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.

@bozzabollix

But your post assumes that couples will both want to balance work and family duties to the same extent. There will still be men like those who do your husbands job who want to work excessively and these people will achieve the best results (so why should that be stopped), then there will be women who don’t want that and they may end up with these men sometimes.

A system that forced both to work (but not too much) would be holding people like that back and on the work from sounds sure to produce mediocrity.

@TinaPoopsy52 I agree, society has changed, we live further from our extended families, we are having children later, people are working later. So we now have both parents often working FT, with little support from family and extortionate childcare costs. Working patterns are completely at odds with 6 hour primary school day and 12 weeks of school holiday.

Not to mention support for elderly relatives too. No wonder we are stressed as a society.

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’.

Nah that's a poor excuse for making a bad choice in man. A woman like that is just enabling a useless man. She doesn't have to put up with it but she does. Look at the countless threads here, useless pathetic man but oh he's a great dad.

Women are now more empowered with choices than ever was. It's your responsibility to make those choices.

But that relies on your daughter thinking SAHMs aren’t doing anything valuable and aren’t as worthy as their husband, which you clearly do but she might not. And I don’t.

Just how demanding is the housework these days? I stick clothes in my washing machine and turn it on. When it finishes I hang them up to dry. Some people have tumble dryers so can just fold everything and put it away as soon as it finishes. Hardly any time out of my day at all. 50 years ago, washing machines were new and revolutionary, often they were twin tubs. There would still have been plenty of housewives washing clothes by hand.

Central heating is pretty ubiquitous these days. 50 years ago you'd have had fires to maintain and clean up after.

Before everyone had freezers, shopping had to be done several times a week because the meat would go off otherwise. Without a second car in the family you had to carry your bags home, either on foot or on the bus.

You've never had it so good OP.

I think some elements of life were better back then, some are better now. It would be nice if we could combine the two rather than assuming SAM = abused unfulfilled drudge and working mums = stressed out guilty absent parent

Parenting seems a lot more hands on. Kids not allowed to play out without adults, I've even heard of 12 year olds that still go to childminders! Parents expected to be involved with schoolwork in a way previous generations weren't are two examples I can think of.

It's going to be either extra time or money for the parents.

I grew up in the sixties and seventies. To some extent, it was a very different world, especially in the small, rural community where my family lived.

A chalk line was drawn down the playground, separating boys from girls. Boys ran around and played with balls; girls had skipping ropes and engaged in singing and dancing games (I stood in a corner, because I was too shy to join in).

At secondary school, boys played football, rugby and cricket; girls played hockey, tennis and netball. Boys did woodwork and metalwork; girls did needlework and 'Domestic Science' (there was a token swap around in the middle of the secondary years). When the first computer came to school (just one!), the boys crowded round it, however, it would be the girls who would be more likely to use it, and this was recognised towards the end of my school career, when one option for exams was 'Computer Science' and this was open to all pupils.

In the workplace, I was told that I had to wear a skirt or dress and flesh-coloured tights, and almost all the supermarket shop assistants (that was my job) were female. It was still generally expected that women would not work when their children were very young, and there was little in the way of formal childcare for young children.

Attitudes seemed to change during the eighties and into the nineties, and certainly we have come a long way as a nation in terms of equality of opportunity. Yet, according to The Gender Trust, Britain has the fifth largest gender-based pay gap in Europe, and there is a difference of about 9% v=between the average pay for men and the average pay for women in the UK.

This gap is bolstered by the fact that there are still proportionally more males in higher paying senior positions than women, and the fact that our current PM is only the third female PM in Britain perhaps indicates that it is still a lot harder for women to get into positions of power, than for men to do so.

So, I would say things have improved for women over the past six decades, but, perhaps sadly, the change has been slow and has still not resulted in true equality.

TinaPoopsy52 yes, my blood ran cold. That's the way I feel about it. I'm glad you had a better experience of life back then.

And with the rape laws it’s very good they changed, but you have to realise that even today that crime of marital rape would be virtually impossible to convict without evidence - so what’s the real difference? It’s lip service to an unsolvable problem.

I'm glad that you acknowledge that it's good the rape laws have changed. The real difference that I see is that because it wasn't illegal, no-one thought of it as wrong, it was just "conjugal rights". Nowadays a woman is is raped by her husband knows that it is wrong and that may give her the strength to leave him.

50 years ago
My mother had a twin tub washing machine (not a case of press a button & walk away) to do the main weekly wash once a week.
Hand washing was done daily
Cloth nappies
Most food was homemade from scratch like pastry pies, stews & dumplings, suet puddings & sponge puddings for dessert
Food shopping was done once a week. Shops were always closed on a Sunday & some on Wednesday afternoons.
Coal fire, no central heating
Husband worked & only person to have ever drive

My grandparents had a mangle in their kitchen

The generation before that had huge families due to no contraception & not all the children survived to adulthood.

Do I think people have it better today ? YES

I live a totally different life to my previous generations, much more freedom & choices !

• that is raped

I agree with you, OP. Living ‘the dream’ for many women means working outside the home at least as much as their partner and doing 99% of the work at home and childcare etc. You see it on here a lot.

As ever, the beneficiaries are often the men.

No, sorry you are wrong. It was worse for women 50yrs ago. The bored housewife only applied to middle class on up. Most women still had to work and raise families. Only they couldn’t have their own bank accounts- well they could open one with their name on it but their husband could literally walk into the bank and clear out all the funds to have a big day at the races if he felt like it. He could them come home and rape his wife, perfectly legal back then as forcing your wife to have sex even if you had to smack her around a bit first and hold her down wasn’t considered to be rape back then. Because he owns his wife see.

And even though the equal pay act was passed in 1970, they weren’t enforcing it. Women were being paid far less than men for the same jobs. They also had no protection against being sacked for pregnancy or marriage. The pay gap we have now is a fraction of what it was then.

I think some things have obviously improved for some women.

We have the illusion of equality.

But the reality is we still live in a hugely sexist, mysoginist, patriarchal society.

Where our rights (looking at you America) can easily be removed to suit the made up fairy stories men believe.

And women for the most part are worse than men for reinforcing it. For judging women who don't conform to the sexist rules. For enabling men.

No thank you. 50 years ago my mums income wasn’t counted towards the mortgage she was a teacher so a professional and a steady income. They only counted my dad’s salary which was less.
She didn’t want to give up job to be a satm but did as it was the social norm.
I on the other hand have a career, carried on with this after having 2 children which was my choice. I also share all the house work with my husband.

100% agree @Tsort And people saying 'oh but women can just LEAVE easier these days' are being ridiculous. Yes it's more socially acceptable to leave, but it's MUCH harder financially for the women if they do. Especially seeing as how most of them are NOT on the £100,000 a year salary SOME claim on here.

Being alone on a basic salary - the sort MOST people have is really hard. Being alone forever is hard. That is why there are so many people on dating sites. No-one wants to be alone forever.. No matter how much they try to convince themselves - and everyone else. (Not talking about people who have been divorced/in relationships/widowed... I mean people who have NEVER been in a relationship...)

But yeah, life is - and always has been - fucking SHIT for women!

There is one area where I think women are in general on average a lot worse off, and that is the expectations regarding sex that men have of them.

@Strugglingtodomybest

Most Everyone thought of it as wrong. Even in earlier times a hundred years ago stuff like that would often fall under the umbrella of “spousal cruelty”

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps whilst I don't disagree with much of what you're saying, I dispute that it's harder to leave financially today, women were extremely limited financially in the past, my mum needed her dad's permission to open a credit card! Plus we have more financial support from the state now. So it's not easy, but it is much more possible both culturally and financially these days.

I agree OP, to a point. I think a lot of us were raised to fit the 60s stereotypical gender roles, I know me and my brothers were. I was to help mum and they to help dad etc. Then I become a teenager and realise the world has changed but values haven't (although there are signs it's getting there.)

In my relationship I work pt and he ft so I do most of the housework. BUT I do 90% and only 15 hours less than him. He "doesn't see it" or it just doesn't bother him. For eg I change our sheets weekly because I dread to think how long he would take to do it if left to him. After 20 years together this isn't going to change although he is much better than he was. He is also very appreciative of what I do.

50 years ago was the 70s not the 1950s

And the idea that all women were living an idyllic life being sahms while the men all worked is a load of rubbish even in the 50s. Life wasn't ever like an American sitcom.

Most women worked. Children were not pandered to. They were kicked out to play and told not to come back till tea time.

Most women don't even want to be sahms so why it's promoted as this lost ideal we all wish we could get back to is beyond me.

Equality has far bigger issues than a small minority of women not wanting to work.

Last night the OP kept coming back to the issue of persistent domestic violence to show life hadn’t got better for women, so I’m going to focus on that.

Back in the 1950s it was much more socially acceptable to hit your wife. People would probably ask you, the woman, what you’d done to deserve it. And you just had to put up with it. Divorce was social and economic suicide. There were no shelters, no helplines, no specialised police officers, no injunctions through the courts, no offender rehabilitation programmes.

Do some men still beat their partners? Yes, far too many, and it’s a fucking abomination that some women don’t feel safe in their own homes. But domestic violence is statistically lower (sorry OP, but it’s true) and there is more hope to leave and heal.

I recently had to go to a pacific island country for work. Domestic violence is absolutely rife (like, nearly every home). There is only one women’s shelter on the island, run by nuns, and eventually they have to smooth the way for the woman to go back home, to their abusers, because there are no social security benefits, no legal recourse for victims, and no way for them to live outside their marriages. One woman was beaten black and blue, lying dying inside her house, and they had to persuade her husband to let them take her because she is his property. Fucking imagine that. Everyday I am glad I live in this country, in this particular moment of history.

@Discovereads

The bored 50’s, 60’s, 70’s housewife is such an insulting and overused stereotype. I was and knew plenty of other women during those times that weren’t bored and had a lot they were doing and proud to be doing. We were no more likely to be bored than a bored male office worker or a bored woman today working.

Its a stereotype coming from modern women who want to spit on stay at home wives and housewife’s in order to make them seem like a less viable option and less valuable and to downgrade what they did during that past time as worthless - and a lot of what they did was very good. Why some women want to lie about what being a housewife was like back then I don’t know, perhaps they’re afraid that if they acknowledged that actually those women did a lot of good and many were fulfilled women might flock back to that or something. Or perhaps they believe the lie themselves. I guess history is written by the victors as they say.

Anyway the doped up bored housewife story is 95% bullshit. Sorry for the language.

@Discovereads

The bored 50’s, 60’s, 70’s housewife is such an insulting and overused stereotype. I was and knew plenty of other women during those times that weren’t bored and had a lot they were doing and proud to be doing. We were no more likely to be bored than a bored male office worker or a bored woman today working.

Its a stereotype coming from women who want to spit on stay at home wives and housewife’s in order to make them seem like a less viable option and less valuable