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

@ObelixtheGaul Again, totally agree.
I've been married twice.
First husband was very wealthy as desperate for me to give up my "unimportant job - not a career" (primary teacher) and stay at home permanently to look after the kids and do all of the housework. My wages were insignificant and, moreover, "emasculated him." He also wanted full financial control and would sometimes take my purse out of my handbag if he felt I was buying anything more than the essentials.
I didn't give up my career which he didn't like and God did I need that income when I left with my two young sons and he'd changed the locks, literally within hours. I slowly built my life back up.
I'm now remarried to a man who works in social care (very, very proud of the work he does and the difference he makes). He has supported me every step of the way and we are absolutely a team. We share everything - rent, bills, childcare, housework and so on.
My husband absolutely respects and supports my feminist values and that is
strongly reflected within our marriage. I personally have not, and never will, put up with a partner who fails to do so, regardless of how rich he may be.

I think what's happening is that some young women are feeling overwhelmed, because as women have taken on more historically male roles and responsibilities, men have failed to reciprocate. There are two options, continue the fight, this time on the personal level to ensure the men in their lives step up, or surrender, and say, OK, feminism tried, but men are too strong for us, so we've lost.
When life feels challenging already due to other factors, it seems easier to wave the white flag and accept a benign dictatorship over an ongoing battle for freedom. Especially if you're too young to have experienced what life was really like under the dictatorship.

Amen to this. What worries me is the number of people so keen to place so much reliance on someone else. Women who have acknowledged the number of men who still don't do their share in the home, nevertheless trust these men to 'keep' them.

And don't seem remotely alarmed at the number of men supporting this idea of the little wifey at home. I mean, no alarm bells there, is there?

I absolutely could not agree with you more. I don't stand with the "Feminist, but only when it suits me" brigade, either.

Think is that u less house prices rose disproportional as a result of feminism then if women didn’t work you would still have the problem with house prices being unaffordable

because it’s not a case of women can’t afford to stay at home / it’s much broader than that - it’s not just women with young children who are struggling with house prices - it’s pensioners who rent, it’s young single people trying to find their way in the world and leave home -

feminism is bound to come under attack - firstly because living standards are falling so feminism seems less relevant - it’s not such a big problem as living standards and isn’t helping living standards ( history aside )

and secondly because falling living standards enable simplistic solutions to become popular and those tend to be right wing and it seems women are being sold a line that they can be cherished and cared for and won’t need to worry about these things any more if they would just ditch that pesky feminism

I would say the economic disadvantages have gone on for longer, yes, but there were peaks and troughs withing my generation (x). I bought at a stable time in 1997 when it was easier to get a mortgage on low wages, etc, BUT...my sister, 5 years my senior, got caught in the negative equity trap of the boom and bust eighties/early nineties where fluctuations were massive.

I also know people who fell into the endowment trap, reached what should have been the end of their mortgage term and found they still owed a lot of money.

What I don't think younger generations appreciate about the housing market is that in actual fact, one of the causes of the boom and bust eighties and irresponsible lending on the part of the banks was Thatcher's drive to make the UK a nation of homeowners, because, in fact, prior to the eighties, far more people rented.

It wasn't as expensive to rent, though, in relative terms, I still appreciate my own first rented flat aged 18 on minimum wage on my own and know I couldn't do that now. Then again, my flat had no heating, single glazed windows, and a serious mould problem. I still loved it, though.

But how is this really linked to feminism? If the answer is that feminism has resulted in more women earning more because of greater access to higher paid careers, etc, which has then pushed the economy into an expectation of double income households, the solution is frightening, isn't it?

Bump women back down the ladder. And the trouble is, there are people who'd like to see that happen.

And I think that's what the OP is missing. Laying all, or even some of the economic problems of today at the door of a movement that massively widened women's options beyond their front door has far reaching consequences.

It's one thing to lament the COL crisis making it hard for women and look at how to change that. It's another thing entirely to point at 'feminism', which so many on this thread seem to forget has resulted in us being able to vote, have our own bank accounts, expect to be paid the same as a man for doing the same job, etc, as being a primary or even secondary 'cause' of a current problem.

The potential to lose everything we've gained (and despite what some think, we HAVE gained a lot) is what terrified me about this view.

There is, as I have said before, a lot of nostalgia for an age that never existed and a genuine lack of understanding of how bad it would be to close doors that had been opened.

Exactly. Feminism has never been a promise of infinite wealth and unlimited, consequence-free choices.

It's a fight to be treated as full humans, standing on an equal legal and social footing with men. Men don't have a life free from financial contraints and difficult choices, so nor will fully liberated women.

Women’s rights haven’t exactly soared in Russia or China if we want to look at other economic systems

but this emphasis on money is also undermining what feminism is about. Never in history has the whole population been wealthy enough to live the life they want to lead - in the past because you had to spend all your time getting food - technology has just changed how the time is spent trying to survive

it’s a very spoilt attitude - look around the world and accept we are incredibly lucky that our maternal death rates are low, women can escape abuse and have financial control, we can feed our kids and educate them, we don’t have to worry about infant mortality rates as we had 150 years ago

I do think there is a strong tie between capitalism ( or at least how it is expressed in modern society ) and patriarchy and it’s not just based on women’s free labour

the prioritisation of money over people and planet , the greater rewards for jobs that generate money ( fancy trading algorithms) as opposed to jobs that invent new medicines - I don’t think capitalism would appear in that form if it was less patriarchal

because I think the whole childbirth business gives women a deeper insight into the human condition. And a greater respect for life - people who create / grow the humans are less likely to treat them like shit ?

Straying into differences between men and women but at least bedded in the biological experience

I'm not unsympathetic to an anti capitalist stance. And I understand capitalism from a feminist perspective, ie, the harms disproportionately caused to women by capitalism. Although i do feel the 'unpaid labour to support capitalism' argument is more appropriate when applied to women in the domestic sphere than women working in the workplace, who are of course, paid. It's also not an argument that applies only to capitalist societies. Women's labour is harnessed in every societal model.
However, that's not what I was asking. You've agreed with the OP that feminism has 'sold a lie'. You have then spoken of ways women today are disadvantaged due to economic and capitalist factors. So I'm still struggling to understand why you feel its feminism that has sold the lie or disadvantaged women in any other regard?
You seem to be coming at it backwards and rather than conducting a feminist analysis of capitalism (an in the piece above) you're trying to conduct a capitalist analysis of feminism, and that's not really a thing?

At no point in the history of mankind has the average mother devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her offspring for at least three years to the exclusion of anything else. Women have always worked at something to help their family survive, whether that was spinning wool to make clothes and grinding seeds to make bread or being CEO of a multinational. A tiny proportion of wealthy women in the last century or so have had access to enough economic resource and labour saving gadgets that they could be a sahm rather than working in or outside the home and suddenly that’s the gold standard for being a mother? You never had the choice to be a rich wife and mother and feminism can’t give you that I’m afraid 😁 it has given you the choice to have dc on your own and the option to be able to earn your own money and spend it how you wish though.

This. Goodness.

Women in most European countries couldn’t have their own bank account or get a mortgage by themselves until the 70s. The reason why women stayed in unhappy marriages was not just societal.

Citing men not being able to support a family alone (sexism?) being the reason the poor women have to work is, as you know if you think about it, absurd. There’s levels of cognitive dissonance here which are off the charts.

Your lives are demonstrably better. If you are working hard in a job instead of being at home then that on some level is a result of the choices you’ve made. The existence of those choices is a result of feminism. I’d be grateful if I were you. I know I am.

The assumption that feminists control the economy is quite sweet. And very daft. I wish!

Yes I agree with you. I think there’s a confusion surrounding what feminism is (and isn’t) and people are confusing it with capitalism. Totally with you that we need to regulate these billionaire companies many of which are flouncing tax and exploiting workers. It’s really pissing me off now, and we don’t get a great service. It’s going in the pocket of CEOs bonuses.

Your post brings out all the arguments in favour of more feminism, not less.
I don't think capitalism as such is the main issue either, I think healthy market competition is a great driver for prosperity, but today's total failure to regulate the largest corporations is killing competition and business itself. Failing to rein in billionaires is tragic (and getting worse as they manipulate politics in their favour).

Of course, and that is also wrong. I’ve always maintained that any family should have the option to afford a SAHP, especially prior to starting school. There are massive wider issues with housing prices, food prices, energy bills, petrol, of course. Many women are definitely worse off now because they don’t have the choice to stay at home. Just as in the past they were often prevented from working. Progress is an illusion.

I agree with that, think that’s a very good idea. When I hear of women going back to work so soon after giving birth, I find it heart breaking.

Yes, I actually think a 3 year maternity period should be the norm, instead of the government ploughing tax payer money into free hours, which is not best for children. Germany has far better awareness of the importance of this.

Babies/toddlers have genuine needs, grown adults should care more about those than their own wants and convenience.

most families don’t have a choice though due to finances, they are forced to go back to work. It’s sad.

I agree with you at @ThankYouNigel so what else do you propose? Longer maternity leave / pay?!

We really need more education and awareness about how damaging placing under 3s in nurseries for long hours is. It is far from ideal, Under 3s actually need to form a secure attachment to their mother, not ‘socialise.’ Many mothers wouldn’t use them if they are free, I certainly wouldn’t have done.

Babies/toddlers have genuine needs, grown adults should care more about those than their own wants and convenience.

Countries where feminism doesn’t exist are available. You can belong to a man, have zero freedom, not work etc. No issue!.
but that’s not what we op wants. She wants to be rich, in the western world, and lead a life of leisure. Don’t we all….
Please don’t confuse your desire to be a rich lady of leisure with not liking feminism.

Yes, it is terrible being considered a whole legal person. Holding property in my own name. Having a job, and financial freedom to make my own decisions separate from what my husband wants.

Feminism was definitely a mistake.

Just how fucking STUPID are you?

Obviously your family is very lucky… this isn’t the case for a lot of women unfortunately and finding a male partner like this can be down to luck as well. I would be careful to put the blame on the woman. I think men need to step up, but I’m not sure how we encourage that.