The authors, Ehrenreich and Fuentes, are pointing out the positive efforts of women, and that men are not capable of doing such labor-intensive and specific work. However, they are also illustrating the fact that the work women do in this industry has no career value whatsoever. This is basically saying that patience and specificity are qualities that are not equal in value to ambition and verve, which are more sought out in a man's line of work.
Differentiating good female qualities from better male qualities is not the issue, though. The issue is that a woman's natural qualities in life are not appreciated or acknowledged for their worth at all. Taking care of children, for instance, runs along the same line as having patience or tolerance in a factory, and by saying that this kind of work has no career value, men are practically taking for granted what women have to offer in each and every household. Typically, husbands rely on their wives to take care of the home by cooking and cleaning, but what they don't realize is that those qualities are as equally essential outside the home. Men have yet to appreciate a woman's worth, and the only way in which that will exist is if the man experiences, hands on, how demanding it really is to have patience.
Moreover, women have yet to appreciate their sense of self-worth and expression, and Professions for Women by Virginia Woolf deals with the concept of women's perception of society. Throughout the essay, society is what Woolf refers to as the "Angel in the House who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews" (866). Woolf describes her career as a struggle because there is this constant awareness of what society expects her to write as opposed to "having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex" (867). Woolf is articulating the social responsibility women have towards society, which, essentially, is to sit quietly and not express any opinion at all.
