Women attending a suffragette club meeting wear pants, boss their husbands, neglect their kids, play poker, and fight. Their husbands stay home to care for the children and run the household.
Tim Clancy was a politician. He was a contractor incidentally. He wanted and secured, by breaking down a good man's moral code, the contract to build the new city water system. Specifications called for the best. He put in the cheapest.