To think woman don't have it better now?

[firstbabyworries]

Had a debate last night after watching a programme about how in history woman have been treated hideously. Husband said it's much better now. I largely disagreed.
The percentage of rape convictions is frightening. If it gets to court, (which it hardly ever does because who would believe you anyone, did you lead him on, where revealing clothing) it's just your word against his, who would ever believe a woman eh.
The rights to abortion in the US have changed, woman have no autonomy over their own body.
Donald bloody Trump! Need I say more?!

There are just tons and tons of ways life is so much harder for woman. Maybe because it's spoken about more now people think it's better. Maybe it is, maybe my judgement is clouded, the first two points are incredibly close to my heart so I might be talking rubbish!

This. MN was a revelation to me. So many women still putting up with old school entitlement & laziness from men. I never thought women younger than me woukd put up with this shit.

I don’t know, me personally I would have lived in a small village with my husband chosen for me, probably would have been illiterate (which would be sad, I’m a bookworm) with zero money of my own and looking at a life of having lots of kids that I wouldn’t have particularly wanted. I prefer being alive now. Now a woman has some option to pack her bags and fuck off if she so chooses, some control over her own life. Access to work, control over fertility, control over her own finances etc have been liberators.

But I do agree with you on the violence women face, theres a long way to go and the world is a really fucking depressing place. In swathes of the world great women live small lives and I am so thankful my daughter will have more. No-one is going to be jailing or killing my DD for not wearing a headscarf, she won’t be whipped in public because some man took offence at her behaviour. Not so thankful that I can’t recognise how women still have to fight back because theres always some wanker in the wings waiting to take whats ours.

I also think a lot of women out there don’t have it all, they just do it all.

Was a lot of things have got better I agree with Hateam about teenagers / young women and internet porn. We can see that the mental health of girls has massively declines since 2014 with the introduction of smart phones. I would hate to be a teenage girl now, and I often have conversations with DD (21) about how she would prefer to have grown up in the 1980s, when I did. Beauty standards have massively changed as well, we did pretty much nothing other than shave and maybe put a bit of make up, now it's almost universal long hair, paying for nails and brows and lashes and waxing, and even Botox and whatever it is they do with their lips. Also, if you have a look at the female popstars from the 80s versus now, there's much more undress and writhing around. And even though there was a lot more homophobia then, there was a great lesbian scene and no one tried to persuade you were born in the wrong body.

I think we do have it better, as life for women in the past was pretty awful.
We have no fault divorce now, whereas a relative of mine had to travel down to London from the North in the 1950’s to get a divorce. She had been beaten black and blue by her DH.

Marital rape was legal.

Married men got a tax break.

Employers could easily pay women less money just by giving them a different job title.

I know you mentioned the dire state of rape convictions OP but I can remember a couple of rape cases and the questions women were put through were horrendous, and all reported in the news.

Arthur Hutchinson broke in to a house, murdered three occupants and then raped the 18 year old daughter at knife point.

OK I have just looked and this was the 1980s, but that poor girl was drilled on whether she had enjoyed the sex. She had to give evidence in open court.

It feels like things peaked about 5-10 years ago and have been in decline since. In particular in the USA but in terms of reproductive rights but globally in general too.

Historically inaccurate. Women couldn’t have mortgages in their own names in the 1970s, marital rape wasn’t a crime, contraception and abortion are much more widely available, sexual discrimination is illegal etc etc; you need to take a longer and more informed view.

This is an interesting thread.
I think that it's easy to forget that times were hard for both men and women until about 100 years ago. A lot of examples given above are more extremes and examples of the risk rather that typical every day existence. Illiteracy was common, the vote wasn't given to "common" men until late 19th century. I really don't think the balance of good to bad , or lazy to industrious people has changed over the years.

I have also been thinking that the advent of the pill and sexual revolution liberated men more than women. We now have high expectations of having sex early in relationships, with a higher cost to women still.

Well there's a long way to go before women are truly equal to men.

But it's better than it's ever been.

You are right to be concerned about the likes of Donald Trump, though. We are beginning to go backwards in many ways.

I'm 46 and one thing I really have noticed is respect in the workplace. I have a finance job and when I look back to some of the goings on when I started in my early 20s I cringe. Where I work, lots of senior females.

Love the woman blaming here! That never changes, huh?

I read those threads too. It’s pretty clear to me those women are not ‘putting up with that shit’. They are desperately trying to change it. But you can’t actually physically make someone do something they refuse to do. And those men just refuse to pull their weight. There isn’t anything these women can do to make them. So stop blaming women for men’s chosen behaviour.

The only option is to leave, but the dire state of the housing market makes housing unaffordable and inaccessible for many, high cost of living, and ease with which men can get out of or reduce child maintenance means many women feel practically and financially trapped.

In the 90s senior women couldn't return to their job after childbirth at the household name company I worked for.

Maternity leave was 6 weeks at 90% and 13 weeks at £50- then you went back to work at a lower level or not at all
I was asked at interview why they should employ me as I would only have children

Things have been steadily improving since roughly the 1910s, but there have been periods of accelerated progress and periods of backlash where significant ground is lost. I would say we are in a period of extreme backlash right now, since around 2012 or so - probably the worst we've seen so far on a social level, although dismantling of the legal framework supporting equality hasn't quite kept pace with the rise of extremist misogyny on a social, cultural, and political level. But that's also a sign that significant (read: threatening to the status quo) progress was happening. It's absolutely possible for the ground lost in the last twelve years to be regained and forward progress to be resumed, but it will take a concerted effort.

The 1990s were not any better for women than presently. What makes you say that?

Women really do have it better (in the west) but of course there's still a long way to go.
With regards to rape cases - it's not about "Who would believe a woman eh?". It's about having enough proof to convict a man without any doubt. I was actually in the jury for a rape case. It's not that we didn't believe the woman - we simply couldn't convict him with the evidence we had.

I also think things are better now. Women have much more flexibility than even the 90s. Better maternity pay, better protection at many work places for parents.
I actually think we felt more hopeful in the past though despite it not being better then. Nowadays people are quite doom and gloom.

I'm not sure you do know what threads I'm talking about. I'm not talking about threads where women are trapped in abusive relationships & marriages. I do think we all have a responsibility to not put up with certain male behaviours though, and to bring up our daughters & sons to find them unacceptable.Thats not woman blaming. I believe in women's capacity to have some agency in this debate.

I think that some aspects of life have definitely improved for the vast majority of women (although, I agree with the person who said the 1990s were best).

I think the bigger problem is that the attitude of men generally towards women generally has seriously regressed and for many women that is the issue.

Its how we've ended up with a dismantling of women's rights and shockingly low to non existent rape convictions despite more women in professional roles etc.

We can choose to live without a man and still pay bills and have a bank account. Where I live, abortion is a choice we can make.

It's not perfect, of course not. But it beats relying on some dude. YABU.

I was still a teenager in the early 1990’s and have teenagers now.

I don’t disagree on the WFH comments and that technology has brought improvements. However, the flip side of the technology is the pornified /incel world my poor teenage daughters inhabit today, and this aspect is in my opinion much much worse.

LOL.

I became an adult in the 1990s and really, no.

This is a good point. It's an awful reality they're navigating.

Men are to be blamed for their behaviour, and so are women, and if a man is so useless so why on earth have multiple children with them?

Women are not all saints

I think your husband was saying life was better than it was for women historically and for some reason you are arguing it's harder than (for men/than it could be)? You are using a different comparison group for "better."

Do you really think rape convictions were ever high, that women felt they could report sexual assault easily in the past? Look how many famous men married teenagers and were cheered on to do so, gross.

I do actually agree that the 90s was a brief period where girls were not as sexualised, in the UK at least. Lots of female fronted bands with the women holding guitars rather than twerking. It still wasn't great for things like domestic violence and part time work.