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?

*sacked for wearing trousers

I think it’s mixed.
On the one hand women of the 60s needed a man’s permission to open a bank account, but at the same time there weren’t the pressures to be a perfect mother, super woman type like there is today.

ExH was a 60s child, his mother worked and ran the home, from a fairly young age H was out and about with friends for much of the day. There was no talk of various parenting strategies (so mil says), very little pressure on children in school.

I read on another thread a quote that went something like “we were told we could have it all, we didn’t realise that to do that we’d have to do it all”, which I believe applies to the question.

Women who work still do the majority of housework and childcare. Men are set a very low bar of decency and are congratulated if so much as a little toe passes that bar. Women are held to increasingly high standards and bear the brunt of rising pressures from schools/work/even pet keeping.

Women also currently face a rollback of rights in the form of gender ideology -they’re not women’s rights if they include some men. I think it’ll take time, but if this goes ahead it’ll take a little while before women (those who don’t yet see the issue with it) realise the danger to single sex rights, to safeguarding, and the risks inherent in embracing queer theory. This is currently one of the biggest battles women face.

@ouch321

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 was born in the sixties. I have teenage daughters and I can’t believe it but I think being a teenage girl in the late seventies /early eighties, as I was, was so much easier than being a teenager girl now. My eldest dd (17) thinks everything was better for me, the music, the freedom, the older people around who gave my life structure. I think she is right. The world feels more frightening, global warming is terrifying, there is so much more pressure on girls and young women now. The whole gender issue is something that has made things measurably worse for women and girls. Imagine even ten years ago losing friends or being hounded out of a job for saying that girls need single sex changing rooms !

My mum had to give up work when she had my sister in 1972,she had no maternity leave ,she was also born during the war,so I don't think her early years were a barrel of laughs,and her Dad died when she was 8 from a heart condition ,that could probably have been treated in this day and age
I think people who think times were better are looking at things through rose colored glasses .

Infinitely better now, no question. Now isn't perfect by a long shot, but worth reflecting on what things were like for a woman in the 1960s.

You couldn't open a bank account without your husband's permission
Hard to divorce without proof of adultery
In some countries you were more or less forced to resign your job after marriage
No legal protection against discrimination at work and absolutely normal for a job you had had to be given to a man just because
Men were legally allowed to rape their wives
Single parents were treated like pariahs and accused of undermining the fabric of society
Women put under pressure to give up children born outside wedlock

I could go on.

Things are far from perfect now but who would want to go back to that? The idea that because women were less likely to work as hard then they somehow had more fulfilling lives is total crap.

@Spookytooth

Part of the problem is the loss of 9-5 jobs in your local town. People could leave school and be a cashier in the bank, be a secretary in a local office. Work in a factory. And then could work their way up.

These jobs have gone - people mostly have to commute which adds so much to the day.

I was around in the 60s and 70s and the idea that you could work your way up might have applied if you were male but as a female you were only able to rise in the ranks if no man had applied for the same job.

Yes, I meant you could work your way up to senior cashier or the boss's secretary - not the manager or the boss!

Part of the problem is the loss of 9-5 jobs in your local town

Absolutely agree.

9-5 rarely exists now. All full time jobs I see have longer hours...8.30-5.30 or 9-6. It's ridiculous. We have so much more technology now, we should be working less hours, not more.

SirVixofVixHall I too was a teenager late 70s and I don’t know a single person who guided me. Unless you mean told what to do and given limited choices of things where neither is at all attractive.
I remember after my first week at my first job I made the comment that I was so bored and was told to get used to it as that was my life and I better get used to it because I had another 50 years of working ahead of me.

I think there are those who weren’t there who apply todays freedoms to what they think it was like and think it must have been so wonderful or they were there and grew up in a white British and working household and didn’t realise the reality for girls and women from poorer immigrant families.

Only thing I think was better about the era was the music. The different music bands made. Not the forgettable ballads and predictable rapping that we gave today.

@Comedycook

Part of the problem is the loss of 9-5 jobs in your local town

Absolutely agree.

9-5 rarely exists now. All full time jobs I see have longer hours...8.30-5.30 or 9-6. It's ridiculous. We have so much more technology now, we should be working less hours, not more.

I was a nurse for years and always worked shifts apart from a single year working in a day hospital 9-5 ,I guess it's what your used to but I found working 9-5 so restrictive ,for planning appointments and doing stuff when it's busy ,such as shopping etc ,I even found child care easier with shifts .

@blyn72

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 am 31 and I advocate for women's rights and I am so happy someone from your generation says this.

I do feel that us women have come a long way but are still far from equality.

@Kennykenkencat

SirVixofVixHall I too was a teenager late 70s and I don’t know a single person who guided me. Unless you mean told what to do and given limited choices of things where neither is at all attractive. I remember after my first week at my first job I made the comment that I was so bored and was told to get used to it as that was my life and I better get used to it because I had another 50 years of working ahead of me.

I think there are those who weren’t there who apply todays freedoms to what they think it was like and think it must have been so wonderful or they were there and grew up in a white British and working household and didn’t realise the reality for girls and women from poorer immigrant families.

Only thing I think was better about the era was the music. The different music bands made. Not the forgettable ballads and predictable rapping that we gave today.

A bit of an assumption to assume that I am white. I am, but I am not English, so a different experience. I had much more physical freedom to roam as a child than my children have had, very few cars then to worry about. As a teenager I was able to come home from school and retreat, whereas my teens have phones and feel they have to always be accessible. Older teen has recently deleted her social media as she felt it was making her miserable. 1980s sexism was so much more overt, easier to see, now it is all smoke and mirrors and manipulation. Girls are still kept in their boxes but told it is progressive. I think that we have made some progress, but now we have a female MP who could not attend her own party conference as they couldn’t guarantee her safety. That doesn’t feel as though we have come very far.

Much better now.

It's much better being a woman now, no contest. Back then sexism was much more overt than today. People think it's bad today but it was much worse back then. Women aren't properly represented at the top of companies now, but it was unheard of back then. Today women can buy a property on their own. Couldn't get a mortgage alone back then.

Yes there is more stress and so on now, but that's part and parcel of having a job in the modern world. Whereas in the past a couple could live on a single income many find that both need to work now if they want to have a decent standard of living.

Yes there is more stress and so on now, but that's part and parcel of having a job in the modern world.

This. People talk about there being more "stress" in today's world than 40 years ago, but if you unpick this its a slightly specious argument: it a different kind of stress. It's undoubtedly true that its harder for families to work on a single (male) income now than it was and that consequently there are far more families where both partners work and where they rely on paid childcare. And that people typically work longer hours.

But the idea that this represents a worse kind of "stress" is very subjective. You're not comparing apples with apples really but a typical woman in the 1970s may not have had to work outside the home but she would have had to accept a complete lack of financial independence and a lack of agency for hers and her children's lives because she was dependent on the goodwill of her husband for her financial security. That sounds pretty stressful for me and I know it was for my mum, who was in this position.

It's horses for courses and will depend on the individual, the quality of the relationship and other factors but given the choice I'd take the stress of my own autonomy and being responsible for my own money and life choices over the stress of surrendering this to the whims of someone else any day.

I think women have far more opportunities and choices than previously, along with financial independence. However, social media and the obsession with appearance has taken women back about 40 years. Women are becoming their own worst enemies.

The work/mother stress also has to be put in context of how it arises. If you are a woman today and you are stressed because you are working outside of the home and doing all the childcare and domestic chores, then you have a shit husband/partner. So your stress isn’t about “being a woman” per se, but “having a shit husband.” And you’re in a far better position in 2022 to divorce your shit husband easily, be able to raise your DC as a single parent without stigma, work as something other than a primary teacher or a secretary, own your own home and so on, than you would have been in 1960.

My mum grew up in the 60s/70s (not in UK) and the totally rampant sexism she faced is way, way, worse than anything I have experienced. Where she is from, contraception was not available and if you got pregnant it was expected that you married the babies father, or basically be shunned. I think it's pretty naive to think things were 'better' back then.

@ComtesseDeSpair

The work/mother stress also has to be put in context of how it arises. If you are a woman today and you are stressed because you are working outside of the home and doing all the childcare and domestic chores, then you have a shit husband/partner. So your stress isn’t about “being a woman” per se, but “having a shit husband.” And you’re in a far better position in 2022 to divorce your shit husband easily, be able to raise your DC as a single parent without stigma, work as something other than a primary teacher or a secretary, own your own home and so on, than you would have been in 1960.

Amen to this.

You have a choice today as to whether to put up with shit behaviour and lack of support from your husband/partner or go it alone without the moral judgement which used to hang over any woman in this position in the 60s/70s. That alone - leaving aside any other positive change - makes things a million times better today.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers my mum wasnt able to access a council house. In fact it was the housing act of '77 that gave lone mothers access to housing as couples had more points. Literally the only childcare available to her was more like a private fostering arrangement or it was very hard to get employment otherwise so she paid for her board weekly. The presumption was you would have your baby adopted so there wasnt infrastructure. Benefits for single mums came in about 73. Remember at this time she had to get her fathers permision for a bank account, couldnt access credit but due to shame he wouldnt assist for some time.

I think I know what you mean. Not much is all bad. I suppose the notion of the 'weaker' sex, while clearly harmful and ridiculous, must have had some advantages for women. Eg, If you had a 'good' husband or father it must have been nice to have no need to take on the responsibility of financial planning etc.

I suppose the acknowledgment that women are physically weaker has some advantages too. The man of the house was supposed to physically protect you, mind his manners etc.

There was maybe more respect for the traditional role of women as mothers and homemakers. For women who aspired to be mothers and homemakers and generally enjoyed these roles that must have been a positive. If you were confident in those roles, especially being a mum you'd have more of a free reign and lower expectations of how to parent: you could feed your child crap and send them outside from breakfast until teatime. My mum didn't have to drive me to endless activities, organise tutors etc.

I wonder if 50+ women currently have it better than younger women now though. Apart from being considered to be slightly disgusting by younger people that is. Although we suffered more discrimination in the workplace there wasn't so much pressure to spend a pile of time and money on being unbelievably well groomed or to engage in sex that isn't 'vanilla'. There wasn't the 24 hour social media pressure to look amazing either.

I think we have more choices and options, but the pitfalls are worse and more dangerous. Its very much a caveat emptor situation, be careful what career you pursue, be careful what you do online, be careful if you marry and who you marry, be careful if you have children and who you have children with etc. Dont give up your career, dont move overseas for them. If you live in a risk averse life with strong boundaries around men, its better now. But small mistakes can really cost you, much more than it does for men.

@mibbelucieachwell

There was maybe more respect for the traditional role of women as mothers and homemakers. For women who aspired to be mothers and homemakers and generally enjoyed these roles that must have been a positive.

I think you're being naive and that's a pretty big leap tbh. I don't think there was any more "respect" for the traditional role of women as mothers and homemakers. There was very little respect afforded women. It was just the way things were. Women who were exclusively mothers and homemakers were largely taken entirely for granted by their husbands and beyond financially supporting them the men took very little interest in what they did unless it displeased them.

In an absolute best case scenario with an unusually progressive or supportive husband this could have been benign, but it frequently wasn't benign. Often these men provided no support in the home, showed minimal interest in the children and their progress and were entirely focused on their careers and social lives while they expected the woman to run the home timetable entirely to their satisfaction and without consultation.

They wouldn't have considered it incumbent upon them to let their wives know when they would be coming home or to consider their wives' ambitions beyond the home. Very often a woman who had ambition to do anything other than housework or childcare would have been at best sneered at and at worst threatened.

Even if your ambition extended no further than being a wife and homemaker it was a huge gamble that your husband would allow you to do this in the way that suited you and your children.

I find it a bit disturbing the way people look on all this with rose-tinted spectacles.

Can anyone point me to the "support" thread mentioned in the OP please?

@thepeopleversuswork Oh yes, there was almost no protection from an abusive husband or even 'just' a husband who spent all his earnings in the pub. Thank god for the option of no fault divorce that we have now.

However, it's depressing that women now work full time and yet still do more than their fair share of housework, parenting and other caring.