With millions of male breadwinners losing their jobs, people were fearful of any additional threats to traditional family hierarchies.

In the past, the dynamic of the working class was defined by the idea of the male breadwinner and the working class mother.

A trail of houses was trashed and looted; other families wept to see their male breadwinners detained.

The myth of the male breadwinner persists in societies despite such facts.

First, give women equal economic opportunities so they can support a family with or without a male breadwinner.

The most serious risk which faced them was that to their involuntarily parasitic women-folk - the unexpected death of the male breadwinner.

For example, if the male breadwinner is unemployed, more of the domestic tasks may fall to him.

There were both male and female breadwinners: butchers, machinists, dressmakers and track walkers.

And a third is on the sewing workshops where Palestinian women earn a living in the absence of male breadwinners.

Families could no longer survive on the single income of the male breadwinner and both sexes were relied upon for financial support.