7 MARCH 1970, Page 25

Equal what?

Sir: How we all fall for slogans: 'equal pay for equal work'! But is it equal work? If men had to cope with menstruation, pregnancy, confinement, child nursing and rearing, housekeeping, shopping for a family, cooking, sewing, mending etc, their work would lose 25 to 30 per cent in quality. No doubt women deal admirably with their biological and economic burdens- -but they are handicapped all the same, and equal work is not possible with such handicaps.