5. Change the following sentences into indirect speech.

1. "I've changed my name so many times I don't know who I am any more," said Barbara Freedman, a Manhattan social worker.

2. She went on: "It's disruptive. It's hard to maintain a stable core of friends or pattern of life. So much of your structure is built around your marriage."

3. Barbara said: "That's because I buy everything. And it seems you don't realize that most of what we've got we buy on sale through ads."

4. She said: "In the future I'll just have to act on my own!"

5. Susan explained: "I didn't hear you come in. You're so quiet! Is anything wrong?"

6. Give a short summary of the text using the following expressions:

a. The present text discusses some problems relating to ...

b. The text provides information on ...

с. Much will depend on the particular circumstances ...

d. It should be noted ...

e. It is important to know ...

f. I suppose ...

Unit 16 Changing roles with family.

Text 1.

1. Read and translate this text.

Changing Roles Within the Family

When the twentieth century began all the different varieties of American families shared one characteristic: the wife did not work outside the home. The only exceptions were black wives. At that time, for a wife to work was a sign that a husband was not able to support a family or that he was crippled or otherwise incapacitated. By contrast, to that situation in the 1990s over 60 percent of women were in the work force. The transformation was relatively quick. It began in the years of the Great Depression, but the major impetus was provided by the Second World War. The pattern established then, though originally intended to be a temporary war measure, continued after the war was over.

Many women preferred working and many firms found the relatively low wages of women an inducement td continue to employ their labor. The immediate consequence was a great expansion of jobs open to women. Women became electricians, mechanists, and carpenters, as well as lawyers, engineers, and physicians in unheard of numbers.

Despite the widening opportunities for women, the great majority of working women have remained at the bottom of the economic pyramid. In the 1980s, for instance, the average pay for a woman worker was about 59 percent of the average male; the principal cause for the difference was usually a failure to pay equal wages for equal work and also the fact that the jobs which most women held were low-paying. The working woman is generally a typist, maid, teacher, nurse, or saleswoman.

Simply because work for married women is now accepted and so commonplace, the internal character of American families has greatly changed.

For some two hundred years now, American women have been seeking to enhance their autonomy within the family. This has involved their gaining better education, a place as the moral guardian of the family, the opportunity to control childbirth, and to dissolve the marriage if it proved too limiting or unsatisfactory. They have also asserted their right to combine family and work outside the home.

Today, as a result of the widening of employment opportunities for women and also the consciousness-raising fostered by the women's movement, the pressure for women' equality within families has reached a new height. But still many women do not feel happy to be torn in two.

There is the so-called Supermom; the woman who tries to juggle a career with a family. Others have come to conclusion that the dual role can often cause them to be mediocre at both. So they have given up their career to stay home with children. Some view it as a temporary solution until their children start school. But even when at home women pursue various interests. They participate in all kinds of organizations, for example English-teaching committee for the foreign-born. In fund-raising activities for the colleges they graduated from, they jog in the morning with friends, compete in New York City Marathons, etc. all that gives them a feeling of achievement. One thirty-five-year old lawyer who quit her job to stay home with her three children, said she spent her spare time gardening and doing carpentry work. She said that one summer she took the children to Colorado, where she rebuilt an old garage that she and her husband use for hiking in summer and skiing in winter.

The mayor worry for most is that if they decide to go back to work they will have difficulty finding jobs. Many women say they continue to read in their fields so that they will not fall behind. Others say that they try to have lunch occasionally with former co-workers to keep up with what is going on. Otherwise, they say, you feel that you're "a bit out of touch".

But there are many women who work outside the home - even if they have children at home - of necessity. Many women say that they don't have the option of working inside the home or outside the home any more because economic needs require that they go out and find a job. Many married women work because their husbands are unemployed or disabled. Such women are the sole support of their families and themselves.

The wives of low-wage earners, who are taking jobs to supplement their husband's income, help keep the family budget solvent in the face of inflation. Women in middle-income families are taking jobs in response to the economic squeeze. Such women are taking jobs to maintain the standard of living to which they have been accustomed. But increasingly, a second income in the family is being sought to achieve traditional goals, such as a college education for their children or for a one-family home. Even braces on children's teeth or meeting continually raising utility and other rates make women work for the money.

On the other hand, women are making inroads into men's occupations- tellers in banks, bus driving and bartending. This changes the general perception of male and female jobs.

Changes in the family pattern with women working have not been easily accepted by men, who sometimes show anger and resentment. On the one hand, a majority of men now believe that both sexes should enjoy equal employment opportunities, but on the other, most also believe that children may be harmed psychologically if their mothers work outside the home. This contradiction increasingly rules the life of Americans.

Very busy, spouses sometimes let each other know that they feel victimized by the requirements of the other partner. In order to make a go of this sort of life husband and wife have to cut out almost everything that does not relate to family .or career, There is a frequent feeling that husband and wife are "against tire ropes" in regard to available time. It is toe amenities of life in terms of friends, entertainment, and general leisure that get put aside in order to focus on the everyday essentials.

One Atlanta attorney says: "My wife has her own career as a lawyer and when I arrived home from a tough day, all I want to do is put my feet up and have a drink - the sort of thing a man has always expected. Instead I have to help with the household or attend to my children. I frequently must cut short my own working day in order to pick up our eighteen-month-old son from day care or to spend time with my older child. Often, I am also the one who is on call in case of illness, who prepares many of the meals, and who keeps the house clean. There is до question that the rewards of sharing career achievement and child rearing with one's spouse are great, but the price paid can be high. There lies much of the trouble. We are faced with having to become Supermen, in response full participation in work and in family.

We are now exploring uncharted territory, with all the mistakes and false starts that such exploration requires. I found that I had learned something further about what it means to be a man sometimes that goes beyond simply bringing home a paycheck".

Vocabulary notes

1. inducement - побуждение, стимул

2. disabled people — нетрудоспособные люди

3. necessity - нищета, неизбежность

2. Answer the following questions.

1. Why did women begin to work?

2. What professions do women prefer to have?

3. Why are many American women still at the bottom of social pyramid?

4. How has the internal character of American families changed?

5. What kind of woman would be called "supermom"?

6. How do most men take their family responsibilities at home? Are they happy about them?

3. Give the next Russian equivalents and use them in your own sentences;

commitments to a spouse; consciousness-raising; to keep up with what is going on; to work out (of the house); to meet utility rates; to feel victimized; to focus on everyday essentials; to share career achievement and child rearing

4. Put all possible questions to the following statements.

1. It began in the years of the Great Depression.

2. The average pay for a woman worker was about 59 percent of the average male.

3. They have given up their career to stay home with children.

4. The second income in the family is being sought to achieve traditional goals, such as a college education for their children or for a one-family home.

5. Spouses sometimes let each other know that they feel victimized by the requirements of the other partner.