Sarah Ditum

We don’t talk of a ‘working father’ — so why do we still refer to a ‘working mother’?

The term is doubly redundant, given that most women with dependent children have paid jobs in the UK — and still do the housework

Machinist mothers in Pontypridd in the 1960s would leave their children to be cared for in a nearby nursery. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 09 May 2020
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  • Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood

    Helen McCarthy

    Bloomsbury, pp. 560, £30

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