By Paul Revoir
30th April 2009
Women have won the war for equality but it has left many of them
imprisoned and exhausted, a pioneering feminist has claimed.
Campaigner Erin Pizzey, who founded the world's first refuge for
battered women in 1971, claims the idea of women happily combining a
career and a family has proved to be a myth.
The 70-year-old said women's 'freedom of choice' to have both has
left them with less spare time than they had before.
But she added that many now did not understand what they had lost.
Speaking as part of a BBC programme about the role of women in the
workplace, she said many are mothers who are having to juggle jobs at
the same time.
She said: 'There's been a subterranean war between men and women
which has been won by women and they don't actually understand what
they've lost.'
The campaigner added: 'I don't think anybody foresaw that what a
freedom of choice would do is imprison many.
'Many women, they don't have a choice now, they have to work, they
have to work hard, and I just see an exhausted generation of women
trying to do it all.'
Her comments feature on the first episode of BBC2's The Trouble With
Working Women, which is to be screened in June.
The programme looks at why men still dominate the top jobs and on
average earn £369,000 more than women across their career.
Miss Pizzey's comments come days after the publication of Labour's
Equality Bill which gives employers legal powers to discriminate in
favour of women and ethnic minorities.
Harriet Harman unveiled plans for firms to choose them ahead of
equally qualified
white male applicants without risk of being sued.
The Labour deputy leader hopes to boost the proportion of female and
ethnic minority staff, as well as pushing more of them into senior roles.
But the Equality Bill, which brings together nine major laws, has
prompted grave concern that white men could miss out unfairly on jobs.
Last year an academic claimed that many women wanted to raise
families rather than pursue careers.
Dr Catherine Hakim said: 'The myth that all or most women would be
just as careerist as men, if only they were given the opportunity has
been exploded.'
Pizey recently spoke out about the court case which saw her receive
an apology and damages over claims made about her in Andrew Marr's book.
She took action over claims in the BBC journalist's book for his TV
show A History Of Modern Britain which suggested she was a terrorist
sympathiser.
Marr had written that Pizzey had been a 'cadet enthusiast' in the
Angry Brigade, the militant anarchist group the detonated bombs
around 1970's London.
A peace activist and champion of women's rights, she told how she
cried on hearing what had been written about her and was never a
member of the group.
She took legal action against publishers Macmillan for defamation.
Macmillan offered her an unreserved apology and agreed to pay
substantial damages and costs.
During her career, she has campaigned to liberate women from their
abusive husbands.
Pizzey, who has never described herself as a feminist, fell out with
many in the women's movement because she did not share many of their views.
The middle-class Christian said many feminists were obsessed with
destroying men and marriage and said for many it was like a 'born
again' religion.
She has previously claimed women need to stop competing with each
other with things like dieting and cosmetic surgery.
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