Desigualdades na divis？o do trabalho familiar, sentimento de justi？a e processos de compara？？o social

the studies conducted on family organization have shown that, in spite of the mass entry of women into the labour market, there have been only few changes in the way spouses divide the family work. as a result, unequal family practices are maintained in societies based on an egalitarian ethics without, paradoxically, producing a feeling of injustice. this observation has been at the origin of several attempts of explanation, one of those being that the comparisons made by women are selective and lead them to view the unequal division of family work as appropriate. the present paper questions this explanation and attempts to show that most comparisons between men and women lead to evaluate similar behaviours in a different way, because they are adjusted to the traditional gender roles and thus rest on double standards. it defends that using identical criteria for the judgments of men and women’s competences and roles is an indispensable condition to achieve more justice in our society.