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

Yep. there is this trad wife push (coming from men and women who have unquestioningly swallowed it) who have invented a history where women were these little rarefied creatures who were looked after and they just HAD to go and get jobs and spoil it all.

Utter and total tosh.

There are dozens, hundreds probably, of history books detailing the fact that women have always worked for pay. The tiny minority lived like a sitcom mother, the rest got on with it in every stage of history, doing the majority of house work, child care AND working for pay.

Men throughout history have always had the option of beating, leaving or simply starving their families. Some didn't, many did, women always had to earn cold hard cash in the event he drank it, whored it, gambled it or just wouldn't hand it over.

The sort of work women have always done (for pay) changed region by region, culture by culture and era by era - just as it did for men.

And that's before you even start on the women who didn't get married, who were always a sizeable chunk of the population too.

Cool sexism.

This! When people say it’s not possible on one income they mean not possible with the specific lifestyle they want.

To me, feminism is about having the same choices and opportunities as men. So not about all women can choose if they want to be a SAHM or work but expect men to pay for everything. I am equally as much my little one's parent as is my husband, so just as much my responsibility to provide for her financially. Just as I expect my husband to do an equal share of housework and childcare.

Well said. Who wants to go back to that.

OP, it's just that some women are failing to see the real issue: to communicate very clearly to your husband/ male partner to get the finger out and do his part at home. It's non negotiable.

I think the trad wife nonsense on social media contributes to this.

It is presented as a very pretty wife; with lovely clothes and a beautiful home and photogenic well behaved children. The wife drinks water, bakes and occasionally picks up a sock. The husband smiles indulgently while paying all the bills.

most sensible people realise life isn’t like that for 99% of people. And it wasn’t like that in the 1970s or 1950s.

I’m living a far better life than my grandmother who was married off at 13 years old and cannot read or write and has always been at the mercy of her husband for provision. In fact , she was the one who pushed me most to go to medical school and become a doctor so I wouldn’t have to live like her

My point was you were wrong. You don’t have to be with the top 1% of men to be a SAHM. Many single income families are on far less than that.

And you are also incorrect about breadwinners. Plenty of families make the decision COLLECTIVELY to have one spouse focus on unpaid work and one paid because it suits the family better.

They are not “subsidising another person” only incels think that. They are collectively supporting the family.

Do you actually understand the difference between feminism and capitalism? Feminism gives women choice and equity. We don’t want to be treated the same as men but we do want our jobs to be protected while we are on maternity leave and to be paid the same as our male colleagues.

Capitalism means we all have to work to pay for ever more scarce resources owned by the ultra rich. Energy, water, food and housing have all gone up that’s not down to feminism but you can be sure it’s been exploited by the powers that be.

If you want to be angry at someone then be angry at the ultra rich. The CEO of Tesco has been paid over 9 million pounds last year. How does a CEO earn that much money while some
of his workers struggle to get by with minimum wages. It’s immoral and if any Tesco workers are on universal credit to get by then we as tax payers are subsidising those huge corporations. They get away with paying less because our tax money goes to supporting those workers make ends meet. Why can’t the workers be paid fairly in the first place and not exploited?

AI is another tool for capitalists. The huge investment from the US means we are about to have a large number of data centres being built in the UK with demand on U.K. energy and UK water. We don’t have enough water reservoirs in England and these data centres use drinking water to cool them. We’re a small country where are all these data centres going to go and we need housing more for our citizens. And those housing costs will continue to go up.

In many ways, I think the OP's comments reflect the tremendous success of feminism. So many of the hard won rights and freedoms secured with such difficulty by earlier generations of women are now taken so much for granted that some younger women don't even have any idea what they owe to the feminist movement. So they are free to lament the fact that they no longer have the freedom to be ladies who lunch without having to give a second thought to what life was actually like for the majority of women before the advent of feminism. They look back on a bygone era with a rose-tinted perspective that makes them utterly oblivious to why women had to fight so hard to secure the rights that we consider to be normal and natural today.

I was fortunate to have a mum and grandmothers who were proud to give me the encouragement and opportunities they didn't have. We have it SO much easier than previous generations. We can own our own homes (without a husband let alone without the consent of one), we can have professional careers we enjoy, we can pay someone else to do the cleaning etc, we have so much freedom to go out and explore the world and enjoy life. We now live in a world where we can choose a man/woman/other because we want them, not because of financial necessity and that has got to be better for both parties.

Having listened to countless women's stories in care homes we definitely don't have it worse off today. It's horrific how common abuse was and feeling they had to accept it because of stigma about divorce and being financially dependent.
The stories of the men who left aren't much better, horribly struggling to raise families in poverty.
Sadly in the beginning stages of dementia it seems like some hard and distant memories become a clearer focus whilst recent memories slip away more.

None of my ancestors was "owned" whether they worked or not 🤷‍♀️

Most men back in the 50s-70s worked very long hours and spent pretty much all their money on their family. It was hard for everyone, but I think women were more empowered then than now.

Could I ask you to elaborate on this point please? As there are many reasons why I would disagree (women being unable to access their own contraception without a husbands signature, women being unable to open their own line of credit, marital rate not being recognised as a crime until 1995 for example) I'd be interested to see which ways women had more freedom or choice in the 50's-70's.

Thats not everyone's experience though. My mam was born in 1926, she left school at 12 to take care of her ailing aunt. When her aunt died she did a secretarial course and got a job she loved. She married at 20, had to leave the job (that was the rule) and had a baby every year until my father died. She had no mortgage because they couldn't afford one, they rented a tiny council house, they never had a penny to spare despite my dad working long hours. There was no pension, no retirement, no house on the coast. My dd is 20, is in college and likely has a brilliant career ahead of her. Maybe she will marry, maybe she won't, maybe she will struggle to buy a house, who knows, but her future is in her own hands.

That's ok I cant keep up with the 50 000 different ways people define feminism so I dont get it either

But what you consider “average” is actually massively affluent. Back in the “good old days” you’re talking about people didn’t really eat out ( maybe as a special treat a couple of times a year), they wouldn’t have had 2 cars, or holidays ( maybe a week camping in the uk), or phones, streaming services, Amazon prime or frequent primary hauls. I’ve sas smaller and more constrained.

Plus all the other stuff amount men owning us and having no autonomy, for example my mum was 19 years old, living independently and her brother had to sing for her moped because as a women she couldn’t have credit in her own name. Life may be hard (it always was) but at least we are no longer voiceless chattels.

Sorry - I have read your post three times and still don’t understand it! Must be passed my bedtime🤣

But is appears women are only useful to care for the home and children, then grandchildren but also men are to work to financially pay for it all and have to equally care for children and the home where women dont have to work and only do half of it

seems like the dark ages to me

I agree OP that women have it tough but I don't agree they have it harder relative to earlier generations. The difference is of reality v expectation. I was raised by a feminist mother and grandmother who told me how lucky I was to be educated and how I could have it all. They had never really contemplated a different life to the one they had until times changed and they saw a different future for me. It turns out it was all bollocks, I absolutely couldn't have it all without doing it all. I realise now that their version of feminism was predicated on a class system, they envisaged me having a glittering career marrying a wealthy man all with the support of a low paid childminder and housekeeper. It never occurred to them how feminism looked to the childminder or the housekeeper.

And let's not forget that it remained legal for a man to force his wife to have sex until 1991. OP might even have been born by then.

my grandmother was super intelligent, but left school at 14.

i often think of the huge waste - all those super sharp women who could lead companies, lead countries, make scientific break throughs, make huge contributions to the economy and society just sitting at home.

they had children in their early twenties and were often empty nesters in their forties. Years stretching ahead. No options.

This line may excuse the first child born, in general not saying you, but if a man is so useless why keep on having them?

I have a problem with the idea that "feminism is about choice" - as if it were a movement started to afford extra privilege to women.

I see it as being a movement of equality - women should have the same opportunities as men. Feminism hasn't "made" women work (if we must have an ism for that, try capitalism!), but has ensured where we do work we are paid and at a more equal rate.

I would personally much rather live now with my life, I think I am much freer than women historically. I don't always love the commute or office politics, and the juggling of home and work can be a challenge - but financial independence is an exceptional privilege and one denied to a lot of women previously.

How would I know what he would be like as a father before he became a father??? Why is it my fault he doesn’t pull his weight???