To ask whether we could ever go back to what it was like in the 50s-70s?

[myblueheav3n]

I mean in a financial sense more than anything, although I know it wasn’t perfect. I only have a very superficial understanding of it all, but as far as I can tell:

• Affordable housing, and a lot of social housing for those who couldn’t buy.

• Liveable wages for unskilled jobs and good opportunity to work your way up in whatever your profession was. Plenty of work available for young people.

• Education was worth a lot more, e.g. now a university degree is minimum for a ‘decent’ job, and not even that is really guaranteed either.

I had more but after thinking about it for a while they’ve slipped my mind In general it seems like it was better, and people who grew up during these periods generally did well for themselves.

Yes I'd love to go back to mums in the kitchen and sexual harassment being acceptable.

Covid or not, I'll stick to the here and now.

I was born in the early 1960s and experienced most of these...

Would you also want to go back to:

• Married women forced out of work?
• Women openly treated as sex objects in the workplace and legally paid less than men?
• Girls not allowed to study the same subjects as boys in school?
• Abortion against the law?
• A boring range of food choices (eg no olive oil)? Although we might well come back to that with a no deal Brexit

I want around in those periods but your romanticising some dark times. Stop bigging up a white time

Housing, majority lives in council housing as mortgages were the preserve of the mc. Social housing was pretty much the local authority
Not much other RSL around

Employment rights were tenuous , it was certainly common to sack of women. The maternity rights you have now were not the thing in 50’s and 70s

Uni? Less than 10% went to uni it was denied and unattainable for vast majority and certainly working class

Rampant and acceptable racism was the thing

I specifically do not mean the cultural/societal bit. I’m talking only about the financial side. For e.g. how the NHS was established— I don’t think that’s something that would happen now because it would be seen as socialism.

I was not not around those times but I know plenty about it
Oh and Enoch Powell rivers of blood

Erm... no.

Getting married and you're a woman? That's your resignation then. Bye bye career. Oh, hang on - what career? You were only working for pin money anyway.

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

The council housing is a good thing in my eyes, now only the upper-mc have much of a chance at buying and those who can’t buy also can’t get a council house.

I think the council housing was good though. Reasonable priced ( which kept private rents down which kept house prices sensible ) , well maintained, secure tenancy with lots of rights regarding decor etc ( at least that's my families experience )

The financial side? The economy for traditional industries was in decline
Strikes and 3 day weeks
Shrinking of industries and the beginning of post industrial society

I really don’t mean the inequality, I’m a woman, not a British citizen and mixed-race, I’m really not dreaming of living in 1950s society.

I’m not saying the council house situation was bad,I grew up in a council house
I’m simply saying access to mortgage was rare and involved being deemed suitable

It would be great if we could have the good bits without the bad bits, like kids dying of measles and diptheria and women having to stay with violent partners.

I particularly agree about good opportunity to work your way up in whatever your profession. I was born in the 1950s, and I know many people of my age who qualified as accountants, civil engineers, social workers etc by leaving school after A-levels and getting jobs where they could continue to train while they worked. One of them went on to become CEO of a large local authority.

These days, you can only follow these careers if you get a degree and shedloads of debt. Bloody sad, and puts a lot of bright kids off.

God, yes, the racism.

As a woman you'd be very likely to be dependent on a man financially and the police wouldn't want to know about domestic violence. Violence against women was socially acceptable.
Again, I know about all of this at first-hand.

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

But now we have the post industrial society and it’s pretty shit. There’s no strikes but that’s because that’s because you’re lucky to get an unskilled job at all.

@midgebabe

That’s exactly the sort of thing I mean. The security of a council house is brilliant for any family who can’t afford to buy, but most of them are gone.

I think this is a shocking sanitisation of a really quite poor period (economically & socially)
Everything we take for granted was not in our gift back then
NHS? Women were forced to resign if they got pg

Have you seen the American TV series Madmen? Quite eye opening for the social, political and of course financial arrangements at the time.
The 1980's was probably the peak era for womens rights in the workplace but no stigma for women who choose to stay at home, different races being employable, etc, etc. However, you would need to go right back to the massive gender pay gap we had back then (which we still have really).
Better to move forward than look back.

good opportunity to work your way up in whatever your profession was
Back then, someone would have asked if you really meant profession (doctor, university lecturer, lawyer, etc) or job (what 95% of the population did). Good luck working your way up either in a 'profession' or to management in other sectors if you were a woman, or BAME, or didn't come from the right background.

Education was worth a lot more, e.g. now a university degree is minimum for a ‘decent’ job, and not even that is really guaranteed either.
In the sense that education beyond 16 was reserved for the middle class and the very bright working class kids whose parents were understanding enough to allow them to stay on to A levels. Even some parents who could easily have afforded to keep their teenage children in school chose not to. The father of the family next door to us when I was little in the 70s didn't believe in education for girls and told his two daughters that they had a choice - leave school at 16 and get a job, or leave home.

I agree you could work your way up. And for all its faults, state education was of a higher standard if you passed the 11+.
If you didn't, you'd have to become a secretary if female.

You mean can we cherry pick the rose tinted good bits of the past and make it work in 2020? No we can’t.

Forcing woman to work for pin money to preserve well paid jobs for ‘working men’ propped up the system but is rightly untenable now.

There’s no strikes but that’s because that’s because you’re lucky to get an unskilled job at all.

There are no strikes because the people who would most benefit from being union members have been persuaded by those who benefit most from having a non-unionised workforce that unions are Bad.

There seems to be a massive sense of rose tinted glasses going on.
Whilst I agree there would have been some decent things about that period, alot, especially for women was really poor...
Women stuck in abusive marriages with no escape because it was so taboo to leave. Made to do all the "wife" work whilst the men went out to work but could also piss it up down the pub that was mainly "men only."
In the 70s, 3 day working weeks, constant strikes, power cuts, shite times. Council housing would have been very basic, people didn't move into ready made, lovely homes.
Not much for kids to do, most were left to their own devices and often looking back, put into extremely dangerous situations (from people's own stories as children.)
Racism was the norm as was homophobia.

The only people who I imagine can look back at that period of time as a golden era are white straight men.

good opportunity to work your way up in whatever your profession was
No professions were middle class and women the exception not the norm. Rampant sexism and prejudice blocked progression or disbarred women. Vile and widespread racism in workplace

@myblueheav3n

I specifically do not mean the cultural/societal bit. I’m talking only about the financial side. For e.g. how the NHS was established— I don’t think that’s something that would happen now because it would be seen as socialism.

Thats got nothing to do with the 50s or 60s and everything to do with an electorate that votes to remove rights and benefits hard won.

Fwiw the Labour party of the 50s (even the 60s) would have booted out Corbyn for being too right wing.

For most people life was hard, poverty, ricketts, shite housing, diets and few mod cons.
I ve used a twin tub, its a night mare!

If you "only have a very superficial understanding of it all" why not educate yourself instead of posting nonsense on Mumsnet?

Everyone’s answering with various social issues of the time. I’m aware of them. But what if we had society as it is now, except with a good stock of council housing, more manual jobs, university degrees that get you somewhere, decent wages.
Is there a way back to that is what I’m asking, not about the million and one issues of life then— I’m entirely aware of what they are. The only way they contribute is the fact that there was less women in the workplace, it’s hardly as if racism meant there were more council houses or higher wages.