This paper explores the constructs of shame and guilt, the role of these constructs in women fulfilling the role of breadwinners within their marital or family units, and the impact it had on the unit. The paper also explores the challenges that these women faced within the society, the workplace, their family unit and in their marriages. A phenomenological approach was adopted for this paper and was based on semi-structured interviews (n = 20) with South African women who were the main/sole breadwinners within their marital family unit. Two key findings emerged from this study, the first being the existence of ongoing guilt and shame in the lives of women fulfilling breadwinning roles, and the second being the direct link between the areas of a respondent’s upbringing, respondent’s personal beliefs, the acceptance of roles within a marriage, the joint collaboration of responsibilities between spouses, the level of open communication within the unit, and the resulting emotions such as guilt, shame, resentment, anger, frustration, stress and regret.

Historically, women have always been assigned the traditional role of the family caretaker (Marecek and Ballou, 1981); however, the new-norm of traditional family has both spouses working outside the home and a decrease in the wage gap between spouses (Crompton and Geran, 1995). Additionally, there is a growing proportion of working couples in which the wife earns more than the husband— the female breadwinner. In a research on the female breadwinner, Meisenbach (2010) found that many of these women felt enormous guilt and resentment. Hofstede and Bond (1984) asserted that shame and guilt are related to cultural dimensions such as “masculinity vs. femininity”.

Gender socialization and stereotypes seem to play a role in expectations as to how women should behave (Barrett, 1995; and Cassidy and Davies, 2003). It would also appear that the gender socialization of women as nurturers and primary caregivers is enduring and instilling an embedded standard that women themselves want to uphold (April and Mooketsi, 2010). Consequently, women are under significant pressure when they attempt to put their emotional needs and personal fulfillment (joy and subjective wellbeing— instinctually individual) above their idealistic responsibilities and beliefs thereof as either a mother, wife or a caregiver (which are socially constructed) (Guendouzi, 2006). These sometimes unreasonable, stressful and fear-driven societal- and cultural expectations induce differential self-views and can be fertile grounds for reoccurring guilt and shame (Thomson and Walker, 1989; and Lewis, 1992), exacerbated by feelings of inferiority, exhaustion, confusion, fearfulness and anger (Douglas and Michaels, 2004).

Effective Executive Magazine, Female Breadwinner, Traditional Role, Gender Docialization of Women, Cultural Expectations, Open Communication.