to think -women, what´s gone so wrong?

[isaidlesbonotasbo]

Long time lurker, can´t sit on this one any longer.

Fifty years ago I and many other women fought for equality and womens rights. After a long struggle the western world conceded (OK, only up to a point, still a way to go), but things are so very different now.

Fifty years of books, magazines, tv, movies, pop music, education, the internet, showing us very different templates of how womens´ lives can be.
So why do I read here every day of young women who have chosen lazy, abusive, controlling, or selfish partners. Women who apparently must have such low self esteem that they think they deserve no better? Women from all parts of society.

And not only the pleas from the women who have just woken up to the situation they are in, but almost worse the everyday asides from seemingly contented women as part of other topics, which casually mention how OH, DH, DP ´won´t´or ´can`t´ do such and such, or relly´helps´, or spends endless hours and money on his own hobbies.

Sometimes there´s almost competetive banter re how ¨useless¨ their partners are, bless ´em!

Put aside the very real problems of leaving such relationships once stuck in them, why start them in the first place with all the choices available to us? We don´t have forced or compulsory marriage/partnership. Last time I looked, the Taliban were not in charge nor religious leaders all powerful.

And if the answer is that girls and women are socialised within their family of origin to feel worthless, let´s push the question back at their mothers and grandmothers - feminism did not start last week!

(and don´t get me started on who plays the biggest part in raising,
socialising and entitling these men from their early years....)

Warning - possible triggers...

I grew up in a reasonably happy house, but I knew my mum and dad argued.

When I got together with my first bf (14) it was all lovey dovey for the first year, but then things started to change, if I did anything to upset him, he'd start shouting at me, or even worse drink heavily then hit me, never anywhere that you would notice unless you saw me naked, and because I'd never watched my parents fighting (they only did it when it was late at night and I was in bed) I wondered if this was normal.

I was told by so many people how lucky I was to have landed BF, he was exceptionally smart, good looking and very popular, I was average looking and although well liked, a geek and wasn't part of the "in crowd" so I put up with it.

The hitting continued, he didn't need drink as an excuse, but I just assumed this was normal.

I started that relationship as a bright and confident girl, but that eventually disappeared and I didn't trust my own instincts

Eventually after 5 years I left him, over something minor and stupid, and shortly afterwards I met my SBXH

SBXH was controlling, hated me going out, having friends of my own and even hated me working.

Of course it didn't start that way, he was charming, showering me with gifts, telling me how lucky he was to have me, then the day we got married, the door closed behind us once we got home and he announce he now owned me. I thought he was joking, I was wrong.

On one very rare night that I did go out with a few girl friends he nailed an aggressive note to the front door asking me to prioritise where my marriage or friends were more important.

I gave up work for him, I cut out all my friends nothing I did would make him happy, but I kept telling myself at least he doesn't hit me, and in public he was affectionate and loving.

Eventually we split up because he was convinced I was having an affair, I wasn't, he was shagging 2 women he worked with.

By that time, I had no self confidence, I had bouts where I'd sit counting out how many pills I had in the house, I turned to drugs to numb myself to everything, I didn't matter, I gave up on my career, stopped going to work, got fired.

I then met DP, we were friends at first, he slowly brought me out of my shell a little, boosted my confidence and I started making an effort to get myself together, we eventually started dating, but the first years were so rocky, anything that reminded me of a past relationship would result in me either breaking down in floods of tears or screaming at him, it took time for me to realise he was different.

I'm happy now, I am my own person again, I have my career back on track and a wonderful family.

I still have that note tucked away in a memory chest as a reminder of how easy it was to lose myself to a man, not over night, but as they slowly chip away and break you down. One day when DD is older I will show her and talk to her about looking out for those red flags, to never doubt herself, and to talk to people if she's not happy.

MTB

Thanks AF, but it's in my past, and made me who I am today, I may not have met DP and had my lovely DD and DS had I not been through this.

I've been able to help my friends and family when they've been through similar, and while it was shit, there is good that has come out of it.

We need to abandon the societal norms of:

the ultimate success emotionally is a long term heterosexual partnership.
single women are deficient in some way and need a man
leaving your man is a failure
tasks and jobs should be allocated by gender
women's work is intrinsically less worthy of praise or payment
women are emotionally responsible for their family
men beget and provide for children but give no/little emotional or logistical support
men are entitled to receive the benefits of women's unpaid work to enable their career

Until a lot or most of these happen women will be poorer than men for a very very long time.

We also need to stop seeing issues as individual women's choices only but as a set of choices heavily framed and influenced by society as a whole.

i'll vote for you miggsie

I believe we can do the above list by not allowing them to happen in our individual families which will cause society to change.

I'm going to ignore some of your more victim blame-y points and address the overall problem of feminism...

I think a reason feminism isn't making larger strides is because we still socialise girls and women to be people pleasers, to fall in line and be well behaved and put themselves second/third/last always.

Even if you don't see this pattern played out in your immediate family you'll see it repeated on TV - martyr woman puts her husband and children first and ignores all of her own needs = fantastic mother, woman who expects her husband to take an equal role in raising the children whilst focusing on a career = neglectful wife and mother.

Plus look at ALL the language with have to denigrate women speaking up for themselves - nagging, shrieking, shrill, whinging, whining. Have you ever heard these words applied to men because I certainly haven't. It's the slow "drip drip drip" effect of painting women as being unreasonable if they have any demands that erodes women's confidence to stand up for what they want - even to each other. How many conversations have you had where you out-polite another woman? "Oh no we'll do it your way." "Oh but I really don't mind doing it your way"

We need to teach women a lesson I learned only recently which is that you can be a "nice person" and still stand up for yourself - it just means you're not a pushover, it doesn't make you a bitch.

i think a lot of the women in domineering relationships have come about because most of us in our 30s and 40s were raised in a very traditional environment where dad worked and mom didn't, a straw poll of my friends confirms that.

Quite a few of us got into relationships young, often with slightly older men whose upbringing mirrored ours, so its easy to fall into the same pattern of what's 'normal'.. straight from living under Dads roof to living with DP/DH without finding the time to define HOW we thought it should be, we fell into allowing the man to dominate like our dads did, and some men, once given an inch, presume to take the whole mile and more.

DH and i separated briefly because of the imbalance, he was emotionally abusive in my 20's, and it took a lot to redefine our beliefs in the adults roles in a relationship and me telling him that he wasn't my dad, he was my DH and he didn't get to control me or order me around or yell at me if i got things 'wrong'. It took a lot of work, but we did get back together 4 years ago.

He argues now that its swinging the other way.. but at nearly 34 i've had a hellish 18mo that has changed me as a person.. I'm starting to assert myself more, its like in losing my dads solid presence when he died this year, and having to look after mom, i've finally 'grown up' and i'm being more outspoken about what i want from this relationship and more in control of my life and how i live it, i'm not deferring to him and his opinions and his wants and needs,

I see it as my responsibility to raise my son to not be like his dad or Grandad, to see equality in our relationship, to see mommy as more than just daddys wife and housekeeper, that kind of feminism has to be taught, and its slow progress because its a generational lesson we have to pass on to our own children based on our own experiences and lifes lessons.

I'm sorry but the "work hard, don't take time out" line is just a kick in the teeth o those women who have done exactly that
It's not meant to be a kick in the teeth at all. and there are plenty of women who have made it to the top, and plenty of men who haven't.
work hard and play by the rules is not a recipe for success by any means, you can still do everything completely right and be under appreciated -and that's not a gender specific thing!

I've worked hard and followed the rules, I've done the work better than and often for my superiors (who are mostly male) I've made what should have been blindingly obvious things obvious, and am always met with an "oh yeah, I didn't think of that", rather than "yes you're right, why don't you take more money and a promotion", often saving huge overruns on projects and thousands of pounds in costs is not even met with a thanks. -though to be fair it would be most unusual if a senior colleague who clearly BS'd their way into a job said " you should give them my job, because they do it better than me" -no instead they'll take the credit and run.

The point was not that if you work hard, never take time off (except for your heart attack at 35) that you'll somehow magically end up richer than anyone else. (clearly if I knew the magic answers to these questions I wouldn't be giving them away for free online!)

I thought that this would be obvious as I did specifically say, "if you take the sum of the money in male compared to female"

It does stand to reason though, that a large cause of the inequity in the distribution of wealth between the sexes is that at some point women are seemingly expected to stop earning, and then go back to whatever (usually lower paying) job the can get 2,3,5,12 or 18 years later.

This means that for a significant period of time lots of women either just aren't earning at all, or earning very little and therefore do not reach their earning potential that they may have had they not stopped working.
The same is true for dads who are able to be stay at home parents. (when everything that they've earned over their life added together will logically be less if they spend 20 years out of work raising kids)

Not that there is some guaranteed recipe for success.

I think people would be surprised that if you actually do it there will not be many/any negative comments. I have only seen a medical professional once since our youngest was born as I have been at work as didn't take maternity leave. Dh has done all hearing tests, weigh ins, injections and at home/in surgery appointments as I have been busy. Nobody has commented negatively on this.

I have also not done any school runs this academic year, haven't met the teacher and haven't been to any parents evenings/discos or special needs meetings as again I have been working and no one has said anything negative. If anything people see it as being an admirable thing and I have had lots of positive comments, especially from women.

Dh has done all hearing tests, weigh ins, injections and at home/in surgery appointments as I have been busy. Nobody has commented negatively on this

I went back to work very early as well when DD was 11 weeks. HVs, GP etc were all 100% professional and supportive of DH as a sahd. Our problems came from other parents. He came across resentment at baby sensory for being a man, was refused to go to baby massage by the teacher, other mothers being completely rude to him and ignoring him when trying to have a conversation. He ended up driving an hour and a half each way to go to the nearest dads and babies group for support. People looking at him strangely and even commenting when he would go round Tesco in the morning with DD after dropping me at work. Why people can't mind their own business is beyond me.

Discrimination is rife. It can be hard for men to assume what are perceived to be traditional women's roles as that too is met with suspicion. I am aware that our experiences are not indicative of the whole country, but it really did make me question why some women would be like this. Treating sahds like pariahs and thinking they should be the ones out earning whilst the woman stays at home is not helpful to building equality for women should they choose to return to work early after childbirth. We don't all have to stay at home for a year to still be good parents!

The facts of the gender based discrimination of unequal pay speak for themselves.

Figures published by the EU research team in 2012 show that in the UK, women in the same job as men are paid 19.1% less than that men in the same job in the UK, 17.4% less on average in the EU.

These are the figures published on the EU website.
Have a look yourselves if you are finding it hard to get your head around the reality. It's easy to throw up hands and say "but that's illegal," and dismiss it until you see the facts.

It would be nice to think that the legislation actually did something, but research year on year says that pay discrimination occurs, and also that any "improvement" in wages earned by women in comparison to men are based on the male dominated jobs like construction decreasing per capita, rather than a genuine increase in absolute terms.

This has nothing to do with some women being to blame for their lower earnings by taking time out to have babies, just that women are offered less to do the same job as a man in the position.

Dh socialises with all the mums at groups. He has mum and dad friends. He is in a group of sahds age late 20s/early 30s. I think this way round people think you are both heroes him for looking after so many children and me for goung to work. I don't get it personally but practically everyone has said to me wow your amazing how do you manage? I don't know what is meant to be difficult about going back to work tbh.

Creambun that was absolutely not my experience, I found the opposite. I was pregnant while training for a high stress career. The number of total strangers who presumed I would be giving up my training, or who asked how I was going to manage working was staggering. As was the number who saw fit to comment on how sad it was to have a baby but not stay at home to raise it. My husband didn't get asked this once. I thought things had moved on, but being pregnant was an eye opener.

"women are seemingly expected to stop earning"

exactly! even if it's not the reality the expectation is enough to create discrimination. i am of an age where people might expect me to "swan off on maternity leave" and despite the fact that i have no such plans currently, the assumption is affecting my career. and if i were, there are assumptions about what i will do on my return (if i did return) that have no bearing on the reality of what i want professionally and how much energy i put into it

it is how women are viewed as a class that is the problem, not the reality of what women actually do day in day out. women need to be seen as having the same development potential as men at the same stages in life, and currently they aren't, despite their best efforts to play the game as they are taught to do

"no bearing on relation to the reality"

It depends on your demographic I suppose. In my own life I find women have much more ambition and I returned after 2 weeks twice. I did have maternity once but I prefer dh being off as I don't cook or have any traditional wife type skills.

creambun not my experience either. Both DH and I were completely disillusioned by the whole thing. I am glad that in some parts sahd with children from a very young age is the norm. I recall no one really batting an eyelid when I lived in London and some people did it. But in our area it most definitely was not. I even considered putting in a discrimination complaint against the baby massage group.

My activity with DD was swimming at the weekend. The whole class looked at me like I had two heads when I said I worked and DH stayed at home. We found it impossible to make friends. Maybe it was just us but now I am back in The Netherlands I find the situation the reverse. It was all very sad.

the women i know have ambition too. taking parental leave doesn;t mean a lack of ambition - that is precisely the kind of assumption that means that women are discriminated against and men less likely to take up the option of paternity leave

It might be because there are more young dads here. I can only think of the odd man that waited until their 30s for their first child.

I did get a couple of the you might want to slow down comments when pregnant with my first but when I returned in two weeks I have never had a comment since.

It has been both heartening and saddening to read all your posts.

I realise that I have been priviliged, but in only one way: that I was born with a very strong sense of myself and of what was fair. I don´t know why or how. Oh and I am White and was not then disabled.

I have known childhood abuse, abandonment in an orphanage, adoption, am fat, speccy, had acné into adulthood. Have been placed in a psychiatric hospital for months as a teen for being gay. Have been an out lesbian since 16, had conservative adoptive parents with traditional roles and values I always financially supported myself since 17, provided my own acommodation, sole responsibility for mortgage eventually. No uni education, worked outside of home all my life, set up and ran my own business.

My parents never openly argued,and appeared happy enough. The household, like that of all my Friends, ran around my father´s wishes, but he was a benevolent dictator and was open to debate and discussion. There was no aggression or eggshell treading. My Mum cheerfully deferred to Dad. He did DIY (but so did she) and gardening (ditto). I never saw him lift a finger in the home.

I have had several long term (10 years+) relationships and helped bring up wonderful male children who now have sons of their own. One of my dearest friends is a straight man. I love what men CAN be. I am not some bra burning, man hating radfem.

But I hate, hate, hate what I see and read every day about what men do to women, here and all over the world. And while the responsibility for that behaviour behaviour lies firmly with men, and the responsibility to change, I feel that we as women can become kind of Stockholm Survivors.

As individuals we more often than not have much power within our families, particularly with young children.Give me a child until s/he is seven.....anyone? And as apparently the majority of men are not that involved in childcare, domesticity etc doesn´t that leave the field clear for us to teach our kids how things should be? As half the world population we have adequate power to make our voices heard in the world if we choose to take it.

Like the Arab Spring or the spontaneous peoples uprisings in Eastern Europe show, power can change hands or take a different form when enough people say WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS. Where is the Womens´ Spring.

It often feels as if many women are happy enough to settle for ´representation´ rather than power in public life where the rules get made, and do not actually want too much responsibility.

So I really did start this thread to ask genuine questions, not to criticise women in abusive relaationships or to flaunt my so called priviliged life.

They have ambitions I am sure but any men or women that sah will never have the same ambition as people that aren't that way inclined. Dh will work again but I know he will never be hungry for working like I am.

This article is one I link to a lot, and the points it raises are not just applicable to sexual assault but all the situations in which women do not feel able to stick up for themselves and state boundaries. We don't because society tells us not to.