Feminism sold a lie - Women, today, are worse off than ever

I have zero idea what you’re talking about.

working class women have always worked. It’s simply not been possible to carry an adult of working age for generations in my family and, frankly, the majority of others. My great-grandmother was still working in a hospital canteen when she died at 80, as she had down through the years she gave birth to her five children.

The concept of women staying home with children is a relatively new one - couple of hundred years old, arising from the emerging middle class, and never ever about women or children but simply a sign of status for middle class men.

What is different compared to the generations of women in my family who have worked whilst raising children is that unlike many of them, I can own property, get a credit card, and go to the police if my husband sexually assaults me.

Women who’d go back in time based on some nonsense trad wife TikTok or whatever it is they’ve been watching are fools.

But raising children is important for society- albeit a choice. I wonder how long it will be before governments start to encourage more childbearing due to the complete decline in birth rates.

@ObelixtheGaul its the fairy tale work of a minority of lucky and well off women. Working class or rural women had a really hard life (or women with abusive husbands - not that rate)

There's one helluva lot of nostalgia for an age that never existed going on on this thread isn't there?

Working class women have always worked. Either with their husbands on farms/in small businesses or later in factories as well. There wasn't a golden time where women didn't go out to work. Additionally, those who worked in the home did much harder physical labour without hoovers, washing machines etc etc.

The magical pre-feminist past you are dreaming of never existed. What did exist was women trapped in abusive or miserable marriages because divorce didn't exist and then was seen as shameful.

I do agree with you in that if both are working the same hours, then logically both should share the unpaid work required to run a home and raise children. It is patently unfair if this is not the case.

My mother worked. My grandmother worked. My great aunt at 6 years old was alone at home responsible for little siblings while her brother went to school. That was the reality of many!

The following seems to be a constant, no matter the year or the subject: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Bollocks. I’m well educated, good job, good earning power, freedom, I can leave my husband if I want to with my own bank account and opportunity to buy a house. All my own choice. I can vote.
I wouldn’t want to have been in the position of any woman without the freedom to choose.

@zov, none of the women in my family from generations ago didn't have to worry about bills and mortgage payments. You honestly thing that because somebody else is covering it, it isn't a worry? Only if your husband earned a substantial wage.

All of the women in my family worked. None of them were rich enough to sit on their arses. You think my mother didn't have to worry about the arsehole boss who could LEGALLY fire her if her child was sick and she gave that as a reason for not coming in?

You think my grandmother never worried about paying the rent and bills when grandad was down the pub drinking his earnings? Bloody good job she worked because they'd have been homeless if she hadn't.

Honestly, I am so over people thinking they are the first generation of women to have to fucking work.

Famously, my own generation (x) were known as the 'latchkey veneration' because most of our boomer mothers worked. And they didn't all have grandma and grandpa down the road, my mother certainly didn't, which is why I was a latchkey kid myself.

Childcare? What was that? Didn't exist for a lot of mums, it was the teenager down the road, the neighbour or our older siblings. The government certainly wasn't coughing for it. We were very lucky our school had a nursery. Most didn't.

Our mothers worked. Our grandmothers worked. My grandmother still worked in her 70s. If yours didn't, you had a privilege that certainly wasn't everyone's.

Sounds like you under-estimate how much commitment it takes to sustain a marriage for over 20 years- you both have a great deal to be proud of IMO.

I had no template of a good marriage and stability myself, I come from a family with all sorts of really awful issues, so I am perhaps prouder than most of what my husband and I have achieved together, I don’t take it for granted. When you come from chaos you appreciate stability, companionship, loyalty, truth and teamwork.

Yes - there are difficult choices to be made! I'm still very employable at 54 because of shortages in my field, and I was lucky to walk back into a job on the same salary grade after 18 years of doing very part-time and piecemeal work. But... my pension is looking very meagre!

I agree also. This is an area that I’m actually very passionate about as I feel it has a massive impact/benefit for the good of society - the importance of attachment and child development. I’m sorry to those who haven’t been able to spend more time with their children, but that shouldn’t continue, I’d lobby personally to change that for the better!

I agree. I am more than happy to contribute tax so that women can have decent paid maternity leave.

Quite. I’ll agree on that. I think we must be realistic.

Absolutely, there is an element of luck. As with most things in life. Feminism was never going to be able to eradicate that, but it has at least given women options.

Why wouldn’t you be happy to do that, just because you weren’t able to?

It’s difficult tho. I prioritised my career so that I could have independence and security (also if my DH were to be ill/disabled/die) sorry to be morbid.. but I now face fertility issues. I think it is difficult for women to select a partner within such a small window, and yes, a lot of it is down to luck. Hopefully I’ll be able to have children, but at least I have my degrees and my career. Very difficult to have it all. Definitely think there are many lucky ones out there…

Yes add to this being beaten by your husband
No-one batted an eyelid
It was,always the woman's fault.
No thanks

I went back to work when DD was 6 weeks old, because in the 90s -

”Women were legally entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave, and only some qualified for Statutory Maternity Pay (around six weeks at 90 % of earnings, then 12 weeks at a flat rate that was barely £50 a week). Many employers offered nothing extra, so plenty of mothers went back within three to four months, sometimes sooner”.

I looked at my DD as she napped. I was skint and I called work and said can I come back?

That would be considered cruel by mums now days, but DD is well adjusted and we have a brilliant relationship.

My millennial niece said to me the other day “I
am happy to pay my taxes for new mums stay at home with their babies for a year”.

My reply “I’m not!”

Thank you @Ubertomusic

It's a Marxist concept many scholars disagree with, I think it was coined by Ernest Mandel but I haven't read him. I mostly read Habermas, he's been writing on the current crisis for decades, The Decline of the Welfare State, The Divided West, The Crisis of the European Union etc. He's a respected academic scholar.
Wallerstein also wrote on this.

It's not superiority. A good part of it is luck - even if you think you're choosimg wisely, some men definitely manage to act like good ones until having children. But I was just saying not all men are lazy arses who don't share the load. And yes, being employable and earning your own money is important!

Yes, I agree. I would like to continue to see improvements for all women! I follow the charity Pregnant Then Screwed. Fantastic example of a modern feminist charity that has fought for more rights for working mothers etc

Of course! But that's kind of the whole point that the feminists on the thread have been making. Nobody is saying that we've cracked it yet. We're merely saying that the solution to the problems faced by women now is not to go back to an imaginary era when things were supposedly easier, because the reality is that things were a whole lot harder.

By all means, keep on pushing to improve it, and I'll be right behind you.