Uh oh guys, the women are starting to figure out we scammed them.

[MadImmortalMan]

It took us thirty years of very hard work and subterfuge to get out from under that awful expectation that we have to support these layabouts and make them think it was their idea too. It was going so well. Now, they're sliding back into the old ways, and we must muster our forces.

What women want in 2010: A husband who'll be the main breadwinner

By Beth Hale
Last updated at 10:09 AM on 18th February 2010

Young mothers are turning their backs on high-powered careers to raise their children, a study has found.

Their mothers, or even grandmothers, lived through a time when women fought for full-time work and better pay.

But today's generation is returning to the traditional values of home and family - and looking to men to be the breadwinners.


The about-face was highlighted yesterday in research presented by leading sociologist Geoff Dench, who has analysed responses to questions asked in the annual British Social Attitudes survey.


His analysis comes against a background of growing political pressure on mothers to go out to work.

It revealed a striking change in values in the decade since New Labour swept to power.

The number of mothers with children under four who thought that family life would suffer if women worked full-time fell in the years before Tony Blair took office, dropping from 43 per cent in 1990 to 21 per cent in 1998. But by 2002 it was rising and in 2006 had soared to 37 per cent.

Similarly the number of women in the same category who agreed that most women want a home and children fell between 1994 and 2002 to 15 per cent.


But in 2006, the last time the question was asked in the survey, that number had rocketed to 32 per cent - higher even than back in 1986 when it stood at 20 per cent.

By far the biggest leap came when women were asked whether they agreed that men and women should have different roles.

In 1986, 40 per cent of women with children under four said 'yes', four years later that had plummeted to 13 per cent and by 2002 it had dropped still lower to 2 per cent.

In 2006, however, that had jumped back up to 17 per cent.

Last night Mr Dench, who completed his analysis for the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies in association with the Hera Trust, said: 'Women with young children are going back to the very traditional division of labour in which they want the husband as the breadwinner.

'Having tried full-time working themselves they have found the home much more interesting and want to be enabled to have that - especially if the only job they have access to is a dull job.'

He said there had been a gradual move back towards 'more positive evaluations of women's traditional "work" in the family and informal community'.

While mothers have increased the amount of paid work they do, he said this was mostly part-time work, enabling them also to spend time in the home.

He said evidence pointed to the group fuelling the switch being young mothers aged 18 to 34 - the same age as their mothers were when they fought for the right to work on a par with men.

'They are rocking against the Baby Boom generation, in many cases their own parents,' he added. 'Just as young women led the movement into higher levels of paid work, it seems to be young women who are leading a return to more traditional values.'


The number of mothers with children under four working part-time has risen from 10 per cent in 1983 to 1986, to 28 per cent from 2005 to 2008. In the same category the number working full-time has risen from 9 per cent to 19 cent.

Mr Dench said that the women who said they were happiest appeared to be those who valued the housewife role but also did some paid work.

The analysis follows a report from a prominent liberal commentator which also revealed that far from wanting to be 'superwomen who manage everything, plus a high-profiled career', many women just want to be stay-at-home mothers with their husbands taking the role of breadwinner.

Cristina Odone, a former deputy editor of the New Statesman and editor of the Catholic Herald, said millions of women had been left frustrated and miserable by Government policies that push them back into jobs and their children into nurseries.

Ministers have redoubled efforts to persuade mothers to take jobs in the face of evidence that a big majority of the poorest families are two-parent families in which only the father works.

Meanwhile the Equality and Human Rights Commission and equal pay pressure groups say that mothers are often anxious to go back to work but are pressured into a caring role by lack of flexible working hours, a shortage of affordable daycare and reluctance of men to take over a share of the childcare.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251873/What-women-want-2010-A-husband-wholl-main-breadwinner.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0g1QhoLiY

[Ed Anger]

I want women to stay in the kitchen. And to obey.

[Barrister]

I want my woman to help keep me in the manner to which I am acustomed.

[The Brain]

I want my woman to be disobedient a few times a week.

[Malthus]

Part of the issue is the diminishing returns from working if you have kids.

For most, the cost of alternative child-care and other associated costs of a working life - buying meals rather than cooking them, transportation, etc. - mean that the actual financial returns for having both partners working are small unless the salary is large.

What working does, is act as an insurance policy - both against the 'breadwinner" losing his or her job, or against divorce. 

[Strix]

I want my woman to help keep me in the manner to which I am acustomed.

Would that include editing your written work?

[Barrister]

I dunno M - I tried to take a look at child care costs a little while ago, and different options.  Daycare, or nannies, are expensive, but not so expensive that it made sense for my wife to stay at home.  I guess it might be different for someone earning a low wage, say $25-$30k, but if you're getting something decent it doesn't make as much sense...

At least financially.  There are other reasons a woman might want to stay home.

[Jaron]

If more women return to the home and perform the role they were intended to play, maybe society will start to regain some of its sanity.

[Ed Anger]

If more women return to the home and perform the role they were intended to play, maybe society will start to regain some of its sanity.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I want my woman earning her keep, leaving more gaming, hobby and beer money for me.

[Monoriu]

I want my woman to be the breadwinner, while I stay home to play games 

[Jaron]

The way I sees it, three things ruined human society: The mass departure of women from the home to the workplace, the resulting lack of quality childrearing, and the Man Show.

Women working is in itself not a bad thing. Women have the right and choice to pursue careers. However, when children become involved it becomes more tricky of a situation because without the guidance of a parent children seem to be influenced by too many different social values and generally end up being messed up. I believe the constant presence of a mother or father who has a genuine interest in the childs well being will help remedy this.

[Martinus]

This is such a crock of shit.

The analysis follows a report from a prominent liberal commentator which also revealed that far from wanting to be 'superwomen who manage everything, plus a high-profiled career', many women just want to be stay-at-home mothers with their husbands taking the role of breadwinner.

Yeah, well, who wouldn't, but this is a false alternative. The alternative for a stay-at-home mom should be a situation in which both parents share work and home/child-rearing burdens in equal measure (and/or mix-and-match that, but keeping the overall balance the same), not that the woman has a day job and then comes home where she is expected to perform all the house work. The society needs to create ways for a woman (and a man - there is nothing that says it's a woman's role only) who wants to have a career and also put more work into rearing kids, to balance these, rather than ousting her (or him) out and forcing to choose one or the other.

Not to mention, drawing such broad and generalistic conclusions about employment preference patters at the height of unemployment and recession is just disingenuous.

Daily Mail FTL.

[Jaron]

I dont think anyone is about to take family and child rearing advice from you. Martinus FTL.

[Martinus]

I dont think anyone is about to take family and child rearing advice from you. Martinus FTL.

I'm sure they will take advice from a 30 yo virgin who lives with his mum, OTOH.