ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203976166/53464488-0697-4970-b225-e900bf0dba37/content/ch7_page149-01_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>By the early 1960s a generation of educated women, born during or immediately after the war, began to define home as an oppressive, over-private and stultifying place for women. The first generation to be born into a servantless world and one where marriage bars had generally been dismantled, they experienced the transition from an educated and career-oriented identity to the role of full-time and servantless housewife on the birth of their first child. In a literature on the “housebound mother” they articulated this as an experience of loss of identity, self-esteem and self-confidence. In 1960 Maureen Nicol identified exile with being at home. She wrote to the Manchester Guardian, “Since having my first baby I have been constantly surprised how women seem to go into voluntary exile in the home once they leave their outside work.” 1 Her letter prompted a response from readers, which led to the formation of the Housebound Wives Register in London, and subsequently to the National Housewives Register.
