ABSTRACT
The two quotations above show crucial differences in sex roles in relation to career and family life. Men, nowadays nearly as much as in Brunel's day, may admit that their career brings them their primary satisfactions without necessarily jeopardizing their family life. Brunel, the pioneering railway engineer, was passionately dedicated to his work, admitted it publicly and was praised for it while at the same time maintaining family life. For women, as illustrated by Miss Deneuve's statement, family relationships are supposed to be paramount, with career integrated with the rest of their lives in a secondary way or not at all. Where the woman in fact derives primary satisfactions from her career, she may experience conflict and have difficulty in integrating her family relationships into this pattern. Miss Deneuve, even with the enormous financial and other helping resources available to a successful film star, has experienced these strains and has in fact divorced her husband and restricted her contacts with her child so as to pursue her career - despite her wish to 'manage all -have a great career, a happy family life with a man, children and all'.
