American women aren’t the only ones who have a difficult time with work/life issues. Women in Syria are struggling with an increasingly competitive job market--one that doesn’t exactly love women with children:

Maya Abed [is] a 45-year old widow...."Wherever I applied or made a phone call, I was rejected," she said. "They all wanted someone young for the job – 22 to 35 years, not a middle aged mother of five children.

"They believe that age and family responsibilities are not good for productivity at work. They say my mind would always be preoccupied with my children," she added.

You know when your mind is really preoccupied with your kids? When you’re worried about feeding them cause you don’t have a job.

One explanation (besides outright sexism) for women’s difficulty getting jobs, is that the unemployment rate in Syria is on the rise:

According to official statistics from the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics, unemployment reached about 12 percent in 2004. Unofficial estimates by economists, however, put it closer to 20 percent.

..."Around 200,000 Syrians become jobless every year. Despite the fact that the female literacy rate is 74.2 percent and male literacy 91 percent, women stay at home to take care of their families' responsibilities and childcare," stated a study by Syrian economists which was recently published in the official 'Tishreen' newspaper.

Maybe the ladies at Yale should consider a semester abroad...