Under the supervision of the Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Associate Professor Dr. Sarmed H. Kathem Alkhateeb, the Women’s Affairs Unit at the College of Pharmacy/University of Baghdad held a lecture entitled “Challenges Facing Working Women,” delivered by the lecturer Shayma Luay Abdul Hadi, a faculty member in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department. The workshop aimed to identify the challenges that working women face from pressures at work and home and societal expectations in a way that may make their chances of achieving a balance between work and personal life a difficult challenge.The workshop included several topics, like work motivations for women, the importance of work-life balance, obstacles that they face at work, such as rejection at work, gender discrimination, harassment, the distance of the workplace from home, and the lack of support for childcare; society’s view of working women; family problems that working women face, such as the husband’s lack of acceptance of the wife’s work, difficulties in raising children, balancing work and household duties, and problems in family ties. It also included proposing solutions to address these challenges through managing time properly by creating a schedule, arranging priorities, whether at work or at home, the need to find a third party to help at home, the need to find personal time that includes adequate sleep, healthy food, relaxation, practicing hobbies, meeting friends, going out, and interacting with nature, trying to stay away from causes of anxiety, tension, stress, and fatigue, and trying to find a psychological balance between the work environment and the home environment.The workshop concluded that, by setting your work priorities for each day and organizing time intelligently, you can enjoy being the manager of your home and a professional employee.
