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2
How Women Negotiate

Love is blind:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is
the sun!

—Romeo and Juliet

Love is calculating:

Girls marry merely to better themselves, to borrow a significant vulgar phrase,
and have such perfect power over their hearts not to permit themselves to fall in
love till a man with a superior fortune offers
.

—Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women

WE HAVE SEEN HOW THE TRADITIONAL SEXUAL DIVISION OF
labor in the home stands in the way of women's equality. Where
does that division of labor come from? How does it find its way
inside our houses?

Social scientists who have studied how people run their households find
that how those people's parents lived and their cultural surroundings make
a difference (for example, Goldscheider and Waite, 1991). Early experiences
shape your expectations of the future, what you will do at home, and what
your spouse and children will do.

However, you don't automatically get what you expect. The other
grown-up in the couple has expectations, too. They might not be consistent
with yours. Also, children have surprisingly stubborn minds of their own.
Circumstances can foil expectations, too. They can take a turn for the better
or the worse, or turn topsy-turvy. If you win the lottery, you suddenly have
lots of money to spend. If the main earner in the family breaks both ankles
and can't do his job, things will change at home, at least for a few months. If

-27-

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies, and Bargaining Power. Contributors: Rhona Mahony - author. Publisher: Basic Books. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 27.
    
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