Why men can’t handle a female breadwinner

ARE you a woman who works for a living? If so then, like me, today you are working for free. A few days ago we went past ‘equal pay day’ — the point after which, thanks to the persistent gender pay gap, women effectively work for the rest of the year for no pay when their average salaries are compared with those of men. Why is this state of affairs still going on? One sad clue emerged this week in the form of a study that found men get a ‘psychological kick’ from earning more than their spouse.

It reminded me of how, in the 1960s, my mother resisted the idea of getting the job she desperately wanted because, ‘People will think Daddy can’t afford to keep us’.

I also remember Barbara Castle telling me how shocked she’d been, as a young MP, to discover employers in her constituency had a pay list which, at the top, had managers, then skilled, unskilled workers and, at the bottom, women.

Thank heavens, we now have a law against that sort of thing, thanks to Barbara and other women in Parliament. It’s been 50 years since the Equal Pay Act made outright discrimination illegal.

But our secret hearts are sometimes even slower to change than red tape. That’s what the sociologists at City, University of London found with their study; that significant numbers of men still can’t help the nagging feeling that their wellbeing suffers if their spouse becomes the breadwinner.

It’s an attitude I’ve stumbled across too often, being my own family’s breadwinner. The idea that somehow it’s more ‘normal’ for the man to be the higher earner persists in the most surprising places.

Take Jessica Butcher, recently appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who seems to think the pay gap is ‘hugely affected by a potential positive: female choice’. By which, I think she means women choose to go parttime, so earn less because they are worth less in the workplace.

Which doesn’t leave much room for a situation like mine, where a ‘ horses for courses’ principle applied. We both worked and had a nanny for a few years when our boys were very young.

Then my clever husband said, ‘I think the boys would benefit from having one of us at home and it’s clearly not going to be you.’ I had just begun presenting Woman’s Hour and loved it. Then he added: ‘Are you OK with me being the full-time parent?’ It had never occurred to me that such an arrangement might work.

THUS I became the breadwinner and he the brilliant father who loved to do all the things I hated. He cooked, he cleaned, he helped with the maths, the art and computer skills.

Our boys grew up without a sexist bone in their bodies and there has never been so much as a hint of emasculation.

I do have to confess that being the breadwinner can be a little stressful. Which is why I believe so strongly in rebuilding childcare that’s been damaged during the pandemic, along with greater acceptance for part-time work for mothers and fathers who share responsibilities.

As for our own arrangement, the only fly in the ointment was the way in which my husband was often asked how he ‘felt’ about me being the breadwinner. There were clearly a number of men we encountered in our social life who thought it was most peculiar for a man to be happy to be ‘kept’.

He would grin and say: ‘Ah! she brings in the bread and I make it, literally, and that’s fine by me.’

It was fine by me, too, and it still is, nearly 40 years on.