SAMPLE:

Writing prompt: Some people argue that a woman has the right to enjoy a career of her
own; while others maintain that she had better stay at home and give priority to her
family. Write an essay in which you discuss the two opposing points of view.

Whether a woman should work or stay at home is an issue that has generated a heated
debate, with proponents maintaining that a woman has the right to enjoy a career of her own,
whilst opponents claim that it is unjustifiable that a woman abandons her household to
pursue her personal ambitions. Strong arguments exist in support of both sides of the debate,
which implies that it is worth examining both points of view before reaching any
conclusions.
Should a woman work, it is argued that this will have two main negative outcomes.
First, a woman’s divine job is to look after her family and provide them with the care and
affection they need. Thus, when a woman chooses to work, she will probably leave her
babies under the maids’ mercy or place them in a day care center for hours. By doing so, she
is likely to cause them an irreparable damage, as they are likely to grow with some sort of
attachment disorder. In other words, the maid or the poorly-staffed day care center can never
ever compensate for the love and care a mother can give to her kids. What is more, it has
been reported that when these children grow, they often feel alienated from their parents and
can hardly communicate with them. Second, many working women have been subject to
sexual harassment either in the workplace or out there in the street. Be it verbal or physical,
most women rarely report this kind of assaults and usually choose to hush it up among
themselves, lest they should be expelled from their jobs or get in trouble with their husbands.
An American study conducted in 2015 revealed that such women who opt for being silent
victims usually end up becoming psychologically depressed, which, accordingly, has
detrimental repercussions on their careers as well as their family lives. In a nutshell, when a
woman chooses to work, the price she has to pay may be too high. Yet, let us pause for a
while and wonder: Is it all bad about a woman having a job?
A substantial number of people argue that working women enjoy better life conditions
at both the economic and the personal levels. When a woman has a job of her own, she
usually tends to contribute to the expenditures of her household and, thereby, help maintain
stability in the family. Additionally, a working woman is financially independent, as she is
empowered by her own income and can afford to meet her own needs. By contrast, a
housewife usually has to wait for her husband’s consent, since she is wholly dependent on
him. From another perspective, and as far as children’s upbringing is concerned, it is often
claimed that kids raised by working mothers grow into autonomous adults who have
effective managerial skills and can deal with different life situations on their own, because
they have been trained on how to count on themselves when “mom” is absent. Conversely,
those raised by housewives seem to be entirely reliant on their mothers in every minute detail
and, consequently, grow into over-emotional people who cannot handle life far from the
family borders. To sum up, a working woman may offer herself as well as her family a better
lifestyle.
Taking everything into account, one may conclude that whether a woman should work
or stay at home is a personal choice. Yet, such a decision requires that one considers both
sides of the coin so that it will not be to the detriment of neither a woman’s personal
aspirations nor her family’s commonwealth.