Women’s place ‘is in the home’
Support for gender equality could be waning, research from Cambridge University suggests.
A new study has found that growing numbers of people believe that when women work full-time, they are doing so at the expense of family life.
Professor Jacqueline Scott, who carried out the research, compared the results of social attitude
surveys from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. She found growing sympathy for the view that a woman's place is in the home, rather than in the office.
"The notion that there has been a steady increase in favour of women taking an equal role in the workplace and away from their traditional role in the home is clearly a myth," said Professor Scott.
"Instead, there is clear evidence that women's changing role is viewed as having costs both for the woman and the family.”
In the 1990s 50% of women and 51% of men said they believed that family life would not suffer if a woman went to work. Since then, the figure has fallen - to 46% of women and 42% of men.
However, there is even less support for working mums in the US, where the percentage of people who believe family life does not suffer if a woman works has plummeted from 51% in 1994 to 38% in 2002.
Professor Scott added: "It is conceivable that opinions are shifting as the shine of the 'super-mum' syndrome wears off, and the idea of women juggling high-powered careers while also baking cookies and reading bedtime stories is increasingly seen to be unrealisable by ordinary mortals."
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