Computer Systems Development: History Organization and Implementation

women but relates to women’s needs to fulfil men’s and society’s expectations of them by way of maintaining their femininity and reproducing the labour force. What seems to be sadly lacking is any hint of rejection of patriarchy by women. Are we to accept that women do not struggle against domination or are we to surmise that women are just not aware of this domination? This is one of the questions that remains unanswered after reading Women, Food and Families. Perhaps the authors, rather than being intent on providing evidence relating to the domination of women should have investigated further the women in the study who were, for example, singleparents or non-dieters to discover how strong familial ideology and patriarchy was in their homes. The authors acknowledge that women who work tend to have a more equal division of domestic chores, even though they still do more than men. They also note that some women cooked different meals for different members of the family and that organisation within the domestic division of labour changes when men become unemployed, a fact that Wheelock (1990) discovered in her recent research. However, such forces for change only seem to be mentioned in passing. Thus, the main problem with the book is that it tends to ignore the potential for conflict in relation to women as individuals; as members of a family and as members of society in general. This is particularly so because its starting point is women who have pre-school age children. Such women are likely to be more dependant on their husbands than women at a different stage in the life cycle. In conclusion then, the book certainly does give the reader food for thought but it falls short in its analysis because it ignores for the most part the potentiality for conflict and social change.