Woman at Work (1960)

From the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Someone recently made the discovery that lots of married women now go to work—somewhere about one in three. Of course, everyone knew that many married women did this—it was merely the number, and the increase over pre-war days, that was surprising.

This fact alone provides an explanation of much of the working class's newfound prosperity. This is what pays the hire-purchase on the telly and maybe the mortgage repayments. In other words, the working-class family is buying its so- called prosperity at a high price.

It is difficult to guess whether the desire for the new shiny gadgets is the principal factor in this phenomenon, or whether it is merely the reflection of women's increased emancipation from male domination, so that she goes to work simply because it is better than being imprisoned within the four walls of the home, with the washing-up and un-hoovered carpet staring her in the face.

From a purely economic viewpoint, the increase in the number of women at work probably operates as a drag on the increase of wages of male workers, but in time of boom the effect is not too great. The trouble is that capitalism doesn't give endless full-employment, but operates in a cycle in which lack of jobs supplants an excess of jobs. When this time arrives, the working-class family will be in a doubly insecure position, because their family commitments and standard of living have become based on two or even more wage-earners in the family. In the same way, illness or the arrival of children can also have a disastrous effect on the family budget.

What then is wrong with this process? Surely one cannot object to working-class families enjoying more of the things that society can provide? The answer is that every new wage-earner brings added insecurity along with his or her additional income, a paradox that only an irrational social system such as ours could provide. In this situation the pregnancy of a working wife becomes a major problem rather than a source of joy. And what is to be said of a nice new home full of new furniture and gadgets when no-one is at home during the day to enjoy it, and where the working members of the family are too tired to enjoy it anyway when they return from work. Too tired to do anything, in fact, but to flop down in the G-plan armchair and watch the telly.

It is true that one cannot turn the clock back, and no-one wants to return to the times when the woman's place was in the home, and where the wage-earners' toil was matched by the home drudgery of the housewife. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to hope for a time when ordinary people, both men and women, will be able to enjoy both leisure and the comforts of life without the nagging worries of insecurity and the phony values of a glittering, but essentially dross, world.

H. W. C.