Over the past decade, practitioners and scholars have struggled to explain women's career choices. The current language, including “opting out,” “on and off ramping,” and “mommy track,” is not only inadequate but assumes a deviation from an accepted norm. We challenge the relevance of the paradigm against which women are being judged, namely, the psychological contract that exchanged lifelong employment for “work is primary” commitment. Given organizations' evolving need for agility, organizations no longer offer job security. We propose that, in response, women are rejecting the outdated career model based on stable employment and instead are enacting an updated “we are selfemployed” model. Being at the leading edge of career self-agency, women face a double bind that is exacerbated by persistent socialized gendered schemas. We explore the shift in career paradigms, what organizations and women have done to date, and the implications in addressing the double bind going forward.
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