The survey of housework presented and discussed in previous chapters goes some way towards remedying the predominantly male orientation of sociology which was charted at the beginning of the book. One of the many yawning gaps caused by an underlying concern with male interests and activities within the discipline can begin to be, if not filled, then at least bridged. But the survey also has a wider relevance. Issues concerning the situation of women today are now publicly, and even popularly, discussed. The assignment to women of domestic activities both inside and outside the home, and women's own seeming predilection for domesticity, are structural features of their general situation in industrialized societies at the present time. Therefore any research which examines women's feelings and attitudes about housework can be expected to have something to say about both the ‘oppression’ and the ‘liberation’ of women.

1 The research findings: a summary

Before moving on to this latter question, I want first of all to summarize some of the main findings of the research. This will serve the dual function of recapitulating the important findings, and also of drawing together themes relevant to the discussion of housewives and women's liberation which occupies the last part of the chapter. The first group of findings comes under the heading of feelings about housework.

(a) Feelings about Housework

The principal aim of the study was to conceptualize housework as work, rather than simply as an aspect of the feminine role in marriage. In this way it differs from previous sociological surveys of family life or women's domestic situation. The concept of ‘satisfaction with housework’, analogous with the notion of job satisfaction in the employment sphere, follows from the housework-as-work perspective.

• 1. The major finding here is that dissatisfaction with housework predominates. Seventy per cent of the women interviewed came out as ‘dissatisfied’ in an overall assessment of feelings expressed about housework during the course of a long in-depth interview. This figure lays to rest the idea that only a tiny minority of women are discontented housewives.

• 2. Monotony is a common experience. Three-quarters of the sample report it, and eighty per cent of these are dissatisfied with housework.