Time to clock off: Women are being forced to work even longer hours thanks to the recession... but is it ruining our families?

The light finally dawned after she moved to the Peak District for a new job. Playing with her goddaughter in the park, Lissa began to wonder: her mother had been a couture designer and she had always enjoyed making her own dresses. Could she possibly sew for a living?

She started by running up a few ­vintage-style baby dresses for friends.

Two years on, the 36-year-old has a waiting list for her Peak Princess ­children’s clothes, handmade in Liberty prints: she still listens avidly to the radio, but these days only while sewing.

Women like Lissa are part of a ­growing revolt against the long hours working culture now emerging as the biggest obstacle to female success since ­unequal pay.

We’re cracking the glass ceiling only to hit a new barrier: not just the ­traditionally long hours expected at the top, but a newer ‘always on’ ­culture of being available around the clock, by phone or email.

And working this way doesn’t just make us tired. It strikes at the heart of ­women’s emotional lives: the time we give to our marriages, families and friends.

Female relationships are built on intimacy, sharing small things that make us part of the fabric of each ­other’s lives — and that’s hard to maintain in occasional rushed phone calls while running late for a meeting.

I gave up my own job as political ­editor of a national newspaper last year, not just because I hated ­tiptoeing home from Westminster long after my then two-year-old son was asleep, but because I felt driven to choose between having a job and a life.

Read more of Gaby Hinsliffe's article...