to feel short changed by feminism?

[ThroughTheRoundWindow]

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?

No, moon, she didn't. It is possible that women's raised wages have an impact, but what carmina and you have said is very far from a demonstration that they're the only, main, or even contributory reason for house prices rising. You've only speculated that they might be.

moonferret would you like to address any of my questions instead of desperately trying to convince yourself that you're cleverer than me?

The point in the article about the increase in households due to rising divorce rate, life expectancy and people leaving home earlier is also a good one.

noblegiraffe, just because it's not in that article doesn't mean it's not a reason. And you're correct, there are many other reasons, in particular the availability of buy-to-let mortgages, the shortage of homes being built, and the rich buying up existing housing. But feminism was the "original" and ongoing reason.

And thank for referring to my formal name of HerBeX, but really, my informal one is perfectly adequate and I don't mind at all if people address me as informally as they would like.

at Her Beatitude.

edd1337 Many thanks, but I'm well aware of that.

I suspect dual-income couples have pushed up house prices, along with the (now supposedly curtailed) availability of high-multiple mortgages on small deposits. You can't lay the blame for this at feminism's door, though - it's an inevitable outcome of the individualistic, capital-hungry attitude shift that started in the Seventies but really went orbital in the Eighties and early Nineties.

In 1971, British homes were:
50% owner-occupied
31% social housing
19% private rented

By 1991, this had moved to:
67% owner-occupied
25% social housing
9% private rented

The change is entirely traceable to Thatcher's cut-price sale of social housing. 6% of council tenants bought council homes, and so did 10% of private tenants.

In 2008, the figures were:
68% owner-occupied
18% social housing
14% private rented

What's happened here is that people who bought ex-social housing are now renting it, privately, to the sector which used to be council tenants.

Households are also getting smaller.
In 1971, 71% of households were couples; 21% were solos and lone parents.
By 2009, 63% were couples and 41% were solos and lone parents.

As fewer people are living in the same dwelling, demand has increased.

That's part of an ongoing trend, as others have mentioned, where families of up to 14 lived in small terraced houses. (It was still common when I was a schoolchild in the '60s.)

My data from: www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/house-prices/4473/fifty-years-of-rising-house-prices

There's an excellent page about UK housing trends here: www.cml.org.uk/cml/publications/newsandviews/72/259

So ... YANBU to think so, but your theory is U!

no feminism gave you a choice

economics and the world economy is what control the cost of living not feminism but it is another thing to blame on those women who wanted and fought hard for equality. you should be thankful that you have choices that are grandmothers could only dream of and we have laws in place to protect us and give us opportunities to have control over our lives

also the job market has changed; jobs are no longer for life jobs tend to be a lot more flexible that what they were

yabu

But feminism was the "original" and ongoing reason.

So how come house prices fell in the 70s? Wasn't that a key time for feminists?

www.moneyweek.com/~/media/MoneyWeek/2009/090309/09-03-11-MM4.ashx?w=450&h=275&as=1

The availability of mortgages and interest rate argument given by the guy in the article who sounds like he actually knows what he is talking about seems to match the graph.

Very interesting stats garlic, thanks. Incidentally, many blocks of council flats are, like mine, now partly given over to private lets, but the council is still responsible for the upkeep of the (now quite elderly) buildings, including the exteriors of the private lets. This might be one reason why money for building new council homes and keeping the extant ones up to scratch is a bit short!

The situtation now is not ideal, but at least a choice of sorts is there. There were no choices before. You had a shit job if you had one and you kept it if you husband "allowed" you to.

I chose to stay home with dd we are suffering financially, but I still choose this every day. I value having a choice.

I'm surprised that with your vast intellect, you don't know the difference between former and formal though.

I don't think I can be bothered to stay up any later and argue with someone who claims a vast intellect and yet doesn't know the difference between formal and former and appears to believe that the banking and property development industries, are bastions of radical feminism that are deliberately keeping house prices high in order to ... well, I'm not sure what in order to, but no doubt it's something nefarious.

Good night all.

LRD - if dh and I were both on 45k a year, that would give us a combined income of 90k - neither of us would earn anywhere near that on our own - so with us both working we have a much higher buying capacity, that does have an impact on house prices. it's not the only impacting factor, but it's a significant one.

error: By 2009, 53% were couples and 41% were solos and lone parents.

... just in case nobody's pulled it yet!

carmina, how would you prove or demonstrate that? I'm not saying that guessing higher combined income would affect house prices isn't rational - but the statistics GB gave indicate it perhaps wasn't really a factor?

The argument you're making really only rules it in as a possible factor ... no more.

Sorry?! moongferret, 'cleverer' is perfectly colloquial acceptable English, what on earth is the problem with it?!

Hahaha! HereBeBollox is already doing here "deleting posts" thing...two of mine have gone already! Nothing changes here does it?!

Oh moonferret just make your arguments and stop insulting HereBe, it's very boring for us lurkers

Otherwise v interesting thread - IMO it's the bastard bankers wankers who wanted to lend ever increasing proportions of salary / salaries, and investors who are happy to see property prices rise. People who can't afford property can't shout loudly enough cause it's not in powerful people's interests for house prices to remain anything other than sky-high.

Power in general lies with people who have lots of money, and our economic systems run to allow them to profit regardless of the wider social effect.

It would have been good if banks were forced to only recognise one salary for mortgage purposes, but my mind can't quite process how that would affect women's opportunities

It's a bit of a straw man I think to say 'well no-one's forcing you to buy' - I mean it's true, but in many areas it's not any cheaper to rent now as landlords' mortgages are so high too.

Oh and it goes without saying YABU for feeling let down by Feminism, because on balance things are a gazillion times better now for women - but YANBU to be frustrated at the often paradoxical situations we find ourselves in as women. It is the whole myth of 'having it all' - we can't, not unless you win the lottery. In fact I think Feminism has been successful enough that being poor is a bigger barrier to opportunity than being female is.

lrd your going by statistics by dear. Remember they are not a lot to go by