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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to feel short changed by feminism?

309 replies

ThroughTheRoundWindow · 03/09/2011 21:09

So here's the thing. Back in the day the young women of the baby boom generation demanded the choice to work or care for their babies. some of them went out to work, and because their families had two incomes they could afford to spend more on their houses and on filling them with consumer goods.

But more families with more money pushed up the price of houses.

Roll on a generation and it is impossible to afford a mortgage on one moderate income. To pay for a house you both need to work. Well that isn't true, we could have either bought a ex-council house on a dodgy estate, or I could have married a much richer man. (But we couldn't bring ourselves to raise a child on an estate and I fell in love with a council employee).

Had a been born a generation earlier my husband's local government salary would have paid for our modest house in an unfashionable suburb and I could (if I had chosen) have given up work to care full time for our family. Instead I have no choice - I have to return to work and leave my baby in daycare.

Without feminism I could have done what comes most naturally to me and been a homemaker. Feminism stole that option from me. Now I have to leave my baby to be raised by a stranger and go out to work in a job I care nothing for and get nothing (except a salary) from.

Ok, a little maudlin from too much beer, but someone explain to me why I am genuinely unreasonable to feel this way?

OP posts:
stitchthis · 03/09/2011 22:57

People with more money will push the price of anything up - supply vs demand economics - witness any silent auction or sealed bid for a house. What I find more worrying is the insidious way Daily Mail thinking had crept into some many people's interpretation of the effect of feminism. God it's depressing.

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 22:59

Er, I did a counter argument ages ago moonferret.

Piss poor intellect? From someone with no grasp whatsoever of how life was for most women before feminist agitation got some change?

Insulting people's intelligence isn't actually a very good argument mf. No surprise there then.

noblegiraffe · 03/09/2011 22:59

The price of electronics is falling because the bits are so cheap and readily available. Houses: not so much.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 03/09/2011 23:01

Home ownership has risen roughly in time with feminism as a political movement emerging. I suspect this is coincidence, but who's to say?

moonferret · 03/09/2011 23:03

HereBeBollox you can't provide a counter argument prior to the point in question! D'oh!! And if you insult my points rather than politely disagreeing or countering them, then the fact that you're dim deserves to be pointed out.

noblegiraffe · 03/09/2011 23:05

So you'd have preferred women to continue to be prevented from working once married?

carminagoesprimal · 03/09/2011 23:06

Tilly; if dh and I were prepared to pay 400k for your property, even though it was on the market for 350k ( because we both work full time and really want your house so will out-bid anyone ) that would push up the price of every house in your street - that's how having more money effects house prices. Property is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 03/09/2011 23:06

HereBeBollux is dim ... because she doesn't believe in never-never 1950s land?!

moon, your argument doesn't stand up.

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:06

Is there something wrong with you moonferret?

You seem somewhat over excited and more than usually offensive, if no more incisive than usual.

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:08

And do you have anything to say about men's choices?

Why do you think that most men opposed the feminist demand that women be given equal pay for equal work and the right to work outside the home after they married? Why do you think most of them refused to work with women to restructure the workplace so that both partners could work for shorter hours outside the home, instead of just one partner working longer hours?

moonferret · 03/09/2011 23:09

It's quite funny that carminagoesprimal has to spell it out in very simple terms as some people can't understand the obvious!

noblegiraffe · 03/09/2011 23:10

Why didn't men ask for a change in the marriage bar so that on marriage, either the man or the woman had to give up work and run the home? Flip a coin for it to make it fair?

LRDTheFeministDragon · 03/09/2011 23:12

carmina didn't say or show that women working had any effect on house prices ... only that if enough people are prepared to pay more for a house, prices in general will rise.

SiamoFottuti · 03/09/2011 23:12

YABU. Look around you, plenty of women in their own houses who are SAHM. Millions in fact. You think all women are out working?
You're not forced into going back to work. You made your choices, that were luckily open to you, and you made your priorities. Working and having children is your choice.

moonferret · 03/09/2011 23:12

HereBeBollox, are you the same person as "HerBex" or something like that, as you sound similar. It's simple, insult me and I insult you...can you grasp that principle? D'oh!!

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:14

So why haven't house prices collapsed over the last couple of years?

Nobody is too stupid to understand the argument MF, it really isn't that difficult. We're pointing out that the amount of money available, is only part of the story.

You still haven't commented on men's choices I notice.

sunshineandbooks · 03/09/2011 23:14

Housing prices in the UK are ridiculous. That has nothing to do with feminism and more to do with avarice and economics.

Even with both partners working on an average salary the average UK home is out of reach of most. Most people have to rely on a substantial deposit supplied by inherited wealth or parents.

Housing prices are not driven by the salaries of the buyers, they are driven by broader economic principles such as supply and demand, and a not insignificant amount of greed. The problems started when housing started to be viewed in investment terms instead of somewhere to live.

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:14

D'oh Hmm

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:15

That was to the excitable moonferret sunshine, not to you. Grin

moonferret · 03/09/2011 23:15

Sorry, LRD, but carmina did effectively state that, as without the woman's wages, the same amount couldn't be offered for the house.

rainbowinthesky · 03/09/2011 23:17

My mother wanted to be a doctor but wasnt allowed by her parents as "women dont do that". Instead she had to work very long hours either nursing (which she hated), waitressing and running our family fish and chip shop. She would often go to her day job then come home to work in the fish and chip shop. No childcare issues for her. We simply were at her feet in the shop and then when a little older home alone.
No pension for her either as that was for the man. Oh and no house either as she lost it due to a bad back and being out of work for a year after her dc had left home.
And of course all the housework and cooking was her job too.

Yep, my mum had it good in those days.

echt · 03/09/2011 23:17

Hmm at OP being unable to bring herself to raise a child on an estate. Well don't piss and moan about the cost of a house in your unfashionable suburb.

I was raised on an estate.

moonferret · 03/09/2011 23:18

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

noblegiraffe · 03/09/2011 23:20

Ok, I've just googled 'why have house prices risen in the UK' and found this article

It says in conclusion 'There are several other reasons for rising house prices such as increased immigration, people buying second homes and increased demand from foreigners. However perhaps the most significant reason is the low long-term interest rates combined with the increased choice of mortgages. Therefore, combined with the UK population's strong attachment to owning a home, house prices have continued to rise well above inflation.'

I can't see anything in there about feminism.

HereBeBolloX · 03/09/2011 23:20

So why haven't house prices collapsed now that there is less money in the economy and the banks are lending less?

Carmina's argument (as is the OP's) is a very basic one and while it has some bearing on things, it doesn't a) take account of the fact that men had a choice to not oppose women's entry into the workplace and to lobby for lower hours and a more equal distribution of work in and outside the home and a more equal distribution of income and b) the failure of house prices to go down to the levels one would expect given the substantial tightening of lending criteria in the wake of the financial collapse.