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For most, life had the same pattern for thousands of years. But
there are an increasing number of women throughout the world who
are looking for change, who want to have a greater say in the way
their country, town or village is run. In every country now there are
women working towards an improvement in the way their society
regards them… as over half the people in the world are female, they
do two-thirds of the work, get one-tenth of the wages and own one-
hundredth of the world's property.

***

Text 2

THE POLITICS OF HOUSEWORK

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(From "Voices from Women's Liberation" )

It seemed perfectly reasonable. We both had careers, both had
to work a couple of days a week to earn enough to live on, so why
shouldn't we share the housework? So, I suggested it to my mate and
he agreed. You're right, he said. It's only fair.
Then an interesting thing happened. I can only explain it by
stating that we women have been brainwashed more than even we can
imagine. Probably too many years of seeing television woman in
ecstasy over shiny waxed floors or breaking down over their dirty
shirt collars. Men have no such conditioning. They recognize the
essential fact of housework right from the very beginning…
Here's my list of dirty chores: buying groceries, carting them
home and putting them away; cooking meals and washing dishes and
pots; doing the laundry; digging out the place when things get out of
control; washing floors. The list could go on but the sheer necessities
are bad enough. All of us have to do these things, or get some one
else to do them for us. The longer my husband contemplated these
chores the more repulsed he became, and so proceeded the change
from the normally sweet considerate Dr Jekyll into the crafty Mr

1
Текст друкується скорочено за виданням Практический курс
английского языка для IV курса: Учеб.для педвузов / В.Д.Аракин и др. - 3-
е изд. - М: Высш.шк., 1991, с.233-236.

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