After decades of women’s rights advocacy and slow but steady social change, women have legitimized their right to work outside the home. But for those who still choose to forgo a career to manage the household, the battle for recognition of their often-belittled domestic work has been ongoing.

For Claudia McIntyre, a mother of two who suffers chronic pain after a car crash, that battle finagled its way into the courtroom, inadvertently prompting a landmark decision recently, which says housework is so important that it may actually be integral to a woman’s identity.

The groundbreaking Ontario Court of Appeal decision may point to a more widespread cultural shift, one that increasingly values housework and understands that such seemingly menial tasks as vacuuming and dusting are actually sources of pride and self-esteem.

Yet while some onlookers are ecstatic about a decision that recognizes the importance of maintaining a home, others argue the compensation is unjustifiable, glorifies everyday tasks and actually marks a step backward for women’s rights.

“I can imagine some feminists are not excited by this,” said Diane Watts, researcher for REAL Women Canada, a woman’s advocacy group that emphasizes traditional family life. “I don’t think feminism really values a person’s work in the home.”

For such groups as Ms. Watts’s, the case helps validate housework as a legitimate contribution to society and to the well-being of the family.

“[Ms. McIntyre] has lost, to her, an important part of her life,” Ms. Watts said. “This is an important decision in terms of recognition, in terms of recognizing her important contribution to her family and what that contribution means for her identity.”

“This is a practical acknowledgment that a loss of pride is worth something,” said Alan Rachlin, lawyer for Ms. McIntyre. “This is a very important decision for women’s rights and personal-injury cases.”

Ottawa University law professor Bruce Feldthusen said the case is “good news symbolically,” adding that it upholds a perspective that recognizes the value of housework to the woman herself. “Back in Roman law, it was the husband who could claim for loss of his wife’s services,” Prof. Feldthusen said. “Look how far we’ve come: This case really talks about a woman’s inability to provide these services as her own loss.”

Of the $60,000 in housekeeping damages recently awarded to Ms. McIntyre, $5,000 was specifically allotted for ‘‘housekeeping inefficiency’’ — an inability to maintain the home that, the judge said, negatively affected the Windsor mother’s sense of identity. Indeed, Ms. McIntyre, described by friends and family as a “clean freak,” had always dreamed of being the kind of wife and parent that her own mother was: a doting woman who managed the house and looked after the children.

“Maintaining the home was part of my day and part of my identity,” said Ms. McIntyre, who was also a part-time bookkeeper at the time of the accident in 2000.

“It’s hard on me as a mother and as a wife, both mentally and physically, to no longer be able to do the things around the house that I used to do,” she said.