The wife's work outside the home

Table 1.17 sets out the level of agreement given by male and female respondents to conditions they considered to justify women going out to work (outside the marital home). In Table 1.16, the various conditions agreed to by the respondents are set out in order of how much agreement each condition attracted; the number in brackets shows the number of respondents who agreed with the particular condition, a number converted to a percentage in Table 1.17.

Table 1.16 Reasons for allowing women to work

Table 1.17 Women going out to work (% of total)

* Respondents were given more than one option, giving a total of over 100%.

Urban women in the field study were more aware of the importance of work to women in order to realize their own potential; almost 14 per cent of the urban female respondents held work important for this aspect, compared with just over 3 per cent of rural women.

Within the context of Egyptian society, it was reasonable to anticipate that only a low proportion of the male respondents would endorse women going out to work in order to realize their own aspirations. However, what is striking about the results of the field study here is the finding that this justification for women’s work also came at the bottom of the list for women, suggesting that Egyptian women have been influenced by the male viewpoint that opposes the right of women to work.

As for the duties of a wife towards her husband in the event that she goes out to work, both the male and the female respondents gave first priority to her duty to contribute financially to the support of the family, and second priority" to not allowing her outside work to affect her ability" to maintain her ‘natural functions’ in looking after her children and her husband.

Difficult living conditions have clearly pushed widening sectors of society to accept women going out to work so that they can share in shouldering the family’s financial burdens. It is for this reason that the respondents identified the duty to contribute to the financial support of the family as top of the duties of a woman working outside the home. Similarly, it was logical that the second most important duty of a working woman was held by the respondents to be that her work should not affect her care for the family; all are aware that there will necessarily be a certain impact, which they will have to accept for so long as circumstances oblige them to accept women entering the labour market. Many of the res­pondents stated in the in-depth interviews that a man who accepted his wife going out to work must necessarily accept that this would affect her role as a mother and a wife, but on condition that it did not lead to the break-up of the family or to a negative impact on the mother’s child-rearing functions.

Table 1.18 Duties of a working woman towards her husband and children (% of total)

*Respondents were given more than one option, giving a total of over 100%.