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

@ConservativeC2 You're correct that too much is placed on women today.

Raising children whilst exhausted from work is not ideal.

However, it is totally specious, over-simplistic, and naïve to say that women used to have it better.

We were property of men. We gradually gained the right to own property, have credit etc. up until 1991 in England if a man forced himself on his spouse this was not considered rape, because she was his property.

A woman could not leave an abusive situation if she could not work.

Do you believe only men should have the right to work?

I think you meant well with this but again, just because things aren't perfect now, does not mean we were better off when we were not autonomous beings.

I'm a single mother. I'm a single mother by choice! I would have been institutionalised and my children removed had this been decades ago.

I think that your generation don’t remember women not being able to open bank accounts or take mortgages in their own names, when their pay (if they were allowed to work) went into their husbands accounts, when women would rather suffer the trauma of domestic abuse that face the stigma of divorce (and be unabe to leave anyway for the aforementioned reasons). At the risk of sounding patronising, millennials have no idea how far we’ve come. Perhaps schools need to teach this along side black history and cultural studies.

That said, I do fear we may have become complacent. Not just over women’s rights but LGB rights - to some extent I feel we fell asleep at the wheel. We thought both demographics has equal standing in family courts over distribution of assets after divorce and access to children, and in the work place. Women and LGB people were now protected in all the spheres - but rights are like any other civic asset - they need maintenance and surveillance and continued investment or they crumble and erode. I think millennials are seeing - and experiencing - that erosion. The fact that women are expected to work, but childcare is extortionate and it is still the woman who is expected to compromise on her career/working hours/income, for example. The fact that women living in certain communities cannot expect the rights and protections we take for granted (see recent news articles that explains that 60% of muslim women are only married under Sharia laws that have no legal standing in the UK, for example).

So no, I don’t think feminism sold us a lie, but I do think what it has achieved is more fragile than we realised and that we should never have taken our eyes off the road. Now that I have DCs aged 17 and 20, I have woken up. We need government, parliament and employers to wake up too.

Yes they were.
Women were the property of their fathers then husbands. Queen Victoria was not allowed to live in her own palace without her mother after her father's death and being crowned queen until she was married due to the laws at the time.
Let that sink in before feminism even the queen of the British empire was her parents and husbands property!
So yes everyone single one of your female forbarers were property until the last 40-50 years!

Maybe that needs to happen.

OP please come back and tell us which rights you’d like to take away from women? That’s fundamentally what you’re saying is the problem - so just name one removal of women’s rights that would help you? And how.

I’m 62.

Ive always had to work. Couldn’t afford to run a household on one wage ever.

i think it's a mixed bag, OP.

But a large part of the issue for "progressive" seeming ideas and groups is just that - they tend to be thinking about new laws, policies, ways of doing things, as a largely linear line. So you make progress, or sometimes go back, on the line. Things get better or worse. Maybe better in one area and worse in another but those are independent of each other.

The reality is that new ways of doing things, customs, and laws, are mainly about a series of trade offs. Often (not always) the reason for doing things a certain way is down to which trade offs seem most important. The idea of mothers being able to largly stay home and take care of kids and domestic duties was aspirational. Some women had to work (although often in more domestic types of roles) but it was seen as hard on them, hard on their kids. Awful for a poor woman with bad periods or pregnant to be working in the factory rather than taking care of her children who were then suffering from neglect (or also working.) It made more sense for men to be the main wage earner and that was a better arrangement in many ways.

But in other ways it did leave women vulnerable - and more so if divorce is easy and men aren't obliged to support a wife they abandon or divorce. So maybe women need a wage, to go out and work?

But that has downsides too, like the explosion of house prices, the need to put kids in care.

It's all pros and cons. Technology changes the environment and the pros and cons as well. Make a change, and there will be unintended effects. Often we can't give people a free choice because a dominant model exerts its own pressures.

FWR Is the feminism board on Mumsnet. Basically Trans Ideology is the modern version of the patriarchy on steroids. Males are redefining women, and exposing their (often semi-erect) penis in womens changing rooms. This, is what Gender Ideology has led to. You really need to educate yourself on it.

This is not about men being 'terrified' of periods, this is about men not giving women PRIVACY during our periods! A nurse had a massive perimenstrual flood of a male dictated that he be present when he changed her blood-stained uniform in the ladies.

Girl in schools are mocked by boys and not given any privacy and boys kick the sanitary bins over. So this is about the need for women and girls to have privacy and dignity during our period away from males, not their 'fear' of it, but rather our fear of them seeing us at our most vulnerable. You really, really need to read up on what's going on. Because the female sex has the right to safety, dignity and privacy away from males. When in the toilet or when getting undressed.

Thank you - makes sense. It’s true that most of us spend money on crap that doesn’t really enhance our lives, and in fact detracts from our lives as we have to work more and be more stressed about money as a result.

I said in my life!and apologies I don’t know what FWR means. I’m not going to get into the transgender debate as I would imagine we have very different opinions on that (my opinion is shared by everyone I know but I am in the minority on MN)

But aside from the single sex toilet issue you have posted (which again is not the norm at all where I am from or in any of my wider circles across England - I’m don’t know any one who lives in Scotland), some of what you describe has been happening for years regarding periods. My father and grandfathers generation were terrified of them and they were always a secret.

and of course I’m technically sheltered and my experience can only come from my own experiences.

the articles you have provided are 100% not the norm for my city and for anyone I know.

when we see articles such as the above they are ‘news’ because this is not the expected or somewhat excepted ‘norm’

If you choose to put up with a an excuse of a lump of a man who doesn’t contribute and value the work, care and thought that goes into having a functional life for all of your family, regardless of how work, parenting, domestic and financial responsibilities are divided, that’s on you not feminism.

There have been amazing and dreadful men (and women) throughout the ages.

And some women trap themselves nowadays, you see it on posts here a lot, when people list the things in life a lovely home often comes before a great marriage or healthy kids. I get it, many stay for the lifestyle and then complain about their partners. It’s the modern day version of being trapped in a house you are seen as lesser. So you want the detached house, nice second car, then suck up the domestic and parenting jobs.

Feminism does work, if you make the wrong choice of partner, lifestyle, value choices that’s on you not feminism.

I would never want to beholden to a man over money. I'm happy to earn my own cash. I can spend what I want when I want.

We both do chores.

I think the past always looks "rosy" with hindsight but certainly wasnt! My Nan worked in the 1950s/1960s .I used to go to work with her(tea lady so I set out all the cups!).Her NDN showed my Nan a bad bruise on her arm ,Nan asked what happened, and she said quite casually Peter (her DH) did it! Obv DV still around now .But hopefully frowned on ,and women at least can work or/and get help.My DM worked through the 60s and was "part time" despite 9 to 4 days. Divorce frowned upon and women were seen to be not good wive s

This!

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/23350409.weston-secondary-school-pupils-protest-uni-sex-toilets

and

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/protests-erupt-at-british-schools-unisex-toilets-DWzSkc_2

There are numerous threads in FWR about girls not having female only single sex toilets at school, one atm in Scotland. Not to mention Nurse Sandy Peggie from Fife NHS being sacked for not wanting to share a changing room with a fully intact male Dr (transwoman) and the Darlington Nurses suing for the same reason, a transwoman (fully intact male) wearing holes in his boxers in the female change room exposing himself to the Nurses and asking them when they were going to get undressed. THEY were punished and given a cupboard to change in, HE had the female changeroom to himself.

You truly are very sheltered and have absolutely not one iota of an idea of what has been going on.

And mine, and all of my friends husbands too. That is what is expected. On here it seems to not be the norm which I always find incredibly sad and in my world strange.

The OP is rubbish. It is not feminism that has caused spiralling house prices and the cost of living. Neither has feminism forced men to accept comparatively lower wages in some occupations.

I was born in the 1960s when women had much fewer rights. I have been able to access contraception and abortion; been able to be financially independent of my father or my husband; been paid the same as men doing the same job and not have to put up with the overt sexism of earlier decades.

BTW when I was growing up, many people didn’t even have inside bathrooms, women worked and fewer families had cars. This was London in the 60s and 70s. OP is in cloud cuckoo land.

“Most men today do not earn enough to run a household which means most women have to work. The worst part is they still do a larger share of the domestic work and childcare.”

Why are women breaking their necks to do the larger share of the domestic work and childcare? A true feminist would expect their male partner (or female partner) to share the load.

That’s where you ‘not too old’ millennials need to start. Stop living through social media that idealise home making as some sort of life goal and model better equality to your children.

What an incredibly naive and privileged perspective. Poor women have alwaysworked outside the home, and working class families have always struggled to make ends meet.

I would also add ignorant. Poor women and minority women have always worked. Whenever they talk about women being housewives and sahm it was usually about middle-class and up white women.

I also agree with another poster that your DH doesn’t have to be in the 1% to be a sahm.

Let’s also not act as if being a sahm is for everyone or should be a standard if women don’t actually want to do it.

Have some never heard of “Mother’s Little Helpers”, housewives and sahm mothers taking pills to get through the day in the mid 1950s and continuing to rise when they were pushing that women should find fulfilment in being only housewives and stay at home mothers. The rise of tranquillisers, amphetamines, and other drugs that we now deem as dangerous and illegal became mainstream during those times.

Being a sahm can put women in a vulnerable position and being a sahm has higher risks of depression compared to employed/ working mothers.

Plenty of women who wanted to do it, find it is not as they thought or cracked up to be and go straight back to work when they can or if they can’t cope in unhealthy ways. They also feel guilty for not enjoying it like other sahm from what I read on different forums when it shouldn’t be something to feel guilty about.

Feminism gained choice, how is it feminism’s fault that it is not an option for everyone nor was it before.

11 pages in and the OP hasn't come back since page 2.

There is a trend on Mumsnet for posters to start anti feminism threads and then disappear into the ether.

Someone, somewhere is trying to drip feed us a diet of anti woman, anti feminist, trad wife, conservative woman type bilge.

It is heartening to see so many women pushing back on here.

There is also the fact that in my parents/ grandparents generation, working class famies, although they usually had a single wage, they also didn't expect to have money to spend on clothes, holidays, hobbies etc. We all expect to spend money on fun, and not just living. Also, possibly despite the rises in cost of living, and we actually spend a smaller proportion of our income on food than previously. Again because we all expect to have money to spend on what would historically have been luxuries.

We have achieved this by planning ahead from the moment we met in our early ‘20s. We waited 8 years, which was much longer than we wanted to, to have our first child, so during that time our monthly mortgage payments came down as my DH’s salary increased. We lock into the best mortgage deals available for 5 years, so unaffected by them going up. We chose to stay in our 3 bed end terrace rather than over extend ourselves paying for rooms we don’t need.

We run one car, both prefer walking anyway. We meal plan and cook from scratch, no waste. We take picnics and flasks everywhere all Summer, but we are together all Summer and there is loads of free outdoor stuff to do. We do eat out for family occasions, etc. Our children each do 2 paid extra curricular activities. I obviously stopped spending on non-essentials like eyelashes, nails, massages when I resigned, and have found a wonderful hairdresser who does all of our hair at our home. I’ve found it really easy, as the time I’ve gained with my children rendered so many things I actually used to waste money on utterly meaningless.

All the cost of living points you make OP are a separate issue. Feminism means we are definitely more empowered now than in the past . I find it extraordinary that you believe women were more empowered in the past.
I am divorced. During my divorce I had the same legal status as ex husband. I have the same rights to my children as ex husband does.
I bought a house by myself.I have my own bank accounts and can easily get loans.
I work and earn the same as a man or others of a different marital status.
I am not stigmatised by my single status or divorce at work or in my community.
The above would not have been possible for my grandmother at my age. The past was shit for women.

WTF this is the opposite of anything I have experienced, I have DDs and this is far from their experience too.

we are more empowered than ever we don’t and should put up with any of what you have mentioned and in my home, the kids school my work, we wouldn’t put up with anything you have described.

what you have described about periods and dehumanising words isn’t my experience at all. Not at work, school or in general life.

i agree there is a long way to go with misogyny and misogynistic words and toxic men and actions towards women. But we are taken more serious than ever (still a long way to go), by authorities and in the work place. We don’t tolerate being touched or spoken to in derogatory ways at work and schools.

periods are so much more in the open now and my Dads dong give a shit what boys think and most parents I know of boys teach their boys (as we do girls) from a young age about them. All the dads I know buy their wives and daughters sanitary products and aren’t bothered or embarrassed about this.

ive always had a women do my smear tests (I wouldn’t care if it was a man), but at my GP and hospital we can ask for a female nurse or doctor with ease and without bother.

im not sure if you are from the UK or where abouts in the UK but your experience is the polar opposite to mine.

@PomegranateVase and @ConservativeC2 - what are your information sources that you think feminism is about anything other than equality of women? And about women having the same importance, rights, freedoms, opportunities and chances as men? (And, btw, requires men to step up and pull their weight in the home). Why would any sensible person oppose that?

There are nasty, misogynistic men who think women are lesser beings and don’t like women being treated as equal. They don’t like feminism because it makes demands on men as well as women and demands equality for women. Why would you propogate their thinking?

Have you looked at the countries (huge parts of the world) where women are explicitly regarded as lesser beings? That is what feminism opposes.

Do you want to go back to times when married women had no rights at all; when married women couldn’t own their own property; when women couldn’t vote? Or in the last 50/60 years when domestic abuse was rife and there was no legal recourse against it? Men could rape their wives because married women had no legally recognised right to refuse their husband sex (marital rape was only recognised as a crime in 1991)? When it was legal to pay women less? When women could be excluded from jobs because they were of child-bearing age or sacked for veing pregnant? Surely you do not want that for yourselves?

Above all, feminism is about choice. If you want to be an SAHM and your partner supports that, that’s great. Other women will make different choices for themselves (i love being in paid employment and being financially independent). Feminism supports freedom of choice for all women. Why would you oppose that?