To think a lot of women are worse off than 50 years ago?

[Tsort]

A certain type of person is nostalgic for the old days when ‘men were men, and women were women’. I am not. However, it must be noted that at the time when women were expected to be docile acquiescent homemakers, men were expected to foot the bill. They paid for dinner, sorted the mortgage and brought home the bacon. Not for me, but a fair division of labour.

Now, we have a generation of women who ‘pay their way’, go Dutch and refuse to let men pay for them as they don’t want to be indebted. Grand.

But, these same women also do the lion’s share of housework, because ‘men don’t see it’ and shoulder the emotional labour because ‘that’s just the way men are’.

So, women are now shouldering some of the traditionally male burdens while the traditional female burdens have remained firmly in place. How is this an improvement for women? And why do so many tolerate it? This is a profound misunderstanding of feminism and it hurts so many of us.

Okay well I hardly make any tea.

I,

do school drop offs and pick ups
provide childcare for other family
will provide care for our elderly relatives
cook three meals a day from scratch
plan and shop for all meals
all extra-curricular activities
make packed lunches for adults and children
do all clean up on holidays and cooking
all laundry and putting away
tidying children's rooms with them which is a huge task actually
all house cleaning

among other things. and you simplified it as "make the tea" but also say I'm exploited

You also said we are equally exploiting one another but for some reason our roles aren't equal.

Your whole opinion is inconsistent.

It's been a norm throughout history but a norm does not mean every single individual does it.

@bob78

I never said it was against nature. I said biology influences our gendered behaviour. So more men are more likely to be risk takers etc and more women nurturing and it will never even up, but that doesn’t mean in todays world women can’t work.
But it’s like this - why have women only started to want careers now? Now you may say because men stopped them on the past but in reality it’s only the last hundred years we’ve even been pushing for it.
Now why is that? Because the work and world is safe enough now because of increased technology, it’s not as big of a risk. You can live in relative safety with a career now - you couldn’t do that with all types of mens work in the 1600’s. Sailing on a trading ship wasn’t safe, many male jobs then weren’t safe.
The same is true today to an extent - it’s still men making all these things that turn into big companies like apple and so on - because they take the original risk. It’s just that roles within those things can be done by men or women now because there’s no strength element. But most of the original risk (when there is real risk or ruin) is taken by men.

It's been a norm throughout history but a norm does not mean every single individual does it.

Precisely.

I'm not sure what you're arguing against.

@TinaPoopsy52
It’s impossible to get reason out of someone who thinks that all human gender differences are “socialisation” (why did it even happen in the first place if we were all once the same, it’s nonsense).

Most of our difference are due to socialisation, not hormones. The oppression of women into sex based gender roles was because we physically looked different from men and only we could provide them with children. It didn’t happen because men are ruled by testosterone to be aggressive and women are naturally wired to be submissive because of estrogen. This completely falls apart when you look at other forms of oppression. How does testosterone explain the atrocities and oppression of African black people by European white people? More likely the oppression happened for the exact same reasons, black people physically looked different and had something the white people wanted (free labour and diamond/emerald/gold mines). Sexism and racism are social constructs…they’re not caused by biology. To think that makes them immutable, not to mention a convenient excuse for the worst in human behaviour.

Testosterone has been well studied in all animals including humans and is very much proven to be responsible for higher aggression. No, actually what they are seeing now is that being in or exposed to a violent or stressful situation triggers an increase in testosterone blood levels- even in females. The cause and effect relationship was poorly understood.

And male Lions are more aggressive actually, females actually have to show submission to (thankfully we’re not lions) and they get majorly pissy if it’s not done right, they also fight each other for dominance and patrol territory.

Yes male lions do fight each other, but dominance isn’t the same as aggression. Furthermore, you can be just as if not more aggressive without being the dominant one in the hierarchy (we definitely see that in human societies…that the most aggressive and violent humans are the ones at the bottom of the hierarchy there is a valid argument to be made about oppression causing aggressive behaviours) Female lions will gang up and wound and chase away male lions. Female lions do all the hunting while the male lions babysit & nurture the cubs. My point was not that male lions are not aggressive but that female lions are just as if not more aggressive than male lions.

Absolutely. Women are free to choose to be read wives but it’s not a feminist statement nor is it in the interests of women as a group (quite the opposite).

Trad wives not read wives

the feminist bit is the choice.

It's not in the interests of women for some of us to be these trad wives? How so?

How is my choice bad for women as a whole? you're attributing too much power to me, whilst asserting I'm powerless, again; you're all over the place.

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth

I'm interested to hear how women who want careers have been socialised but women who don't are just natural?

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth

Your choice reinforces the rigid gender stereotypes and promotes sexism.

It also enables men to continue focusing on their careers while women dont/can't

Feminism isn't about choice.

Well exactly, that was my point when I said that, because according to most people socialisation is the reason for women taking on a nurturing role, not nature.

I was being facetious.

A career is of course an entirely modern concept and cannot be attributed to nature nor spoken of in those terms because it's a product of capitalism.

Caring for a baby on the other hand....

I do not check people’s posting history, I also didn’t assume anything about your personal ethnicity or background, though I am surprised you are a Black African Immigrant so know very well that most women in the world do live in countries that are very much heavily still Patriarchal and fits within the 70’s gender role mold of the era (and even of the pre 70’s) you seem to think make women’s life better, and yet can’t see that those gender roles usually further oppress women in those countries and even talk about domestic abuse without acknowledging that the proportion of domestic abuse in countries with these gender roles as the norm and societally acceptable thing to do are the ones with most feminicides and domestic abuse?

How many women are currently oppressed in countries like Iran, Afghanistan, etc…? How does men being the main earner and holding onto old school values and women looking after the house and kids better their way of life in ways our lifestyle in Europe in 2022 would somehow make it harder on them?

You seem to want to acknowledge the hardships of being a woman doing it all without acknowledging the further hardship of being a woman who can’t do much outside of the house but does it all in the house anyway.

Women in 2022 can work and get help around the house or with their kids, they don’t actually have to do it all, unless they want to. They can delegate those chores if a husband is chosing not to be present or if they are solo, as long as they have access to a job and their own money. They can also chose to only properly clean once a week if they feel like it because there is no expectation that their home should be picture perfect and ready by the time husband come home at the end of the day, they can chose not to cook everyday, they can chose to drop their kids off in PJs looking rough if they want to and will even be relatable. They can chose to leave their abusive husband. They can chose.

Women who truly do it all nowadays in 2022 in countries with a progressive mindset mostly do it all out of choice, not out of societal expectation (as now the societal expectation has shifted to expecting women to not feel like they have to perform and towards self-care), even single moms have a lot more help and tools to make their life easier in 2022 than they did in the 70’s. Yet in countries with a more conservative and “old school” mindset women have very little choice in what they do or don’t do as the onus is that it’s their role to perform and behave a certain way and do certain tasks and having someone else do it for them would be of great shame and the man bringing in money often comes with the expectation that he should be therefore the one ruling the household and thanked adequately for his labor and for providing both by having a faithful obedient wife, coming home to a clean house and nice dinner and usually by having sex whenever the man feels like it. Not least that if women shouldn’t work or should work less, studies become less necessary to the eye of society, why should a woman study if she is not to work (see Afghanistan) as she is to be provided for and in exchange provide for him who provides for her.

So again, why are you not acknowledging the massive issues in countries who still live according to the 70’s and the lifestyle you gauge better if your focus isn’t on a minority of white women living in Europe? As your arguments would only about work for them and not at all for any women belonging to a minority group or already heavily patriarchal country.

Yeah most of the things you said I said are made up though. Which might be why you think they are “inconsistent”.

I said you have an unequal relationship. I didn’t say you were “exploited” at any point. Also I quoted your post saying your husband “prohibited” you from working and said your relationship showed toxic sexism.

I used tea to mean dinner/evening meal. I do most of those things you list but work full time as well. My dds do go to after school club and have school meals (free for all where I live) and I have a cleaner to clean and tidy. But I do the rest and maintain a senior job which pays well and is rewarding.

so don’t let your dh tell you you can’t. It’s 2022.

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth

So the idea that men are biologically programmed to want a career can't be true either then

If careers are entirely modern and can't be spoken about in terms of 'nature'

Can't have it both ways.

@Discovereads

The conflation of racism and biological differences between men and women is foolish. The two are not the same at all. Racism is purely based on skin colour and outward appearance - but men and women actually are different at a biological level which affects the mind.
This greatly affects our behaviour.

You have made a false conflation of historical and pre historical relations between men and women with racism to try to prove testosterone doesn’t affect aggressiveness, this is total nonsense talk. historical relations between men and women can’t be compared to all forms of oppression. Historical gender roles are fundementally different from any oppression of a minority people or conquered land by a oppressor.
This is the problem with feminist thinking. It applies communist principles of oppressed and oppressor to all situations where they really bear no relevance.

Racism and saying men and women are biologically different because of hormones (reality) are nothing the same. And I think the reason you attached racism there was to try to slur an opion (reality) you don’t like as being as bad as being racist, because on its own you can’t really argue with it coherently.

Testosterone does increase in stressful situations - but that in no way negates the fact that makes start and always have much higher testosterone levels. And their aggressive behaviour evidences this.
You have taken a scientific finding of testosterone increasing under stress for both genders and used that to imply that male greater testosterone doesn’t cause higher aggression in general in males in - when actually it proves nothing of the kind and isn’t intended to.

Male lions are (contrary to the lion king unfourtunately) pretty crappy fathers and the nurturing they do basically amounts to sitting there doing nothing. The reasons females hunt is because that is their role - the males is to patrol for threats. Female lions hunting in no way has anything to do with proving female humans were pre historic hunters or warriors, they are two different species obviously.
Lion talk is interesting but really has little to do with human behaviour, the only point is that across male species males with greater testosterone are more agressive and dominant in general.

The fact that it’s important to you to show female lions and other animals are just as aggressive as males (they’re not) really shows how ideologically biased you are about this whole thing. It’s like you believe in some religion that tells you “thou shall not acknowledge the biology of gender in animals”

Yes that’s right. If men at work have a skivvy but women have to do it all, that disadvantages women in the workplace.

*to provide.

Today that means earning money.

@Topgub So in your opinion should absolutely no women opt out of the work force? It's immoral to do so?

Feminism isn’t about choosing to be a trad wife. It’s about breaking down gender stereotypes not upholding them.

trad wife stereotypes are bad for women as a group in a number of ways. For example, it means workplaces don’t change to allow more flexibility because it’s still just a few women demanding them instead of both sexes. They’re also bad for women in them as they are stuck in unequal relationships and can’t achieve anything for themselves. They’re also bad for the next generation as they show women in unequal roles. And so on. your husband prohibits you from working- he knows he’s in charge and so do you if you were honest with yourself.

You don’t understand the debate @keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth No one said that

So it's a bad choice that harms women but it's also a perfectly fine choice to make at the same time?

So you assume I can't achieve anything for myself?
Do you think achievements only exist in the workplace?

Nope. He just leaves the school pick up for me and values what I do in the home so if I work it would have to be around that which would be almost impossible so I don't work. He does not prohibit me, the circumstance does, somewhat, but I don't want to work so can you be prohibited from doing something you don't want to do?