How have things improved in the past 20 years?

I think Sport is much better for women (as a total outsider!).

In the UK at least I have seen a massive shift in the amount of coverage of female sport and the style of the coverage. Watching the winter olympics, there is no suggestion that the women's competitions are a side-show / filler while we wait for the men to do something. The language used about them is about their sports prowess, words like bravery, strength, skill, determination. The 2 main commentators are women, and the pundits are often women as well. Across sport in general, women are now attracting more sponsorship, they are becoming as big stars as their male counterparts.

So there is TV time, interest, coverage, fame and MONEY.

And all of a sudden, another group of people are interested in competing in this arena...

I think that the success of women's sport in recent years is the REASON we are getting "TIMs" wanting to compete. Why should women have that stuff, epecially in sport, which is a man's domain.

London recently, read an article pointing out the head of 3 main services - fire, ambulance, police, all women.

We have had more than 1 female PM (whatever you think of them) which is little in the scheme of things but still many countries have NEVER had this. Scotland has Nicola Sturgeon of course and generally when you see debates for Scottish / Welsh elections there are women prominent.

Well I mean improved quality of contraception and an improved response to sexual violence and harassment sting to mind but sure football...

UK rape law is one of the strictest in the world.

i didn't know that before various things happened in other european countries and I realised that many still include force in the definition, many are not consent based.

Ours is actually VERY progressive.

Now I've not read every law in the world and this was a while ago so if it's no longer the case then please do post - this was what I thought when I looked into it ?3 years or so ago though.

Other things that have improved (I go through a lot of gloom about this often so it's good to try to think of better things!):

Laws changing around the world making it better for women and children - laws around age of consent, sexual assault, age of marriage, DV and so on. FGM laws.
Now while a lot of this still goes on everywhere the statement from legislators that it is NOT acceptable, helps to drive the slower social change.

#metoo and all the historic sexual abuse convictions - things that weren't talked about , swept under the carpet, victims silenced ignored not believed. This coming out into the daylight and in some cases men being convicted is good. The idea that "good" men in high positions are well capable of being sexual predators and exploiting their position is well embedded in the public conscious now. Priests, boarding schools, sports coaches, celebrities, charity workers etc, hopefully we are now on a path where the abusive ones have nowhere to hide and their opportunities to abuse are severely limited.

Of course there is loads of awful going on but I'm not going to list it in an attempt to be more upbeat!

Riverside - I get your point..... It is unimaginable and hugely shocking that women in Switzerland didn't get to vote until 1971 BUT what is uplifting is how things since then have changed here and how women pulled together, crawled out of the kitchens and made a stand for something that some people really believed that by the law of God they didn't have the right to. People felt very threatened by the idea of women voting . It is now absolutely unimaginable for us - which is uplifting.
A bit of background - Switzerland is a true democracy (today) where everyone gets to vote on any changes in the law. Giving women the vote was put forward to be voted on several times before it was finally accepted. It was a huge thing. Every Swiss man got to cast there vote to make this decision for women. Unimaginable today so yes uplifting how far things have improved.

It’s all about to go to actual shit legally, though, isn’t it.

Utter lunacy, with the inmates running every facet of the asylum. Legally, with the full force of the law behind them, and our voices as women completely silenced.

Oh and 20 years ago there wasn’t a female director in my sector - now they’re pretty much normal.

I think a lot has improved legally. But a lot has got worse socially.

Maternity and paternity leave legislation is a great thing imo. But attitudes in many areas need to catch up.

It’s tenpting to think pay gap etc is awful but at least now we’re talking about it and most people say equal pay is a good thing.

I suspect it's pretty similar for a lot of black people. On the surface things are profoundly better. But all you need are the right triggers and it comes up out of the woodwork.

I don't think that things have improved at all to be honest. I think things are worse. There are so many backward steps being taken. I think a lot of people have become better at hiding their misogyny, but you don't have to probe very far below the surface to find it.

Interesting, Riverside. In my experience the attitudes are the opposite.
I have a lot of child free friends in the 35 - 45 range and haven't heard negative comments, nor have they mentioned any.
Yet my parent's generation, their single or childless friends were invariably pitied, referred to as spinsters, left on the shelf, etc.
I would put that down as something which has improved.

Todayissunny - how you can feel "uplifted" by women getting the vote so late in Switzerland is beyond me!

The UK were held back in women's suffrage by many bizarre reasons - that Switzerland didn't get there till 1971 has boggled my brain a bit!

As a childfree woman, I'd say nothing has improved in 20 years.

in fact, to some extent I'd say things have got worse.

Interestingly, my parents have some childfree single friends (women) in their 60s and 70s and they agree that women choosing this in my generation (I'm 42) are seen as odd and wrong whereas their generation was seen as making a choice that was natural in the context of freedom from being legally bound to men and stuck with no contraception.

In the workplace, I think there are much higher standards of appearance placed on women now - but no pressure on men.

Pressure on women to be "hot" has only got more pronounced, I think, and Snapchat culture hasn't helped.
Girls' and boys' toys and clothes seem to have become more differentiated, with even little babies dressed completely differently.
The pressure on women to have a particular look is heavily influenced by porn. 'Celebrity' culture e.g. Kim Kardashian. A looks obsessed society which causes so much misery.

It depends where you are. In some countries it has definitely got worse and most definitely not better - thinking about violence and abuse of women. countries where women have no rights as humans equal to men. Not allowed to vote, drive, choose how they dress who they marry, forcing a woman to marry her rapist. Trafficking. 'honour' killings..... Not to mention backtracking on LGB rights.
I also find it disturbing that so many young women strive to have faces and bodies like the botoxed, silicon filled women that are called 'celebrities'. And the creeping impact of porn....

However I felt very uplifted by a recently made film I watched this week about the women getting the vote in Switzerland. This happened in 1971 (OK, a bit more than 20 years ago and a bit before me), in 1981 women in Switzerland were recognised as equal. It was not before 1991 that the last Canton accepted women to vote in local elections.

The film showed the huge changes that have happened here in the last 40 years. Here in Switzerland women are in many, many ways still not treated as equals to men but in Switzerland's own sure and steady way things are improving.

I am past rage.

All I feel now is complete and utter heartbreak.

The world has defeated me. I feel a failure for having had children, and specifically daughters.

Good things:
Men are much nicer than they used to be, I think: more empathetic, less cross, and better at having female friends and colleagues.
When I was at school you couldn't come out as gay. You could barely even acknowledge being gay existed.
Bad things:
Pressure on women to be "hot" has only got more pronounced, I think, and Snapchat culture hasn't helped.
Girls' and boys' toys and clothes seem to have become more differentiated, with even little babies dressed completely differently.

A lot has improved for white, middle class women. Jobs, economic factors, attitudes. My sister is a high earning professional, single parent, dating various people. That would have been very frowned upon twenty years ago.

Women at the lower end of the economic scale are much worse off. Access to further education is now for those able to afford it, mothers are expected to work but not socialised (is that what I mean?) to earn much, all while still doing all the childcare and housework.

The rise of internet porn has had a dreadful effect, teenagers taking their first forays into sex are now expected to do anal, deep throat, choking.

Young lesbians are being transed. And girls in schools (and adult women) are being told to budge up to make room for boys who feel like girls.

We are being diminished, and it’s happened gradually and insidiously. And things that feel like a ‘win’ (#MeToo etc) really aren’t if you think about it. They just mean that for twenty years and more all this shit has been going on unchallenged.

I think back 20 years, I was 18 and full of hope for what the future held. And now I’m just full of rage.

Men actually getting picked up on the sexist things they say and do in workplaces, at least in many workplaces.
Many more women in senior roles and boardrooms.
Senior chief police, directors of councils, companies, health authorities, etc.
Lots of backwards moves too.

That's great about Nottingham police force though. Let's hope they have sufficient resources to really make a difference.

I'm not sure things have improved. More women are working outside of the home but are still doing more of the housework and childcare. Childcare costs are through the roof.

Porn has been a disaster in terms of influencing young men's attitudes to women. I think misogyny is worse in some ways now than when I was working in an office twenty years ago (although it was in a largely female industry so maybe my impressions are wrong).

On average two woman are killed by their partner or ex partner per week (an outrageous statistic - why are we happy to let this be the status quo?)

Overall, there seems to be a more adversarial and polarised relationship between men and women and less of a sense of being on the same team.

I agree it's better in some ways.

I just think the underlying hatred of women hasn't changed (by men or women).

For every single "Yes, this should be protected or promoted" thing, there just seems to have been something to take its place or someone who's subverted it into "what about the men?"

The recent transactivist movement is one example of this, where some people are undoubtedly desperate to fit in, but others are just troublemaking by attacking women's sports, scholarships, refuges and healthcare.

Porn is a huge, huge problem and I don't think we as a society even know the issues it is causing.

I think porn and the expectations on women as to what sex acts are normal/expected is a fucking disaster.

I dont think women's rights have progressed.
20 years ago single parents were demonised. If they tried to go to the job centre they were told they were taking a job away from someone who really needed it.
Today they are demonized if they dont work.