Aibu to think that both the male and female

[Hedgeblog]

partners working outside the house is not a new phenomenon? Surely it doesn't date to the 1960's that women were finally given freedom to work outside the home? If you asked our mothers and grand mothers you'd think that was the case.

Women have always done paid work, even if it was within the home pre-industrial rev.

It's just been seen as a status symbol not to have to in the past, not sure how that fits into now though.

Married women were often not allowed to work, once they were married they had to give up their jobs.

Magneto

When??

No, it's not new. Very Victorian (and after) middle class aspiration to have wifey at home.

And not because the husband said so, but because the employer said so. Sane goes for unmarried or widowed women with children.

My mum and nan always worked, as did my nan in law, as do I. I dont think its a new thing.

Oh that's true, Magneto. Teachers, for example - here.

The marriage bar existed in some professions until the 60s and even the early 70s.

Introduced in the Civil Service in 1876 - in the BBC for example in 1932.

My mum was a nurse and she waited until she had finished training to get married as you couldnt be married on training but after that she got married at 21 and was allowed to work. Dont know why they had that role though

All the women in my family have always worked. My grandmothers did, great aunts, mother.. none of them were ever just housewives.

My mum had to give up her job when she had my brother.

She earned more than my dad as well so that was a bit rough.

Working class women have always worked. But from the Industrial Revolution onwards this was increasingly outside the home.

But even in middle class homes it was not unusual for women to work outside the home - my grandmother (class of 1913) was a teacher. However, it was often harder to carry on a career after marriage. In my grandmother's case, she left her fairly disastrous marriage behind in Australia and came back to England in 1927 where she became a village head teacher but had to pretend to be a widow since married women teachers were not employed by her county.

In the early 1950s my mother, who worked for the Westminster Bank in London would have had to leave her job if she'd got married.

When I first went to work employers could ask if you were engaged or planning to get married and turn you down for jobs on the basis that you'd "up and leave". This, shockingly was in the late 1960s because it was not until the Equal Pay Act in 1970 that things started changing significantly for women in the workplace.

I can't remember where exactly I learned this, it's just stuff I've picked up from A-level history and researching the roles of women in society in the 1800's and thereabouts (my interest was sparked by reading Les Miserables!)

I did find this recently which I thought was very interesting:

^"Eleanora Hog was taken on as a 'Day Book' clerk at the British Linen Company in 1785. This is the earliest known record of a female bank clerk in Scotland.

Her appointment was unique. It was almost certainly related to the fact her father, Walter Hog, was manager of the Company. But Eleanora was good at her job - she was subsequently promoted to Ledger Clerk, and then to Book-keeper. Her salary in each case was equal to that of her male counterparts.

Eleanora retired in 1816. It was to be another 99 years before a female clerk was employed again!"^

During the first world war, women were needed to work and proved themselves in roles that had not previously been open to them, this eventually resulted in women getting the vote.

Read the midwife series of books from the east end in the 1950's. Tough reading, or watch the series!

www.amazon.co.uk/Shadows-Workhouse-Jennifer-Worth/dp/187256013X

It's on kindle too

I know this is all company specific but I still think it's quite relevant:

"In 1949, Lloyds Bank abolished the marriage bar. This had required all women to resign on marriage. The Bank also granted female staff ?permanent? status.

This meant, for the first time, that women could think of their job at Lloyds as a career. Until then, it was just a means of earning a living before they got married. In 1924, one young clerk had successfully concealed her marriage for a whole year. However, on finding out, the Bank dismissed her. Women were also to be classed as permanent staff ? they had previously been referred to as ?supplementary?."

Magneto very informative thank you

Pandemmonia
Interesting and shocking, so married women just weren't allowed to work in some professions.

My Grannies never worked (well, one did voluntary work for cab once my grandad had died, my mum and aunt had left home by then), my mum trained and worked a bit before we appeared and once we were in secondary school...ill health put a stop to that by the time we left home though.

My great aunt tells me that she had to leave her job (bank) when she got married because married women weren't allowed to work there.

Many working class girls went into 'service', didn't they? And many married women were housekeepers or cooks for the big houses. I suppose certain professions have always been female dominated and therefore done by married women also - nursing being the obvious one. But I think the type of job you could do as a married woman (hell, as a woman full stop!) was always really restricted. you could cook, clean, nurse, be a midwife, work in a sweatshop or maybe teach and that's probably about it!

All the women in my family have worked. 4 generations ago, it was in service, then as the family joined the middle class, it was teaching. Grandma was a dancer (as she describes it, she was "on the stage") until the war, then apparently had to get a sensible job. I know she was back at work 6 weeks after a C/S for her youngest, working as a PE teacher. That was in the 60s.

My Mum was lucky enough to SAH for 12 years - except, not that lucky as it turns out, since father fucked off with his pension, and she therefore has to work until she's 68 (FT teacher) to make up her years.

I felt that I did not have a "choice" to work or not - simple question of keeping roof over our heads. Since becoming a single parent, I have the choice of working pt from home and being poor, working not at all and being poor, or working FT and being very poor due to childcare. Have gone for working from home and being poor.

As early welfare benefits became introduced in the form of "stamp" paying, women were leglislated out of the workplace, as said policies and factory, farm,mining acts which prohibited any woman (over 14's) from working.

So a fuss wasn't created by forcing women to rely on men and be invisable in society a propaganda machine was started that a woman needed to be married to gain status and good wives worked in the home, only.

Government policy set a clear agenda to fill in the gaps for religion.

All my female ancestors were farm labourers, or domestic servants on farms (aka slaves). My male ancestors were all labourers - ditch diggers and the like. Very little difference in the amount of work men & women did at the very bottom of society. Only the middle & upper classes could ever afford for adults to sit idle. Work or starve.

Birdsgottafly

Really? An agenda to fill the gaps for religion?

my mother, all three grandmothers, and at least two of my great-grandmothers worked outside the home...that's off the top of my head; i know there were women working, in my family tree, as farm labourers, servants, nannies etc, at least as far back as the 1600s!

poor women have always worked outside the home.

and don't forget - the world's oldest profession.

Married women weren't allowed to work in the Australian public service until 1966.