- Women are considered the work-horses in Mongolian society while the view of men is that they are only suited to “macho” types of work. What this translates into in reality is that most men do only one of a handful jobs in : herder, menial laborer (unskilled construction, day-labor at the outdoor markets hauling things on and off trucks, etc), soldier or policeman, or driver of a car or van. There are exceptions among the rich, of course, of whom many become business leaders or government officials of various ranks. The non-rich men who obtain degrees often become Physical Education instructors.
- For women, the breakdown is by where they live. In the countryside women are expected to do the majority of the household chores: cooking, cleaning, raising the children, hauling the water, chopping the wood, managing any money the household might have, mending clothes, playing host to any guests that may arrive.
- In the city, women are expected to go to college and in fact hold at least 65-70% of all lower-level professional jobs. They are the bankers, the accountants, translators, tour operators, government employees, college professors, the computer programmers, the high school teachers of non-Phys-Ed subjects, the clerks, the office managers, the employees of a variety of businesses who actually do most of the work while their male supervisors and bosses tend to spend a great deal of time loafing and talking to their friends.
- The uneducated women who migrate from the countryside also do a majority of the non-physical lower-level types of employment: sales, restaurant workers, janitorial, etc. And on top of all of this, the city women are still expected to do the majority of the child-rearing.
- Even though women are much more educated and skilled, they are not really allowed to move-up past a certain level – regardless of whether or not they are capable of doing the work.
- The big taboos for women are: a) getting an abortion; b) deciding not to have children; c) choosing to stay single/ putting career ahead of family responsibilities.
- None of this applies to foreign women – there is a whole different set of standards for foreigners.
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