him.
An idolized career can never make us happy because lasting joy is found in Christ, alone.
While I deeply enjoy my work as a writer and have other entrepreneurial endeavors in mind, I do so delightfully because it glorifies my Father, ministers to women, and supports future Kingdom and family projects.
✅I would be selling myself short if I had found myself in my gifts and abilities and not the Blessor of these potentials.
✅I would be selling myself short if I had placed my worth in what I do, rather than for whom I do.
✅Likewise, I would be selling myself short if I worked to seek my own glorify, rather than the glory of the King.
If you found yourself guilty on any one of those 7 signs I talked about earlier, then sadly, you have allowed career and money to become your gods.
Place them back in their rightful place!🛠️
When we use our work as an incredible tool to accomplish what I’ve mentioned above, and ultimately to glorify God, then we can pursue educational and intellectual ambitions and work passionately and purposefully without idolizing or allowing it to define our worth and identity.
📖 Here are 7 powerful bible verses I want us women to meditate on. They are reminders of who Christ is, our worth in Him, the joy He gave us, how to use our gifts and the wrath of self-glory/pride.
✨(Who Christ is) Mark 10:45: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
⚓️(Our worth in Him) 1 Peter 2:9: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."
🥰 (the joy He gave us) 1 Psalm 16:11: "You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."
🛠️ (How to use work) 1 Peter 4:10: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."
❌ (no to self-glory/pride): Isaiah 2:12: "The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled)."
Let these powerful bible verses empower you to seek God above all else, as He is bigger than the titles assigned to our names and the money that flows into our accounts. In Hi,m there is fullness and joy, and my soul knows that well.
Thank you for taking the time to read or listen to this post. 🎉
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