ABSTRACT
The manifold functions that women in our society perform, in addition to the reproductive, may be subsumed in no less than five categories: homemaking, childrearing, glamor, emotional support, and industrial production. Women could make their industrial contribution and perform the other functions simultaneously without conflict. A staggering research and polemical literature has accumulated dealing with the problems arising from the incompatibility between the productive function of women in the new circumstances and their other functions. The children were needed, and women's own happiness was no issue. Some women — they have been called "nestlings" — find their major satisfactions in the reproductive function; they want more babies than would be consonant with the public interest. Women managed small, or even large, domestic enterprises rather than "kept house" as we think of it today. Women and nannies still had the care of very small children, but teachers at home or in schools assumed increasing responsibility.
