Is a woman’s place still in the home? By Rita Skeats

This is Rita’s blog post, a well argued point of view.

Is a woman’s place still in the home?

I took a special interest in a debate on the subject of: A women’s place is in the home, in high school in the 1970s.  And fifty years or so later, I believe that little has changed for women.

Our class tutor, Father Chira, was inspirational and sparked our imagination by encouraging regular debates on contentious subjects.  He was an extraordinary personality, being a Catholic priest from Ceylon (now Shri Lanka) who travelled worldwide to teach in third world countries.  He encouraged us to question, challenge, debate, be analytical and negotiate – behaviours that were controversial for women in my little backwater country, Guyana, where women knew that their place was at home and men went out to work and have fun.

This particular debating session on ‘Women’s place is in the home’ stuck in my mind because I held strong opinions on the subject and infuriated the boys of my class with my arguments against.  The girls of my class won the debate and the boys walked out in protest.

“That Budhram girl is trouble.  She cheats by reading books on the subject and her ideas contradict our culture,” they hissed in chorus and glowered at me as they walked out.

Father Chira saved the day in his cheery tones, “Young lady, you will be an advocate for others,” and we ignored the

boys.  They returned to the classroom shortly, sulkily muttering apologies.

The boys argued that women’s brains were smaller, and therefore, they were less intelligent and they were physically weaker than men.  This excluded them from work involving a high level of intelligence and strength and traditionally they stayed at home doing the house work and the caring.

Some of the girls were hoodwinked into believing the boys’ arguments.  But where was the evidence that women were less intelligent, I questioned.  No evidence was presented and I put forward the cases of Indira Ghandi, Queen Elizabeth, Goldameir, Madame Curie, very influential and intelligent women – to name a few.  Yes, women were physically weaker but technological advances made it possible for women to take on jobs that were predominantly done by men in the past.

During the War years, women proved that they were more than capable to do men’s work by doubling their duties as breadwinners (taking on men’s work) and caring for the family.  However, after the War, the WHO commissioned John Bowlby (psychologist) to do studies (Childcare and the Growth of Love, 1953) on how children could be affected by maternal deprivation.  He concluded that a mother’s place was at home caring for children.  That was a blow for women’s liberation from the kitchen sink and the government used it as an excuse for giving the jobs back to the returning soldiers. Bowlby’s studies were later found to be flawed.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s, Guyana was rooted in patriarchal norms and tradition, and misogyny and sexism flourished.  I didn’t think it was a fair society for women.  My mother’s work was never finished – with ten children and an absent-minded husband, she never had a break.  My father, on the other hand, had the opportunity to do as he liked.  It was a man’s world.  I thought that I was leaving behind a primitive society when I came to the UK to do nurse training in the 1970s.

I was wrong to believe that the UK was an egalitarian society at that time.  Gender imbalance was alive and thriving in British households. Many working women were in part-time low-paid jobs – flexible to accommodate family needs. In the midst of an imbalance society, sexism, misogyny, sexual discrimination, and other abuses flourish. Male nurse, Ian, was lazy and lascivious and he boasted that he was earning a third more than us (female nurses of the same grade).  “Come to the cinema with me, Rita.  I’ll pay for you,” he sneeringly condescended.  “Shame on you!  You are a married man,” I declined in disgust. “It’s OK for me to do whatever I want because I am a man,” he boasted with a permanent smirk on his ugly face.  Dr Mandel was no better. “Come to my room, I will cook you sicken (chicken) curry” was his chatline  for finding a date among the young trainee nurses.  We would ignore him and run away because he had wandering hands.  Lurking in the background was his wife and several children. Sexual predatory behaviour was normalised at that time and the media fuelled it further by churning out films, books, TV plays, etc that showed women in submissive and subservient roles in society.

I thought I might find equal partnership in marriage but convention dictated otherwise.  I was left chained to the kitchen sink with two screaming toddlers while my husband enjoyed a bachelor’s lifestyle. “You cannot stop him from going to the pub and meeting up with his mates.  That’s how we do things here in the East End,” the mother-in-law rebuked when I tried to get some sympathy.  My dreams of equal partnership were dashed.  All around me women were juggling childcare, housework and flexible part-time work for ‘pin money’ while their menfolk seemed oblivious of their plights.

Several decades after my debate at school, little has changed for women.  Although more women were employed in paid work than before, they continued to do the lion’s share of childcare and housework.  I believed that life is more stressful for women than it was in the 1970s because they they took on the breadwinner role (Both husband and wife are expected to be in paid work in order to survive in this modern society) as well as childcare and housework.  I have seen the struggles of my younger midwife colleagues juggling childcare, housework and a career that is not flexible to accommodate their family needs.

Recently progress in gender gap has slowed down or stalled due to the pandemic and poor economic growth.  Progress may require increases in men’s participation in household and care work, governmental provision of childcare and employer’s policies that reduce gender discrimination and help man and women combine jobs with family care responsibilities.  Fifty years hence, women’s place is still in the home and also in the workplace as breadwinners.