The Feminine Protest of the Working Wife

Helen M. Hacker Originally published 1971

In questioning Linton’s assumption of unimodality in real culture patterns and societal consensus in defining such patterns, Gross, Manson, and McEachern in their Explorations in Role Analysis point to the high degree of disagreement among role definers so far studied on the evaluative standards applicable to the female position in American society. The present paper represents an attempt at a rough measurement on a national scale of consensus on some aspects of the behavior and attributes of the role of the married woman in the United States with respect to expectations concerning her gainful employment outside the home.

There is little need to detain the reader with facts and figures on working wives who constitute the most rapidly growing group of working women. They now number 16,676,000 and make up three-fifths of the entire woman labor force, and, of course, women, whatever their marital status, are more than one-third of the total American labour force.

What effects have women’s—and especially married women’s—advent into the labor market had on the definition of the feminine role? To what extent has a new feminine role which includes work been institutionalized? What congruencies and variations in expectations for the position or married woman do we find among such role definers as full-time working wives, part-time working wives, non-working wives, the husbands of women in these work status categories, single, widowed, and divorced women, both working and not working, and single, widowed, and divorced men?

To explore these questions a nation-wide survey was undertaken in 1958 by a leading advertising agency.1 The area-probability sample consisted of approximately 2,000 women and 2,000 men. The questionnaire included items on the respondent’s or his wife’s work history and plans for the future, the advantages of the working wife and of the housewife, the wife’s identification with either role, the husband’s attitude toward his wife’s working, guesses as to the proportion of women who work, the proportion of married women who work from financial necessity, for luxuries, and because they like working; and, finally, a list of phrases applicable either to the housewife or to the working wife.

The data from these polls can be interpreted as showing that women’s employment outside the home has indeed modified the evaluative standards for the role of married woman in the minds of many role definers. Women have not been relieved of their primary responsibility for the home and children, nor has any ethic of work been added to this position. Work remains a qualifiedly permissive, not a mandatory aspect of it. Certain attributes, however, rather than behaviours, of the work role have entered into the norms for the position of married woman. Specifically, housewives revealed a greater tendency to arrogate to themselves favourable phrases denoting personality traits associated by the majority of both samples with the working wife, whereas working wives claimed more favorable phrases denoting performances associated with the housewife than other groups granted them. Housewives want to think they are alert, informed, well-educated, and interested in events and people, while working wives want to believe they are loving mothers, good wives, and efficient in household tasks (see Table 1). This is one part of our evidence which shows that both housewives and working wives concentrate on the by-products of working rather than the work itself. Working wives are constrained to say they are not neglecting any of the performances of the traditional feminine role, and housewives protest that they, too, share in the attributes of the newer feminine role. We are thus led to speak of the feminine protest of the working wife as a counterpart to the more familiar Adlerian concept of the masculine protest of the housewife.

Table 1. Attribution of Descriptive Phrases to Working Wife* By Employment Status

*Housewife equals 100% minus % for working wife

Let us take a longer look at the feminine protest of the working wife, who, though she may work like a man, proclaims she is still a woman in the traditional sense. First, why does she work? Working wives give economic, rather than psychological, reasons for their working, and stress economic benefits as the chief advantage of the working wife. If working wives say financial necessity is their reason for working, they shield themselves from the accusation of being competitive, unfeminine, or shirking the traditional role of women. But some doubt may be cast on the sincerity of their answers, when we find that they impute non-economic motives to other wives who work—chiefly, a desire to escape from the home. Further, working wives do not say very often they enjoy the specific job they have. Rather they stress the by-products of working, such as keeping alive mentally, easing tensions, meeting people. Thus, the job can be justified on the grounds that it makes a woman a better wife and mother, and a person of whom her family can be proud—not in terms of direct accomplishments, but in being a more interesting, sociable person.

Working wives are also more generous in their estimates of the number of married women who work than are either housewives or men. Social support is seen in numbers. If there are many people like you, then you can’t be too abnormal or bad.

In defending one’s own position, one often tends to disparage others. Thus, working wives stress the selfish benefits of being a housewife. They say that housewives have more leisure, get more rest, are less rushed, etc., rather than pointing to the altruistic benefits to their families. They also explain non-working wives as not being qualified for work or not needing to work. Working wives, also, do not want to think that their work imposes any penalty on their families, but only on themselves. Therefore, they do not say as frequently as the housewife does that the housewife is a better wife and mother, but rather that she carries less of a burden.

We asked our respondents whether they thought they looked at life more like a woman who works at a paid job outside her home, or one who does not. Almost one-fourth of working wives said they looked at life like housewives and a similar number of housewives looked at life like working wives. So we shall call them “the deviant 25%.” We found that these two groups of women have many social characteristics in common. They are better educated, have higher incomes, are more likely to have husbands in the professional and clerical-sales occupational categories—in short, to be higher in the social scale than the wives whose outlook conformed to their actual status.

The fact that housewives of higher social status may identify with working wives is not surprising, but how can we explain the tendency of a similarly situated group of working wives to identify with housewives? The reasons given by the deviant 25% for their cross-identification may clarify this issue and also point to a basic conflict of modern women which we shall discuss later. Over half the working wives who identify with their non-working sisters do so on homemaking grounds. A smaller group says they are good mothers. Thus, by implication they suggest that being a good homemaker and a good mother is not typical of working wives. Others of them say that the job does not represent their primary interest. A few report they are busy in the home. Only 5% refer to psychological aspects of the housewifely role, including being her own boss and having leisure and contentment. Thus, their reasons for identifying with the housewife are largely altruistic. They want to see themselves as fulfilling the wife’s traditional role. They do not covet self-oriented wifely satisfactions, but the psychological gratifications of filling a socially approved role.

How about the housewives who identify with working wives? Over half of them do so out of protest that they are indeed active outside the home, have outside interests and a broad viewpoint. By implication they suggest that these traits are not typical of housewives. Over a fourth say they identify with working wives because they understand their problems and have had recent work experience. And, indeed, housewives who have worked in the past are more prone to cross-identify. A lesser number reveal their negative image of the housewife by saying that they—presumably in comparison to other housewives—are not ideal nor trivial, nor are they absorbed in household routine. Other attribute to themselves feelings of independence and concern about personal grooming which they believe typical of the working wife. It is also interesting to note that a few housewives identify with the working wife because they think themselves rushed and overworked, thereby implying that the working wife works harder than the housewife, and her lot is not a happy one.

In comparing the ways in which housewives and working wives cross-identify we see the main conflict of modern women and the cross-pressures to which she is subject. Girls and boys alike are educated to develop their individual capacities and to participate in the life and work of the society. Both are imbued with achievement goals, but in a direct manner for boys, and ambiguous way for girls. That is, there is no question in a boy’s mind that he will work, that in order to be a man he must work. There is not conflict about the goal of occupational success for him. But work does not help a girl to become a woman. She becomes a woman when she marries and has children. Masculine values, however—or American values, according to Florence Kluckhohn—are dominant in our society, especially those involving money and work. So women want a share in them too, and men, while expecting women to display the behaviors and attributes of the traditional, nurturing feminine role, accord more prestige to the woman who also realizes some of the traditional masculine—(or American) values of education and achievement.

Parsons has phrased this conflict of modern women as one between the values of a particularistic and universalistic orientation to life, and indicated the serious obstacles which confront women in the implementation of universalistic goals. He says, “Broadly, married women in our society are not in direct competition for occupational status and its primary reward symbols with men or their own class.”2 And his theoretical background for this statement is summarized by Robin Williams, “If women were to compete for jobs on an equal basis with men, drastic changes would be necessary in the family system, or in the occupational structure, or in both.”3

To the extent that such changes have not occurred, women have resolved the conflict by making claim to the performances of the particularistic role and the attributes of the universalistic role. Housewives feel more secure and successful in the former endeavor, and working wives in the latter. In bolstering their own feelings of complete realization of the new, composite feminine role each group reacts defensively by denigrating the other and compensating for their own perceived deficiencies. The housewife, secure in the homemaking component of the feminine role, wants to be valued as a person with an emotional and intellectual life of her own. The working wife, confident of her interest and attractiveness as a person, wants to be adjudged a good wife and mother.

Thus, the entry of women into the labour market has affected the conception of the feminine role held by all female definers, whether they are currently working or not. All women want recognition as wives and mothers and something more. This something more is not work for its own sake or occupational achievement as such, but rather the direct monetary rewards of work and the indirect personality gains of feeling enriched by life and interest beyond the home. As we have said, the behavioristic components of the traditional feminine role do not seem to have changed in what is considered mandatory, although paid employment outside the home is permitted under certain conditions, but personal attributes have been added and placed towards the obligatory end of the permitted-mandatory spectrum. In the present transitional stage of our society both working and non-working wives experience doubts and frustrations in their attempts to fulfill their concept of the new feminine role.

“Pull of job” includes responses referring to enjoyment of working in general, liking her specific job, being needed by the employer, and such by-products of working as keeping alive mentally, having social contacts, feeling independent, and easing nervous tensions. “Push of home” responses are of two types: active and passive. Active responses refer to the wife’s wish to escape from the home, her desire to get away from children, husband, other members of the household, her dislike of housework, and being bored or lonesome at home. Passive responses indicate that she is not needed at home—chiefly because of the absence of young children.

Notes

1 Although these data were collected over ten years ago, it is the writer’s impression from more informal kinds of research that no major changes in attitudes have occurred.

2 Talcott Parsons. 1964. “A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification.” Pp. 423 in Essays in Sociological Theory (rev. ed.). New York: The Free Press.

3 Robin M. Williams, Jr. 1951. American Society: A Sociological Interpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.