Have women become soft

[peeweehill]

Hear me first ive just got in from having a chat to my neighbour shes almost 80 really sweet lady known her for years.
Well we was having a natter while she was waiting for her daughter to arrive (she`s going away for the weekend) and i said something how society has changed a lot and how far technology has come.

She agreed it was all for the best and how we would of loved it back in the day. She then said the biggest thing that she as noticed the most is that women are getting softer.
I said what do you mean she replied with we all used to be tough as nails now most are gone soft.
Before i could reply her daughter arrived she said catch up when i get home on monday.

Now im waiting for monday lol😆
It got me thinking have us women got softer.🤔
Some of what i read on MN i think she may have a point i think i dont know.
What do you netters think.

What does tough as nails mean? Beating people up, drinking pints of gin, chopping wood?

I've never been soft. I've had to be hard, even if I didn't want to be. I'd love to relax into so,e softness, rely on someone, but unfortunately no-one can be relied on. So here I am, hard, but shouldn't have to be

Ah, now that sounds fab. Only, I'd pay someone to,do the chopping. I'd just like to spit on the ground

My mothers life was quite soft actually, taking off for weekends at a time and leaving me to!deal,with my fathers weekend benders.

I think both men and women have become ‘softer’ but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I was a feral child and teenager and hard as nails but I was like that because I had to be to survive.
My DD is very ‘soft’ and I worry that she’s too soft but actually she’s just not in constant fight and flight mode.

I love how women don’t have to constantly be fighting for their basic rights and prove how tough they are as much any more.
And I love how men are more open with their emotions.

How 'soft' or 'hard' you are is down to the individual's personality and upbringing, and always was. It's not a case of women as a whole group getting softer or not.

I'm tough. Single parent, three autistic children, one is higher functioning and often suicidal, other two have learning disabilities requiring life long care. I escaped an abusive marriage. I also have two other children, who are academically very able but obviously have to put up with having two learning disabled siblings. So my aim for them is to push them it to university and independent life. So I can live and die alone on my alter of fucking toughness

When she says soft does she mean wet? Or does she mean kinder, less abrasive? Some of those women out scrubbing their doorsteps were tough cookies that’s for sure, the Ena Sharples types 😁

I think this is the problem. With social media you only ever hear about the extreme 1% at the extreme. The 98 % somewhere in the middle just get on with things quietly. The vast majority of people are no softer or harder than they were 60 years ago.

And they are then raising soft children. There are a lot of teenagers nowadays who have their lives micromanaged by parents - 13 year olds who can't be left at home alone for an hour, kids not allowed sleepovers until they turn 16, posters worrying about a 17 year old making a short bus journey alone and so on. Many teenagers are lacking basic self help skills and the ability to make any decisions themselves and they have no resilience.

Humans are humans, how "hard" we are, is a reflection of our environment. Most of us adapt because we have to.

I think as society has progressed from “back in her day” women are probably more assertive and are able to challenge the societal norms and evolve from being SAHMs and housewives that were once expected.

Pair that with the rise of incel culture and the current epidemic of violence against women it’s a very dangerous world for women currently. We’re not respected. We’re not treated fairly still.

I don’t think we’re “soft” no. I think we’re just more vocal and less tolerant to being treated unfairly that lots of women from her generation think is normal.

It depends what we mean by soft. Unable to cope or kind and sensitive?

I think what the Op is thinking of is effort in housework.
Dm is nearly 80.

She got a washing machine when I (#2) was born. Before that everything (including terry nappies) was done by hand. Even after she got the washing machine, some had to be hand washed.
No tumble drier so everything had to be hung out. And a lot needed ironing.
The hoover was heavy and no wheels. She'd often choose to use dustpan and brush over a carpet as it was easier if not too messy.
Shopping was done almost every day, and involved walking round the village (about 60-90 minutes) to the different shops that were in different parts.
No freezer, and only a small fridge so there wasn't food stored.
The (coal) fire had to be cleaned out and re-laid daily during the winter (tbf I think df often re-laid it, and at weekends also cleaned it)
No ready meals; everything was cooked from scratch.
No dishwasher (tbf dad did a certain amount)
Things were mended rather than new bought. I had socks that had more darn than original by the time dsis had finished with them.
Things were made rather than bought when possible (cakes/clothes etc)
Appliances were a lot heavier - she found her first iron in the roof a few years ago and it's really heavy compared to mine.

Sometimes when I'm sitting down, reading the internet, I think of dm. She used to give herself half an hour only to sit down at lunch. She loved to do a crossword, but often didn't have time. I have far more time than she did, despite working full time, which she didn't.

I'd rather have my life.

I'm one of the toughest cookies I know! I might get upset and frustrated about things sometimes, but it doesn't last and I'm good at picking myself up, dusting myself down and getting on with what needs to be done!

Yes but not just women - we're not called a "snowflake generation" for nothing 😆

I’m not saying the bulk of students NEED trigger warnings, but the fact they are deemed necessary for young adults exemplifies the educational approach of trying not to expose people to any discomfort. Until recently, nobody would have thought to question whether students should be warned about aspects of a topic they’d chosen to study. And the less people are exposed to difficult or uncomfortable situations, the less equipped they are likely to be to handle them.

And yes, a lot of people (the bulk of them women) were on benzos in the 60s and 70s, and it’s acknowledged now that many of them shouldn’t have been. But that was driven mainly by the medical profession, not the public. And it is thought to have been, in part, the result of doctors (then mostly male) putting certain women’s issues down to psychiatric disorders. (I fear some women are still having their problems dismissed in this way today.)

As someone with a long history of serious psychiatric illness, I’ve found the recent watering down of the meaning of mental illness incredibly frustrating. People now use the words ‘mental health’ in the same throwaway manner they have long used ‘depressed’. When people describe a bad day at work or an argument with a partner in terms of its impact on their mental health – which I do see people doing all the time online – it trivialises mental illness.

I think people on the whole have become softer and more precious.

Definitely. Life was much tougher decades ago. Now many people just moan about life admin instead including booking doctors appointments like it’s hard.

I’m not sure that’s the best example, getting an appointment at my GP surgery is nigh on impossible! But I know what you mean.

I've just looked through the whole active threads list, and honestly the things people can't seem to deal with by themselves is mind boggling. I don't recall ever being asked by any of my friends most of the things people race onto MN to ask advice on - they can't even decide what to call their babies!!

There really do seem to be a lot of delicate flowers on here, and I agree with a pp that many children are being overly micromanaged and not being encouraged to develop resilience - just this week I read a similar comment from a clinical psychologist. People seem so frightened of everything.

No I don’t. I think women deal with a whole load of
different challenges to women of that generation.

many women of that generation were housewife’s looking after the home (nothing wrong with that!)

in this generation a lot more women are single parents, or working parents as part of a team, juggling parenthood/looking after a home, working… sometimes being a whole
home. Doing all the jobs.

I don’t think we should challenge the past against the present.. both had their challenges and throughout I feel women have always on the whole remained strong.

Women are slowly experiencing emancipation. Some of the disassociation or other avoidance or poor coping skills are being replaced by therapy and CBT. I think women are getting more capable and exercising more agency.

Yeah, I'm sure she'd have loved working 40 hours a week whilst doing school runs AND making a chicken last all week whilst not playing with her kids but still finding time to judge modern mums for being on their devices too much.

In her defence, its probably easier to pretend women were choosing to be tough by putting up with shit husbands because they because they had limited actual choices.

Completely agree!!