Surely there's a mistake, Your Honor...

I love and loathe this headline. The implication, of course, is that these "non-working" women are merely layabouts who must now heave their fat asses out of bed and actually contribute something to the family. The idea that the hundreds of hours of unpaid labor that goes on inside the home and that is almost always performed by women isn't really work.

However, if you read the article itself, you'll realize/hope that it was probably (?) just a case of an editor with an extremely tight deadline who didn't think deeply enough when constructing this unfortunate headline. There's plenty of reasons offered other than personal financial straits that may compel women to join the workforce, e.g., more attractive compensation packages, increases in education and experience, and the ease with which technology has made going back to their employers more palatable for mothers who had worked outside the home.

It's still a tight line on which we walk, this idea of the domestic sphere of the home as being somehow untainted by the harsh reality of "work." But as anyone who has ever raised a family without an extensive network of support will tell you, it's probably one of the hardest jobs one will ever do, and is definitely nothing if not work.