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Original poster

Aaaaaaargh, I despair!

61 replies

duchesse · 18/09/2013 10:59

I am 45, went to university in 1987, and am utterly despairing that most of the women who were my contemporaries seem perfectly content even now, as Oxbridge educated women with often very high-flying careers, to do most of the gruntwork at home and make allowances for the fact their poor ickle menfolk can't possibly do that much at home!! I have one sole unique friend with whom I feel on the same wavelength about this- all the others seem stuck in a 1950s timewarp. What hope for their daughters?

OP posts:
MaggieMaggieMaggieMcGill · 18/09/2013 15:44

Being objectified every which way you turn...

curlew · 18/09/2013 15:44

And that's just in the UK.

curlew · 18/09/2013 15:43

Still nearly 2 women a week killed by domestic violence. More Etonians than women in the Cabinet. Page 3. Mary Beard. Women still doing the bulk of child care and housework. Threads every day on here about women feeing the need to keep the peace and be the appeasers in relationships. Girls toys and boys toys. Women over 40 invisible on TV. I could go on.........

SinisterSal · 18/09/2013 15:39

Well, they do more housework for a start, DropYourSword.

DropYourSword · 18/09/2013 15:09

Without meaning this to sound at all offensive Curlew, what is your perception of what life is like for women in 2013.

curlew · 18/09/2013 15:05

I often think that if I went back to the 1970s and told my teenage self what life would be like for women in 2013 I wouldn't believe myself. Or if I did, I would have just given up then and there. When I remember how optimistic and hopeful of the future I was then..........

DropYourSword · 18/09/2013 15:05

I didn't go to a fancy university and my partner was hoovering and mopping the floors when I came in from work today. Woohoo, there's hope yet.

UptoapointLordCopper · 18/09/2013 15:02

It says in delusions of gender that this is quite common with women - even the highflyers end up doing more housework. It is like women's identity is so much tied up with home-making that they feel guilty and they feel they have to compensate and they feel that doing that will somehow make up for their lack of "feminitiy", for daring to be successful. Something like that...

Keepithidden · 18/09/2013 14:19

What hope for their daughters?

It's a good question, I always thought that feminisms main weapon was education for women. If Oxbridge educated, successful career women are putting up with this kind of behaviour, why are they doing it? They must know that the arguments for putting up with it are rubbish, surely?

Maybe it's the wrong kind of education?

chocoluvva · 18/09/2013 13:59

But your post is really asking why well-educated women put up with it. (I assume).

Perhaps it's too much effort to explain/train. Perhaps the men in question claim that their partners choose to do more than their fair share because they have unnecessarily high standards of tidiness/cleanliness. Hmm Perhaps the women feel they can't have everything they hope for in a partner so they'll put up with it. Or that their partner would leave them if they pushed the issue.

It's depressing.

chocoluvva · 18/09/2013 12:17

Some men really seem to believe that they are too important to ever clean. IME.

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