Women's Work is Never Done: the Intersection of Work and Family

Abstract

In May 2004 the Australian Government issued a press release titled “Working Mums and Ambition Don’t Mix”. It reported on an organisational survey of workplace policies and concluded that “working mums have a better opportunity to combine work and family as long as they don’t set their sights on managerial jobs”. Why don’t we hear that “Working Dads and Ambition Don’t Mix”? We live in an age when work is defined as paid work and women’s work has been defined in terms of a primary relationship with the home or at best a dual relationship with the home and paid workforce. How did this come about and where do today’s struggles to reconcile work and family fit in the historical scheme?