By Paul Revoir
Last updated at 8:24 PM on 29th April 2009
Last updated at 8:24 PM on 29th April 2009
Women's campaigner Erin Pizzey
A pioneering feminist has claimed that women's victory in the war against men for equality has actually left many of them 'imprisoned' and 'exhausted'.
Women's campaigner Erin Pizzey, who founded the world's first refuge for battered women in 1971, said many now did not understand what they had lost.
Pizzey, 70, said women's 'freedom of choice' to have a successful career as well as a family, has left them with less spare time than they had before.
Speaking as part of a new BBC programme about the role of women in the workplace, she said women, many of who are mothers, have to work now.
She has suggested that the idea of women having it all - happily combining both a career and a family - has proved to be a myth.
She said: ‘There’s been a subterranean war between men and women which has been won by women and they don’t actually understand what they’ve lost.'
The campaigner added: '‘I don’t think anybody foresaw what a freedom of choice would do – is imprison many, many women, who, they don’t have a choice now, they have to work, they have to work hard, and I just see an exhausted generation of women trying to do it all.’
Her comments feature on the first episode of BBC2's The Trouble With Working Women, which is to be screened in June.
The show is being fronted by newsreader Sophie Raworth and reporter Justin Rowlatt.
The programme will look at why men still dominate the top jobs and look at why men on average earn £369,000 more than women across their career.
The programme will look at why men still dominate the top jobs and look at why men on average earn £369,000 more than women across their career.
Pizzey's comments come after publication of Labour's flagship equality bill which includes new rules covering sex discrimination.
Among its controversial measures are requirements for big companies to publish 'gender pay audits' and 'positive action' by favouring a candidate from and under-represented group.
A recent study of the 'pay gap' found that men in their twenties no longer earn more than women
It found that the difference between the earnings of men and women twenty-somethings is 'non-existent'.
Erin Pizzey pictured in 1976 outside the High court with campaigners battling to keep women's shelters open in Chiswick
Women who choose to stay single are likely to earn more than single men throughout their lives.
The research by the Office of National Statistics showed women's pay only drops compared to that of men after they marry or have children.
The age of 30 is the point at which on average a woman has her first baby. The Government's own statisticians recently also found men are being laid off at more than double the redundancy rate for women.
Last year an academic claimed that many women wanted to raise families rather than pursue careers.
Dr Catherine Hakim said: 'The myth that all or most women would be just as careerist as men, if only they were given the opportunity has been exploded.'
Pizey recently spoke out about the court case which saw her receive an apology and damages over claims made about her in Marr's book.
She took action over claims in the BBC journalist's book for his TV show A History Of Modern Britain which suggested she was a terrorist sympathiser.
Marr had written that Pizzey had been a 'cadet enthusiast' in the Angry Brigade, the militant anarchist group the detonated bombs around 1970's London.
A peace activist and champion of women's rights, she told how she cried on hearing what had been written about her and was never a member of the group.
She took legal action against publishers Macmillan for defamation. Macmillan offered her an unreserved apology and agreed to pay substantial damages and costs.
During her career, which saw her found the first women's refuge in 1971, she has campaigned to liberate women from their abusive husbands.
Pizzey, who has never described herself as a feminist, fell out with many in the women's movement because she did not share many of their views.
The middle-class Christian said many feminists were obsessed with destroying men and marriage and said for many it was like a 'born again' religion.
She has previously claimed women need to stop competing with each other with things like dieting and cosmetic surgery
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