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

Hmm well, women could study at a university. But they couldn't graduate with a degree. The first university to award a degree to a woman was the University of London in 1878. Oxford followed in 1920, and Cambridge not until 1948.

I've seen changes good and bad since I was born in the 1960s. Lots of good stuff, like changes to legislation around rape etc. On the other hand, society has kind of gone sex mad. Porn mags were discreet top-shelf items, bought surreptitiously, in the 1970s. Very different now, of course. Everywhere you look now is sex! sex!! SEX!!!

When I was at secondary school, the uniform rules at my school were changed that girls were allowed to wear trousers during winter. Before that, when I was at primary school we had to wear skirts all year round. We didn't care about the cold, more that the boys were constantly lifting our skirts and we were expected to just put up with it. By the time I left secondary school (1997) girls were allowed to wear trousers all year round.

When I got my bus license (2002) it was pretty rare to see women driving buses and lorries (as all the instructors and examiners were eager to point out "women aren't supposed to do this!") but now you can see lots of women driving buses and lorries (relatively).

When I was teaching, I used to mention the law around marital rape, and my students would routinely be shocked that it wasn't illegal in the distant past, then even more shocked it was only made into a crime in 1991.

In the 90s it was still pretty routine that lesbian mothers would lose access to their children; I've seen the law change on that, and then the law change to allow both female same-sex parents to have legal recognition.

Very close to my heart, as well - the law is just in the process of changing around protected rights to bereavement leave if you lose a pregnancy before the 24th week. I think that's a really important change. A lot of employers still think it's something women should 'get over' and it can be absolutely debilitating physically, let alone emotionally.

I’m a similar age to you one thing that stands out to me is that men publicly groping/ leering at women is no longer deemed acceptable/ something we should endure

I was born in the late 70s and I think one of the things I notice that is different from when I was a teenager in the 90s is the appreciation that an older man having a very young girlfriend is often exploitative (I don’t necessarily mean underage girls though obviously that happened too and not enough was done to stop it).
I had a couple of acquaintances when I was in my late teens who were aspiring models and were ‘befriended’ by dodgy older guys and had all their expenses paid for - e.g. designer clothes, photos for their modelling portfolios (taken by equally dodgy photographers who made them feel uncomfortable), a much nicer flat at university than they could otherwise afford etc. It wasn’t Epstein levels of control or abuse or anything but looking back it was all a bit sordid and I think would be seen that way now. I remember at the time being confused as to whether I should be thinking this was aspirational - i.e. having the fancy clothes and apartment and going on luxe holidays - or whether my gut feeling - which told me something wasn’t right with this situation - was correct. Men just expecting to have pretty young girls hanging about was something that was considered fairly normal which is I think how Epstein got away with what he did for so long.
Of course this was also the era of 16 year old page 3 girls etc so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

I've definitely seen a change; women couldn't easily get mortgages or credit cards before the 1970s. (Born in the '50s)

The 'Household duties' test for disabled women for the ‘Housewives Non-contributory Invalidity Pension’ (HNCIP). I remember writing something about it as a teenager in the 80s

I'm in my 40s, Ireland

Girls were allowed wear uniform trousers instead of just uniform skirts to school half way through secondary school.
Maternity leave got longer.
Divorce became legal
Abortion became legal.
Same sex marriages became legal
Contraception became legal
Free contraception brought in for 17 to 35 year old.

Got our first female president in 1990 (still waiting on our first female taoiseach though [more powerful prime minister type role]

When I got married in the early 1980's my employer assumed I would be leaving work to become a housewife.

I went to secondary school in the 1970s and from 11-13 both boys and girls had to do the same classes including cookery, sewing, woodwork, metalwork etc. By 14 only a handful of the very clever boys were offered computer studies and the less academic boys were offered mechanics. Girls were offered typing regardless of how clever they were.

In the civil service in 1980 women couldn't wear trousers and if they married had to reapply for their own job.

Still Ireland..Employment Equality Act brought in in 1998
Before my time but the "marriage bar," which forced women in the public sector to resign upon marriage, was only abolished in 1973

The major thing for me is appreciating that society doesn't run in linear chronological format from olden bad days to modern good days. Rather, it's a constant flux of competing interests and the main drivers of capitalism and patriarchy will always reassert themselves. Patriarchy goes hand in hand with capitalism because the way that women's bodies operate, given free reign, is disruptive to capitalism. The ability to have babies unfettered by economic or lineage considerations, walking around with an ever changing hormone driven physical baseline - this is not capitalism-friendly, and so the people who have these bodies need to be controlled. It just plays out in different ways, win some, lose some.

The state pension age rising to 65 and then 67 for me (born mid 60s).

I'm 50. I was asked that at an interview in the late 90's. With a firm of solicitors.

and later, with a different employer, when I was pregnant with my eldest, a trainee (male) was asked in front of me how it felt to be the most important member of staff as he couldn't get pregnant.

im glad things are moving on from that

Thank you I will visit this museum and watch this thank you so much

So interesting to hear people's first hand experience

Where was this? I got married in 1981. No assumptions were made about me giving up work (I lived in Leeds at the time).

Could yountell me more about your views as I'm really interested in your thoughts
What do you mean
disruptive to capitalism
And ldo you mean women are the ones hormaonlly driven as in the cycle...?

When I started work (in the 90’s) the managers were flocking around the young women starting like bees at a honey pot, buying drinks etc was the norm and I heard (later they had a sweepstake on who got to bed a newbie first. This doesn’t happen now, certainly not openly and most workplaces have rules against manager/ underling relationships.

Yes this is such ahuge improvement

Men claiming to be women. Not just dressing up as women, like old-fashioned transvestites, but saying they really and truly are women and demanding access to women's sports, toilets, changing rooms, menopause groups, WI, girl guides... the list is endless and this movement is thoroughly detrimental to women.

On my engineering course at university in the very late 70s, over 90% of the women students had been to all girl schools.

A single friend of mine had a very good job as a sales rep for a well-known company and in the 70's got a mortgage to buy a 2 up 2 down. The Building Society was called the Batley & something. We all laughed at the name being used to The Halifax (and similar) The only catch was she needed a male guarantor to guarantee the loan if she defaulted. 😡
Her dad had to agree to that.

I vaguely remember the pill being made available for single women in 1967, however I didn't use it until I got married about 10 years later.

My engineering firm has maternity ppe. That made me very happy to see. Even if I didn't have it for my two pregnancies, it is a step in the right direction. I was still going out to site at 27 weeks pregnant.

I did work experience at a car manufacturer in 1985
i was 14
when the training manager opened the door to the ‘shop floor’ multiple males whistled and cat called.I felt dirty but didn’t understand why.

around the same age whilst at school, boys would frequently ‘ping’ the back bra straps if you were in front of them e.g. queueing for lunch.