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.

Hardly. Stats show that most successful women are married to fairly equally successful men.

But at least you are honest: it is more about a desire in some people to freeload than about some innate genetic tendency that makes women incapable of life outside the house or only happy in domesticity or "nurturing roles" or whatever other batshit nonsense was used to try to justify it earlier in the thread.

There's no need to come up with fake justifications. People can do what they want. But don't try to hold it up as some kind of higher purpose or the only way to be a decent mother or necessary for someone else to have a career or something innate in nature or any of the other increasingly implausible reasons given. Just own it.

"Hard to think of another explanation when you have a woman bragging about her "alpha male" £40k earning husband"

Well yes, sure. But that's just one women on the internet. Hardly a representative sample.

Well, yes of course, because by your definition a housewife would not be a 'successful' woman.

If we instead look at studies relating to personal happiness, they consistently find no significant difference or happiness slightly in favour of the housewife demographic. SAHM have also been found in several studies to be the happiest 'profession'.

So it would seem that plenty of housewives have everything working women work for and are happier to boot. It may not meet your approval but you can certainly see why so many are adamant that they're happy as Larry.

You sound very angry LazyDaysAreTheBest. But no need to be. Everyone is an individual. Who cares?

Yeah, if a couple are happy with their setup why should the wife give a shit what angry feminists think. 🤷‍♀️

I know. But her comments were extremely (unintentionally) funny, weren't they?

If we instead look at studies relating to personal happiness, they consistently find no significant difference or happiness slightly in favour of the housewife demographic. SAHM have also been found in several studies to be the happiest 'profession'.

Nope. All the international data shows that people are happier in societies where work and home life is equally shared, as I posted above. This leads to greater health and emotional wellbeing for both adults and children.

Not angry in the slightest. Some of these comments have given me a good giggle.

I could t give a hoot about 'data'. As if anyone organised their life because if 'data.' On my list of priorities, that's not even on the list!

Which is fine. So as I said above, people can make whatever decisions they wish to. Nobody cares.

When they will get pushback however, is when they start writing nonsense online about how doing some cleaning and cooking is a full time job, or that women are genetically/ hormonally programmed to only be capable of homemaking/ that this leads to better outcomes for health and happiness when that's inconsistent with all the data/ that/ that women who work are "detached mothers"/ that men who share work and home life equally are "beta males" or many of the other absurd comments made on the thread that people have been criticising/ laughing at.

First result from Google....

Earlier research found no statistically significant difference in the happiness between a housewife and a working wife. This paper revisits the issue using data from the 2000s. Results show that there is no difference in the happiness between a housewife and a working wife in the upper- and low-income economies. In contrast, results for the middle-income economies show that a part-time working wife is happier than a housewife and that both part-time working wife and housewife are happier than a full-time working wife.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-013-9235-9

I left work when I was pregnant when I was 30. Never went back and now 48. 4 DC in that time. Best years of my life. Done loads with them I wouldn't have had the energy or headspace for otherwise (particularly in terms of educational support). Much less stress on all of us. We are financially much better off for me not working too because it freed DH up to drive his business interests through and, as a result, he has made a lot of money and been able to retire before the age of 50. Now he only invests in what interests him. Loads of women have 'facilitated' very successful men - but with very good reason if it's a life changing amount of money for the whole family and means your kids can go to the best schools and have opportunities, security and trust funds they wouldn't otherwise have. Everyone benefits. That's why a lot of SAHMs do it. They are not stupid. Far from it.

Sounds like it worked well for you.

I've never been interested in having kids, although I love spending time with my goddaughter and nieces/nephew. One of the things I think I'd struggle with is that I really hate it when I can't get to the gym 3-4 times a week and train. It makes me grumpy when I can't get the excess energy out (possibly a product of having ADHD which I don't take meds for) and I also hate seeing the weight creep on.

Honestly, it's hard enough with me working relatively long hours (average 50 hour week, sometimed more). If I had to also juggle kids I'd never be able to get everything done.

By which, I'm not saying having kids is bad. Just that I don't think it's necessarily possible to juggle everything for some people. I think you sometimes have to choose as you've done.

Good point. 😆😆

I am an utter failure. 🤣 Perhaps if I had someone to "enable" me I would have perfected that life skill. 😁

@TruckerBarbie have a look at the OECD stats.

If we instead look at studies relating to personal happiness, they consistently find no significant difference or happiness slightly in favour of the housewife demographic. SAHM have also been found in several studies to be the happiest 'profession'.

Do those stats include the 50% whose marriage later breaks down, and how happy they are with their circumstances then?

If not, you're comparing apples and pears.