How have you seen things change for women during your lifetime ?

[HavefunGomadLivingInTheCity]

Been trying to fond some documentaries about life as a woman in the UK 100 to 150 years ago, not really found anything yet
Alot of things around the 70s

I never knew my maternal grandmother and paternal one didn't talk much
So I don't know much about my previous generations
Guess mothers day got me thinking

So have you seen any good documentaries about this..?

Or what things have you seen change

I'm late 40s and I remember when the law changed so you can't rape your wife, and I remember my mum saying it was nonsense

My mum worked full-time and did everything at home so think she got a pretty shit deal
But I see alot of friends and peers doing this
Certainly don't think things should go back or anything perhaps so much has changed and things are struggling to change at the same pace

Equal pay act, 1970s. Pill 1960s. Abortion rights 1960s.

Hey kitten may I ask how old you are roughly ?

Born in the 50s

So sad to see how abortion rights have gone backwards for many American women, I'm still in shock about that

When I was in 6th form in the mid 70s I wanted to study radio/radar engineering at college. I was told girls went to do secretarial studies at the college. Mum had my back and "persuaded them otherwise".
Things have certainly changed for the better.

I wasn't allowed to play football at school in the 80s and now the Lionesses are kicking arse.

I remember Tony Blair's 1997 government and all those women standing behind him.

I've seen up skirting become illegal. I've seen emotional abuse become illegal.

I've lived in Denmark for the last 20 years and have seen the law on rape change to consent rather than violence. I've seen emotional abuse and stalking become illegal. I've seen laws around paternity change to get fathers to stay at home with their DC. I've seen the right to abortion extended. But still 12 women a year die at the hands of a current or former partner. So there's still a way to go.

Wow good for your mum and you

Definitely. I remember being told as a child that if my father got in the house and started attacking my mum, then I was to tell the police that a strange man was attacking her, because they wouldn’t attend for a domestic. That was early 80s. Actually, it was pretty commonplace to see the eldest child in the family shepherding their siblings to sit outside. We all knew what was happening inside. Those kids would just be scooped up by another mum from the estate and fed with their own.

Lots of things have changed for the worse, as well.

Yes still along way to go, still a pay gap really and way too much violence but it's good sometimes to see what has improved

I'm so glad things i had to suck up as a teen like men being leechy all the time, you were always expected to laugh it off, and not hurt his feelings now that kinda behaviour is not acceptable anywhere near as much, esp in the workplace

Yes I remember that in the 80s too

What do you feel,has changed for the worse ?

When I started working in IT I was one of 2 women in a team of 30.

my team now is 50:50.

that’s in 30 years.

The Pill
It was rare for working class people to go to university.
The things that my mother couldn’t or didn’t do, I took for granted that I would. Driving, getting a degree, living with someone before marriage. Loads and loads of things.

The glass ceiling was very much there though and there was no child care unless you had family to help. No nurseries, no child minders.

im late 40s - seeing rights being enforced- equal pay claims including when women were doing equivalent jobs.

DA taken more seriously. Co ercive control recognised
More recently recognition of harassment and assault at work including police and armed forces

It being very clear that you do not ask at interviews (my mother was) how you would look after child if they were ill. Or did they plan on having a family?

Still a long way to go, but have come on.

My mother in law had to give up work in the 1940s because she got married. Apparently standard company policy at the time. And when she was a schoolgirl the girls were being taught to become housewives: Cooking, cleaning, sewing... "hours and hours of needlework."

When I gave birth to my first child in the UK I got 4 months maternity leave.

Just read this online, seems a bit doubtful to me
Women were allowed to go to university in the UK from the late 1860s

1975 married women were allowed to have bank accounts or take out loans without their husbands consent.

Yes that really does seeminhumane now

I started work in 1986 in the City of London. Women were permitted on the floor of the Stock Exchange, but weren’t permitted to wear trousers.

if I had been married, I would not have been permitted to file my own tax return. And it would not have been a crime for my husband to rape me

The man who bought my mums car in the late 70’s wouldn’t write a cheque out to her and my dad had to stop her from telling him where to go, as they really needed to sell that car. Mrs T was PM at the time.

All the girls in my sixth form in 1981 were advised to be secretary’s. The one who wanted to do law was to be a legal secretary, the one who wanted to be a doctor was advised to be a medical secretary and so on.

I was born in 1964. I was the in the last year at my school where girls were taught sewing and home economics whist the boys were taught metal work and wood work. There was no option to swap to a 'boy's course'.

Until 1982 a woman could still be refused service in a pub purely based on her sex.

During the period you mention improvements in domestic appliances changed women's lives hugely. For example, my grandmother never had a fridge and boiled her washing in a 'copper' in the kitchen, rugs were beaten on the line. When I was a child my mother did her washing in a twin tub that you had to stand over and used a carpet sweeper - during her life automatic washing machines and vacuums became common place. There's lots of information on this at https://museumofthehome.org.uk/

Not specifically about women OP, but this series describes what domestic life was like for women in the 1900s really well. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-1900-house

Also heaps of information here https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/

Born 1988.

I'm in a group of friends with a high uptake of SPL. Each of us doesn't know anyone else whose done it, but all seven of us have.

I find massively different attitudes to maternity leave from those who had their kids pre/post modern allowances. A lot of women who didn't benefit from the entitlement seem to have harsh attitudes to women who have benefited from it.

When I started secondary school in 1970 the boys did woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing and the girls did home economics. We weren't given the choice.

I was at school in the 80s. I had to make a stand to take woodwork over home economics (cooking classes), it was considered rebellious. Careers advice for me was to be a florist - work in a flower shop. I was bright and ignored that. I did a degree (non law) then later qualified as a barrister. What has changed is that for the most part there isn’t an assumption that the best that women should aim for these days is to be a shop worker, secretary or housewife. Had I listened to careers advice at my school I would be tying bouquets while male classmates grabbed the top earning jobs. Incidentally I would have been a great florist I’m sure and I’m not being snooty, it’s an honest living, I’m just a bit salty that the lads got careers advice for jobs that earned better and I was written off as a girl who didn’t deserve to have a shot at a ‘big’ career.

When I got engaged in 1971, I had to produce my fiancé before GP would give me the pill.

When we decided to have a new kitchen fitted in 1975, the guy who came to quote wouldn't let me sign the contract (even though I was actually paying for it) - 'Better wait until hubby gets home to sign'.

When I decided to go back to work in 1987, I was asked at interview who would look after 'your' children if they were poorly.

Probably more examples but these are the ones that popped up.