But sadly in this country we still pay
men significantly more than women,
so it makes financial sense for him
to be the one going out to work.”
The figures prove the point.
Female managers still earn on
average £30,000 less than their male
colleagues – that’s 17% less if you’re
full-time, and a huge 36% less if
you’re part-time.
For most women, however, finances
are the key driver in deciding whether
they need to work. Most women need
to work to survive, and don’t have
the luxury of choosing not to work.
Although astronomic childcare costs
can make returning to work barely
worth it. One study found that, on
average, women are left with just £67
a week after work expenses such as
commuting, workwear and nursery
fees are taken into account.
Right-wing think-tank the Policy
Exchange recently mooted paying
mums a nominal salary of £60 a week
to stay at home to look after their
children – a strategy already
implemented in Scandinavia with
some success.
THE�JEREMY�KYLE�TRAP�
So if there’s no in-built desire to be
a domestic goddess, what’s the appeal,
especially if you don’t have children?
Does it just boil down to laziness?
“I won’t deny that I have a few
hours a day on the sofa watching
daytime TV,” confesses Jo Griffiths,
34, from London who became an
accidental housewife last December
when she was made redundant from
the TV production company where
she had worked for 10 years. “But the
rest of the day is spent getting chores
done and making sure that when my
boyfriend Steve gets home, the house
is tidy and the dinner is in the oven.”
Griffiths is surviving on a generous
redundancy payout, but if push comes
to shove Steve, an engineer, can
support them both. It has given her
the time to consider whether she
really wants another full-on, full-time
job. “I used to crawl into the house
at 8pm every night stressed and
miserable, have a quick, unhealthy
ready-meal, barely acknowledge
Steve, then fall into bed knowing that
eight hours later I’d have to do it all
again,” she says.
“Now I have zero stress, my skin is
clear, I’ve lost a stone and I’ve
stopped grinding my teeth at night.
But best of all, I have time to be with
Steve, and he’s better-off too because
he doesn’t have to do his share of the
household chores after a hectic day at
work. Friends used to be sniffy about
the fact that I wasn’t working – but
now that they can see how much
happier and healthier Steve and I are,
they’re changing their tune.”
“I think I’d be doing my children a
disservice by not working. I know
how miserable it would make me”
A study by sociologists at Virginia
University in the US found that
couples are happiest when their
relationship runs on old-fashioned
gender lines, where the man is the
main breadwinner.
“Perhaps we need to rethink our
feminist principles and stop women
feeling ashamed to be called
Designer cupcakes iced in pastel pink and baby blue.
Organic vegetables lovingly pureed for your growing
tot. Floral rubber gloves and retro pinnies. The
consumer market is awash with products selling the
Fifties housewife ideal. The masterminds behind them?
Some very canny women who have tapped into
women’s secret yearning to swap the boardroom
for some old-school living.
They’ve become the poster
girls for prommies, but do
they live what they sell?
For Cath Kidston, the
answer is a resounding no.
Despite her books on how
to bake and sew, and her
shops packed with polka
dot egg cups and tea cosies,
the homewares queen
doesn’t live in a shabby
chic farmhouse surrounded
by cherub-cheeked
children in artfully
homemade smocks. Instead
she lives in London with
her partner Hugh and his
16-year-old daughter, Jess.
Not only does she have no
kids of her own but, by her
own admission, she’s rarely
in the kitchen.
“My husband is lucky if
he gets a takeaway,” she
says. But her nurturing
nature has helped her firm
grow from a single junk
shop in Holland Park to a £31m global brand.
a home-maker or housewife,” says
psychologist and behavioural
expert Donna Dawson.
Hollway agrees. “Weren’t we
fighting for free choice, not just
a chance to fulfil Labour’s fiscal
dream of all women in work?
Women need space to make their
own decisions at different stages
The woman sating our desire for sugar and spice is
model turned cupcake queen, Lorraine Pascale. The
former Vogue model, 36, swapped Chanel for candycoloured
confection two years ago. She’s stocked in
Selfridges and has just opened her first shop, Ella’s
Bakehouse. “There’s something so comforting about
cakes. The smell. Everyone goes ‘Wow!’ when you bring
in their life, and if that means not
going to work, no one has a right
to say she shouldn’t, or to judge
her and accuse her of selling out
her feminist principles.”
Feminism is fundamentally
about choice, and what women
really want is the option to decide
how they fulfil their lives. So if their
route to eternal happiness is to don
a Cath Kidston pinnie, whip out the
latest Nigella Lawson tome and spend
the afternoon in a world of cinnamon,
sugar and chocolate chip
cookies, why shouldn’t they?
THE�WOMEN�FEEDING�THE�DOMESTIC�GODDESS�FANTASY
Meet the clued-up women who’ve turned home-making into multimillion pound companies
CATH KIDSTON SAYS THAT
DESPITE HER IMAGE, SHE IS
CHILDLESS AND RARELY COOKS
GENDER POLITICS
a cake to the table.” It’s traditional, homely and
comforting. But far from spending her days fussing
with icing Pascale survives on four hours sleep a
night and works eighteen hour days to fuel her
ambition of “rapid expansion”.
The life of Annabel Karmel, director of Eat Fussy,
is slightly more in keeping with the domesticity she
sells. Devastated by the
death of her first child
Natasha in 1987, the former
professional musician threw
all her energy into creating
healthy meals for her son
Nicholas, when he was born
the following year.
“I was still grieving for
my daughter and incredibly
vulnerable,” she says. “It
was terrifying to me that he
was such a fussy eater.”
Discovering there were
no useful children’s cookery
books on the market, Karmel
experimented herself and
was soon passing on recipes
to fellow mums. A book
followed, along with two
daughters, and Karmel found
that writing from home
allowed her the freedom
to be with her children
whenever they needed her.
“I never missed a moment
of their childhood,” she says.
Her youngest daughter is
now 17, and Karmel is focused on developing her Eat
Fussy range of healthy ready-meals for little ones. She
certainly hasn’t slowed down.
“Being a mumtrepreneur takes over your life,” she
says. “I have no time for myself. I have to work late into
the evenings and rarely get time to socialise. I know
I can’t have everything, but at least I’ve found
fulfilment in doing something I believe in.”
WWW�STYLIST�CO�UK����
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