Is being a woman better or worse now?

[Cheekypeach]

Than in, say, 1960 or 1970.

Inspired by the ‘support’ thread, my initial reaction is to say better, women working more financial independence etc.

But when I stop to think about it, is it really better this way? So many women I know are stressed juggling work & motherhood, there seems to be more pressure to look highly groomed, fast fashion, dating apps where women get treated like rubbish.

I know the answer isn’t a simple one as there are pros and cons to both, but what do you think?

Not to mention the new belief system of ‘gender identity’…

I would hate to have been a woman in the 60s when you couldn't get a mortgage without a man signing it off (the experience of a headmistress at a school where my mum worked, who needed her dad as guarantor ).

Speaking as a woman of 72, I would say it is a much better world in which to be a woman now than when I was young.

I'd like to have been born in the 60s. I don't think people are very nice as a whole now. People seem to be disposable esp. women. Morals have changed and not for the better.

When I see threads about gender disapppoontment when OP finds out they're having a boy and are sad, I'm always flummoxed because I wouldn't wish being born female on anyone.

That's here in the UK let alone elsewhere. Just today, El Salvador I think, a woman has just been freed from a 10 yr prison sentence when she miscarried as she was charged with homicide...

I think the belief system of gender identity is a backward step. In the Seventies, I recall wearing pretty much the same clothes as my brothers. I remember not playing with dolls and followed “ boys” stuff like Shoot magazine and Tonka toys. Don’t remember it being a problem but I do recall being screamed at by some young girls in a public toilet because I had cropped hair and so must have been a boy.
I had maternity leave in the mid 90s and I noticed changes to my professional status but I despair at the many threads on here about maternity discrimination.
Women are still being sidelined and dismissed unless it’s about their looks.

It is better, there such a long way to go though

I was in school in the 70s and there were several subjects I wasn't allowed to take as a girl including technical drawing! I had my bank account closed and really struggled to get a mortgage newly single in the early nineties as any joint accounts were assumed to be the man's.

Working class women have pretty much always juggled work and motherhood, it’s nothing new, there’s little truth in the fable that’s it’s only recently that women have both worked and been mothers. There has always been pressure on women to be groomed and it would have been perfectly legal in 1960/70 for a woman to be rejected for a job based on her appearance, expected to adhere to a sexist dress code at work or sacked for not maintaining said dress code (and many were in all those counts.) Whether women are “treated like rubbish” in dating apps is subjective. I’ve never been treated like rubbish and suspect a lot of it is about personal boundaries. Gender identity as it currently stands is, I reckon, a trend which will wane as the young’uns get bored of it and find the next cause or trend to angst over.

Definitely better now.

Juggling work and motherhood isn’t something new and at least you get sort of paid the same as a man doing the same job,
Also you have a choice of jobs. My choice was severely limited to certain factory jobs/shop work/office work/nursing or going to work in a bank

When I left school not only couldn’t I get a credit card at 18 but also the jobs I was allowed to do were very limited.

And woe betide you were vaguely attractive because you spent part of your day trying to stop some older men in the office from grabbing you or getting you alone in a cupboard or small room.

I don’t think todays female school leavers can even imagine what it was like to be leaving school at on the Friday and being in an office trying to avoid the office letch on the Monday.

Better, but I’m a single mum and that would have been seen as terrible back then.

Much better, though there's still work to be done.

Also, domestic violence. Still a massive problem of course, but back then there was far more pressure on women to stay with their abusive husbands, from family, police, religious leaders... They basically had nowhere else to go.

I wouldn’t say necessarily better now- the expectations put on women, in particular mothers is ridiculous. Meant to bring in the same if not more than our husbands or we’re considered less than, yet still take on the majority of house hold tasks- plus the amount of time we are to spend with our children. I don’t think 1960s parents had to do endless baby groups, and toddler sessions- sat down and worked out a comprehension question for a 6yr old.

It did get a lot better since then, but now I have a feeling that it's going back the other way again, and womens' sex-based rights are being eroded once more.

Better now but I'm sure there's positives and negatives of both eras. I wonder if there was more of a sense of community so women felt less alone? The other day I picked my DD up from an activity and there were at least ten mums waiting to pick up. Every single one staring at their phone. No one spoke to each other. I actually thought, wow, decades ago, surely all the women would be standing here chatting? Still, I suppose that observation isn't unique to women...

Ha, you read my mind. I was just sat thinking how stressed out I am doing everything, hdinh down a high power job, doing most of the hosue stuff all the bills and organising and that while j could never allow myself to depend on a man for money. A tiny bit of me just wants to curl INA. Corner and cry it's just too much. I'm letting my kids down etc.

I guess I'd still pick now as it's good to have options but it's like we just have to work full time with 80 percent of all the other stuff topped up ok it. It's hard.

I think overall motherhood was probably less intense and shorter.

Just think in the school holidays, I'm entirely responsible for every single activity my DC do. Decades ago, the mums could just send the kids out in the morning to play and they'd come home for tea...now they need endless supervision and input. Oh and they don't move out until well into their twenties or even thirties. Dh (child of the 1970s) left home at 17!!

We may have more “rights”- but I would say there is a greater lack of respect towards women. Social media dating and sites like only fans that have set us back! The way men think they can speak to women through a phone is disgusting!

Better in many ways now. I am 60. When I was born:

• No way to get a pregnancy terminated legally. Backstreet abortions very unsafe and women were sometimes prosecuted for getting one.

• Pill didn't exist. Contraception was hit or miss.

• Sex outside marriage hugely frowned on for women (men got away with much more). Unmarried mothers got little welfare support and often had no choice but to either marry a man they didn't love to give the baby a name, or give the baby up for adoption.

• Sex between women wasn't illegal as it was between men, but an openly lesbian woman would have struggled to get/keep a job on grounds of public decency.

• Lots of good, secure jobs with prospects were only open to men. Men and women doing the same job could legally be paid different rates. Any job mostly done by women was low-paid and low status.

• It was quite common to hear parents saying girls didn't need the same education and opportunities as boys because they would be getting married.

• No maternity leave, no maternity pay.

And so on.

It's just bad in a different way now. Still very much 2nd class citizens.

I remember as a child in the 60s, there seemed to be more of a sense of community. Families lived close to each other and supported each other.
Hardly any cars on the road; safer for children to play out.
Very little anti social behaviour. More respect for the law etc
The bad things (which didn't affect me as a child).....homosexuality was a criminal offence, domestic violence wasn't taken seriously, single mothers were pariahs etc etc so good and bad back then as there is now, I guess!!

@Comedycook

I think overall motherhood was probably less intense and shorter.

Just think in the school holidays, I'm entirely responsible for every single activity my DC do. Decades ago, the mums could just send the kids out in the morning to play and they'd come home for tea...now they need endless supervision and input. Oh and they don't move out until well into their twenties or even thirties. Dh (child of the 1970s) left home at 17!!

Personally, I don't think we do children any favours by filling up their every waking minute with organised activities. It's important to develop self-reliance and your own interests, and to learn to cope with occaisonal boredom, how to organise yourself, how to get on with all sorts of other people, and how to fight your own battles (within reason).

I grew up in an area that had a high rate of DV. Women wouldn't get out until they were nearly killed. They ended up in bedsits while their abusive husbands stayed in their council house, snaking the kids about. Teachers would ignore the bruises and the eldest girls would barely attend school. Many women lived in fear of pregnancy.

""I'd like to have been born in the 60s. I don't think people are very nice as a whole now""

You could legally kick shite out of your wife, your kids, other female relatives, minorities, gay men and have a good scrap at a football match, so they probably didn't have any hostility left.
How would you have felt about putting your disabled children, including those with autism in residential care?

@Hapoydayz

It's just bad in a different way now. Still very much 2nd class citizens.

I was going to say this.

Yes, obviously. A guilded cage is still a cage.