Yes, women had it all - but can they STILL have a career, husband and children?
By BECKY SHEAVES - More by this author »
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=556368&in_page_id=1879
Twenty years ago, when journalist Valerie Grove set out to discover whether women really could have it all, she turned to some of the nation's most successful females in a bid to find answers.
Among them were Fay Weldon, Sheila Kitzinger and Shirley Hughes - all held up as models of successful womanhood in Grove's (now long out of print) book The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career - Can She Have It All?'
To qualify for the description "compleat" (the title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler), they had to have been married for more than 25 years and have had three or more children, as well as a brilliant career.
Novelist Fay, childbirth campaigner Sheila and award-winning children's author Shirley were more than qualified for their space on the page among dozens of other well-known, happily-married working mothers.
But back in 1987, these three women were rare specimens. Divorce rates were booming, the birth rate was plummeting and women were still establishing themselves in the workplace.
Grove's point was that the "compleat woman" was a rarity. Plenty of women were sacrificing motherhood and marriage for careers, but not so many were managing to achieve all three.
Fay Weldon: The novelist was described as 'having it all' in the 1987 book
The bad news is that two decades on, and armed with wisdom, experience and hindsight, all three women believe it is harder than ever for women to "have it all".
Sheila Kitzinger, now 80, who lives in Oxfordshire with her husband Uwe, an academic and former diplomat, and has five grown-up daughters, says: "There's a lot of pressure on women today. Life seems much more complicated.
"Women seem very tired - partly because they are under so much pressure.
"They've got to have the latest handbag and shoes, cook amazingly just like Nigella Lawson, cavort bewitchingly round the bedroom every night in a negligee with their husbands, and have a job and be wonderful mothers.
"Women are always blamed for everything that goes wrong with their kids - it's always our fault - and we blame ourselves, too."
Children's author Shirley Hughes, 80, who has three children and seven grandchildren, agrees.
"I think it is very difficult for women with careers and children today to manage without getting exhausted," she says.
"My daughter-in-law has to get up early, sort out the children, drop them at school, go to do a long day's work in the office, then go home - at which point the nanny promptly disappears - and do another shift of hard work at home.
"That is a tough life, and one which many more women live today. I am very glad I didn't have to."
To a great extent, the problem is that women's expectations are higher than ever before.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=556368&in_page_id=1879
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