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.

I'm all honesty, I think women are better off today overall. Sexual harassment and domestic violence are still happening, but at least there are channels for recourse now snd much greater awareness. I know some people on here have issues with SAHMs, but I am one out of personal choice, rather than because I was told I had to leave work when I got married.

It's hard to compare life in the 70s /80s to now because life is much more fast-paced in urban Britain and people have different expectations. I grew up in a different country and my mum was a SAHM but that was the way of life there because men did the physical work outside and women did the domestic work - no other practical choice over there, you just got on with it. Nobody fussed about gender roles - it was what it was at the basic level. My mum was always there and available, like a mainstay, but we just sort of played around her really and helped with the baking. She made whatever she was doing into activities, which was quite a skill when I look back, but also we could just play outside. At least she didn't have to monitor our screen time! As a SAHM now, I've had different pressures to my mum. Far more pressure to support the kids education, do organised activities with them, get them doing music / sports practice, get them into the schools that are very competitive. It's all much more structured and you can't just let your kids go out and play (well not here you can't). You have higher expectations and ambitions for your kids and yourself these days. My family were just amazed because i was the first to go to uni - now, for my kids, it's what uni, what course, four A* needed and so much more pressure.. But on the other hand, there are modern conveniences. I have a cleaner in twice a week. So it's less physically demanding, but a lot more time in the car ferrying kids back and forth. Husbands who are always travelling or doing sports is another thing my mum never contended with. Interesting to compare my life with hers when I think about it .

But I do think there are too many men in the U.K. these days who expect their wives to work the same as them, but they nowhere near step up to the same degree at home. Couples get bogged down trying to juggle everything and too many women feel that they are doing it all. They are exhausted with the demands of family and work and you can really see it in women's faces. In other countries, men are shamed for not financially supporting their families. My husband is also responsible for his widowed mother (as the eldest son). There is a sense of obligation that men seem to have lost in the UK. Here, I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way in that too many women seem to have no expectation of their men to financially support them at all. You read threads about married women calmly explaining how they are having to save up for their own maternity leave - as if this is fine?! So many useless men with no integrity or sense of responsibility who keep their own separate bank accounts when they have a wife and children. In this sense, I do think society here is going backwards and it's depressing what some women will now put up with. Rant over!

The thing is we could only make a meaningful comparison if the same cohort had lived through both eras at the same age, in the same financial position (equivalent) etc. Which is obviously impossible.

The thing is a lot of the stuff we have now looks great on paper to women who were wives and mothers 30 years ago. Financial independence? Careers? Better equality in law? Superior technology and housework appliances? They all sound great.

But, in a way all it’s done is add more pressure. For the most part they didn’t have to get a baby, a preschooler and an older child up, dressed, fed and out the door for 7.30am so they could drop them off at nursery/school and be on the train to work for 8. Then work til 5, rush home, pick them up, dish up dinner, do bath time, collapse into bed while thinking about all the housework and life admin that needs doing.

‘But the man should be doing his share!’ You shout. Even when they do, 2 hours isn’t much between 2 people to get 3 kids fed, bathed and settled while washing up, checking nursery/school letters for the next day, making sure uniforms are cleaned and ironed and lunchboxes done.

That great technology? I’m of an age where I can clearly remember life before advanced social media, and I can confidently say it was better. Less anxiety and neuroses, better patience, a calmer mindset.

So while 2022 life is great on paper, be careful what you wish for.

One of the increase in pressure is children have a richer childhood. Taking children to clubs, sports and activities all takes time, but they get to do much more than children used to.

I'm not sure that a busy childhood is a richer childhood. More downtime to just be a child, to learn to amuse themselves and use their imagination might be more beneficial.

WrapAroundCover - quits a lot of issues covered in your last posts. I have to say I have no experience of online dating or Tinder-type sites as I fortunately missed those. Looks like a minefield though. I'm not sure I'd bother with all that if I was single. So many weirdos. I think dating and women's expectations around dating have definitely plummeted since the pre-OLD days. Looks hideous to me. Definitely an area where women are worse off. I despair for my teen daughter with OLD and online porn and just hope she meets someone normal eventually..

Couples used to meet at work, through mutual friends, sports clubs, etc. A much better way to meet someone.

@WrapAroundCover - thanks for sharing. I think I would feel angry if I was cheated on, but I think they scenarios you describe give pause for thought. Perhaps we are lucky now that counselling and therapy services are more readily available - to help us think through how and why we think the way we do and how to communicate it with our partner.

People do still meet in the usual ways. No-one has to do OLD.

My gran was born in 1920. She was really intelligent but the only role she could do was civil service work. She had to give that up when married. She worked through out her life but she so wanted to study. You didnt study in 1930s as a woman from a poorish background. She used to say I feel like a captain of a ship in her kitchen just pressing buttons. She died at 98 but she loved the fact my mum and I had an education. My mum died 7 yrs before she did. I think we have easier.

50 years ago was the 1970’s. You’re talking about someone who was born 100 years ago. It’s not quite the same thing.

I think life was a lot harder if you were different in any way. Lesbian or gay, black, disabled.
One of my Aunts was disabled and struggled to walk. She had a funny-looking walk. Other relatives used to laugh at her walking.

@ancientgran I remember you telling that story before, Awful, that poor woman.
My mum did not get any maintenance. She said he gave a very occasional pound or two. I have no idea if she went to court or not.

Certainly more invested and pressure to behave like a normal person when you may bump into them in your social circle or the lift at work. Obviously people still broke up or didnt click bit you couldn’t ghost someone who worked behind the bar at your local easily for example.

Well said. I think the problem on all threads like this is that people are looking at and judging the mid 20th century with 21st century eyes and expectations. I grew up in the 50s, one of the awful boomers, my mother was at home until we were both in the grammar school, early '60s, when she went to work part time. I don't think she felt unhappy about that, my Dad worked outside the home and she worked inside the home although he would do more than a lot of men of his generation in the house and he did all the 'outside' stuff. It suited them and they encouraged both me and my brother to do as well as we could at school which wasn't always usual, education beyond the leaving age was for the boys in many families.

50 years ago my mother needed my father’s permission to get a library card. When she went to university the lecturers would leave if there were no male students in the class because ‘there was no one there’.
Every generation has its own pressures, but we have more freedom.
I can have a library card online for a number of libraries.
No one can stop me.

In what country? Because 50 years ago in the UK I had by own library cards and no lecturers walked out if there were no men in the room....

Yes where was that @WhiteCatmas. I went to university briefly in 1978 albeit only 44 years ago and that wasn't the case. I easily opened a bank account 46 years ago aged 16 and got a mortgage as a single woman aged 21 40 years ago with no problem.

My grandma ran a farm from 1940 when her dh and brothers went to war. She carried on doing it along with a family business until the mid 70s. One brother didn't return, one was never well again and her DH did other more profitable things. My mother lived independently in London and Paris from 1955 to 1960.

That would be the UK in the 1960s and Canada in the 1970s.

Not my UK @WhiteCatmas

I’m in my fifties.

I always earned enough so I knew I could walk away whenever I wanted or needed to and my DH also knew that. Guess what it’s an equal partnership.