Feminism sold a lie - Women, today, are worse off than ever

[ConservativeC2]

Listening to the women I work with, it's been interesting to hear their views about feminism and they are not happy. We are all millennial age so not too young, not too old and I keep hearing that it's the millennial generation of women that have absolutely lost out the most.

I think feminism initially promoted some idea of independence, equality and choice. Phrases like 'men hold all the money and power' at the time were very emotive whilst not entirely true. The correct statement then (and still now) is some men hold all the money and power. Most men back in the 50s-70s worked very long hours and spent pretty much all their money on their family. It was hard for everyone, but I think women were more empowered then than now.

In contrast to today, most of the women my age have to work. Whilst feminism promotes choice, most of them do not actually have a choice today. Most men today do not earn enough to run a household which means most women have to work. The worst part is they still do a larger share of the domestic work and childcare. So I think women now have it worse than ever - it's not just me, my female colleagues feel the same way. They've come to point in life where they want to start a family but they know they will have to come back to work.

Now it's all to do with feminism. There are other factors which has driven up the cost of living (inflation, property prices, profit extraction from multinational corporates etc).

I think the past always looks "rosy" with hindsight but certainly wasnt! My Nan worked in the 1950s/1960s .I used to go to work with her(tea lady so I set out all the cups!).Her NDN showed my Nan a bad bruise on her arm ,Nan asked what happened, and she said quite casually Peter (her DH) did it! Obv DV still around now .But hopefully frowned on ,and women at least can work or/and get help.My DM worked through the 60s and was "part time" despite 9 to 4 days. Divorce frowned upon and women were seen to be not good wive s

I would never want to beholden to a man over money. I'm happy to earn my own cash. I can spend what I want when I want.

We both do chores.

If you choose to put up with a an excuse of a lump of a man who doesn’t contribute and value the work, care and thought that goes into having a functional life for all of your family, regardless of how work, parenting, domestic and financial responsibilities are divided, that’s on you not feminism.

There have been amazing and dreadful men (and women) throughout the ages.

And some women trap themselves nowadays, you see it on posts here a lot, when people list the things in life a lovely home often comes before a great marriage or healthy kids. I get it, many stay for the lifestyle and then complain about their partners. It’s the modern day version of being trapped in a house you are seen as lesser. So you want the detached house, nice second car, then suck up the domestic and parenting jobs.

Feminism does work, if you make the wrong choice of partner, lifestyle, value choices that’s on you not feminism.

I said in my life!and apologies I don’t know what FWR means. I’m not going to get into the transgender debate as I would imagine we have very different opinions on that (my opinion is shared by everyone I know but I am in the minority on MN)

But aside from the single sex toilet issue you have posted (which again is not the norm at all where I am from or in any of my wider circles across England - I’m don’t know any one who lives in Scotland), some of what you describe has been happening for years regarding periods. My father and grandfathers generation were terrified of them and they were always a secret.

and of course I’m technically sheltered and my experience can only come from my own experiences.

the articles you have provided are 100% not the norm for my city and for anyone I know.

when we see articles such as the above they are ‘news’ because this is not the expected or somewhat excepted ‘norm’

Thank you - makes sense. It’s true that most of us spend money on crap that doesn’t really enhance our lives, and in fact detracts from our lives as we have to work more and be more stressed about money as a result.

FWR Is the feminism board on Mumsnet. Basically Trans Ideology is the modern version of the patriarchy on steroids. Males are redefining women, and exposing their (often semi-erect) penis in womens changing rooms. This, is what Gender Ideology has led to. You really need to educate yourself on it.

This is not about men being 'terrified' of periods, this is about men not giving women PRIVACY during our periods! A nurse had a massive perimenstrual flood of a male dictated that he be present when he changed her blood-stained uniform in the ladies.

Girl in schools are mocked by boys and not given any privacy and boys kick the sanitary bins over. So this is about the need for women and girls to have privacy and dignity during our period away from males, not their 'fear' of it, but rather our fear of them seeing us at our most vulnerable. You really, really need to read up on what's going on. Because the female sex has the right to safety, dignity and privacy away from males. When in the toilet or when getting undressed.

i think it's a mixed bag, OP.

But a large part of the issue for "progressive" seeming ideas and groups is just that - they tend to be thinking about new laws, policies, ways of doing things, as a largely linear line. So you make progress, or sometimes go back, on the line. Things get better or worse. Maybe better in one area and worse in another but those are independent of each other.

The reality is that new ways of doing things, customs, and laws, are mainly about a series of trade offs. Often (not always) the reason for doing things a certain way is down to which trade offs seem most important. The idea of mothers being able to largly stay home and take care of kids and domestic duties was aspirational. Some women had to work (although often in more domestic types of roles) but it was seen as hard on them, hard on their kids. Awful for a poor woman with bad periods or pregnant to be working in the factory rather than taking care of her children who were then suffering from neglect (or also working.) It made more sense for men to be the main wage earner and that was a better arrangement in many ways.

But in other ways it did leave women vulnerable - and more so if divorce is easy and men aren't obliged to support a wife they abandon or divorce. So maybe women need a wage, to go out and work?

But that has downsides too, like the explosion of house prices, the need to put kids in care.

It's all pros and cons. Technology changes the environment and the pros and cons as well. Make a change, and there will be unintended effects. Often we can't give people a free choice because a dominant model exerts its own pressures.

I’m 62.

Ive always had to work. Couldn’t afford to run a household on one wage ever.

OP please come back and tell us which rights you’d like to take away from women? That’s fundamentally what you’re saying is the problem - so just name one removal of women’s rights that would help you? And how.

Maybe that needs to happen.

Yes they were.
Women were the property of their fathers then husbands. Queen Victoria was not allowed to live in her own palace without her mother after her father's death and being crowned queen until she was married due to the laws at the time.
Let that sink in before feminism even the queen of the British empire was her parents and husbands property!
So yes everyone single one of your female forbarers were property until the last 40-50 years!

I think that your generation don’t remember women not being able to open bank accounts or take mortgages in their own names, when their pay (if they were allowed to work) went into their husbands accounts, when women would rather suffer the trauma of domestic abuse that face the stigma of divorce (and be unabe to leave anyway for the aforementioned reasons). At the risk of sounding patronising, millennials have no idea how far we’ve come. Perhaps schools need to teach this along side black history and cultural studies.

That said, I do fear we may have become complacent. Not just over women’s rights but LGB rights - to some extent I feel we fell asleep at the wheel. We thought both demographics has equal standing in family courts over distribution of assets after divorce and access to children, and in the work place. Women and LGB people were now protected in all the spheres - but rights are like any other civic asset - they need maintenance and surveillance and continued investment or they crumble and erode. I think millennials are seeing - and experiencing - that erosion. The fact that women are expected to work, but childcare is extortionate and it is still the woman who is expected to compromise on her career/working hours/income, for example. The fact that women living in certain communities cannot expect the rights and protections we take for granted (see recent news articles that explains that 60% of muslim women are only married under Sharia laws that have no legal standing in the UK, for example).

So no, I don’t think feminism sold us a lie, but I do think what it has achieved is more fragile than we realised and that we should never have taken our eyes off the road. Now that I have DCs aged 17 and 20, I have woken up. We need government, parliament and employers to wake up too.

@ConservativeC2 You're correct that too much is placed on women today.

Raising children whilst exhausted from work is not ideal.

However, it is totally specious, over-simplistic, and naïve to say that women used to have it better.

We were property of men. We gradually gained the right to own property, have credit etc. up until 1991 in England if a man forced himself on his spouse this was not considered rape, because she was his property.

A woman could not leave an abusive situation if she could not work.

Do you believe only men should have the right to work?

I think you meant well with this but again, just because things aren't perfect now, does not mean we were better off when we were not autonomous beings.

I'm a single mother. I'm a single mother by choice! I would have been institutionalised and my children removed had this been decades ago.

Women have always had to work unless they were well off but we also had little to no rights when it came to financially protecting ourselves. We forget so easy that it was on 31 years ago it became a criminal offence to rape your wife.
And I absolutely agree the last few years have shown how fragile the gains are and how much we cannot rely on some women to defend them and how much some men hate women.

Again I’m not getting into any conversation about transgender for me and my ideology this is a non-issue. I know I’m in the minority on Mumsnet but I won’t get into any debate regarding single sex changing rooms and toilets. As I say and you’ve said probably in my sheltered life, this doesn’t affect anyone that I know especially not in schools. And where it has affected me, it doesn’t pose a risk or issue for me. However, I have very different opinions to you on mixed sex toilets and changing rooms and therefore won’t debate trans men or women or their rights and what is the perceived effect on cis women.

As I mentioned, I would argue that we do not have the same thoughts and experiences on this.

The incidents you’ve described are still not the norm. The bin kicking not acceptable but again not normal. In my personal experience of women and young people is they ‘own’ their period they ‘own’ how they speak about them they ‘own’ how men and boys behave in regards to periods. And the young men and adult men that I know, for them it’s a part of life, it’s a part of knowing and loving women and again non-issue.

Of course, for all my thoughts and experiences there will obviously be examples as you stressed which show the opposite of this. I can only give an opinion on my experience of being a woman born in the 80s and having daughters, nieces and nephews.

I don’t disagree with a lot of what the OP has said.

However, one big additional choice women now have is to remain unmarried and/or not be mothers.

I understand that with the cost of living crisis that being a single income household might not be a viable option for all. But its a socially acceptable option for women now - which it just wasn’t in the past.

This is a huge leap forward in my eyes. Now women genuinely have the ability to choose the lifestyle that works best for them - just as men always have done. Part of this is due to shifts in economic power - but also in society’s attitudes.

The one constant is that it all depends on the man you marry/have kids with. The difference is , that if things go tits up, at least now you have options. You can at least try and make it on your own. You are allowed to buy a house/rent on your own. You are allowed a credit card. You are allowed to work. You are allowed benefits. You are allowed to keep your children. You are allowed to press charges for DV or rape. You are allowed to leave/divorce. You are allowed contraception.More importantly, you are allowed to never marry/have kids in the first place.

A good man in the 50’s would’ve made for a good life. A good man now, would still make for a good life. An abusive /selfish/drunk man in the 50’s would’ve made make your life hell. An abusive/selfish/drunk man now would still make life hell , but we have options.

You speak with the privilege of someone already born with all the rights in place , who never had to fight for them. It’s frankly embarrassing at your age. I’m a millennial too.

You can ask for a female nurse or dr but if you live in the UK you can't guarantee that you won't get a man with special feelings because the NHS records their gender self-identity not their sex look at the Sandie Peggie case against NHS Fife where a male dr (no GRC) is recorded by the GMC as female and stated under oath in court that he would treat a female patient who requested a female dr because he considered himself female and this is acceptable to the NHS

Not everyone aspired to owning their own home in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Thatcher brought in that idea and got rid of so much council housing. Two cars - my parents only had one as my Mum, like most women then, didn't drive.

I will say that the supposed sexual freedom of the 60s and 70s ultimately benefitted men more.

Was born in 1955 and I'd say be careful what you wish for.

Absolutely this.

I think as pp have said this is capitalism and economics not feminism.

are you and your DH/partner if you have one equal partners? You do sound burnt out by life.

on the flip side to you, I work full time as does my husband we have three DC and I do not feel like you feel at all as we share all household tasks, bills and childcare tasks and pick up the slack when one is feeling tired or works late or goes out.

we have family time, date nights, one on one time with the children. A couple of holidays a year.

compared to my parents and grandparents our life is fulfilled and fantastic.

there will always be women (and men) knackered and burnt out as you describe but this isn’t something that’s new.

feminism creates opportunities that our predecessors never had. I’m sure you have your own money/bank account, are on house deeds/have a mortgage, these are just some of the examples that you previously wouldn’t have had and that’s thanks to women who fought for our rights.
lets not take away from them that the fight they fought wasn’t beneficial as it 100% was!

this is such hogwash its embarrassing.

Let me tell you about my nan who was a 50s woman.

My nan didnt get an education beyond 11, she fell pregnant out of wedlock and was forced to marry my grandad as that was shameful, he worked hard in a working clsss job, she worked hard in a different working class job, doing early mornings, nights, saturday etc. She couldn't get contraception without his permission there was no such thing as marital rape, she had 8 full term pregnancies, but not all the children survived. Maternity leave wasnt really a thing. She cooked, cleaned, childcare was an old lady down the road watching and older chikdren watching, children got injured. She was a victim of domestic violence as she had no economic means to get herself out of the situation. She couldn't get credit until 1975 Im not sure she could even have a bank account without her husbands say so. My grandad wasnt even a bad man by local standards. He did a lot around the house like washing up or making her eggs on toast for when she got back from work. They didnt own a house on one income, they had a council house and often struggled for food and clothes despite 2 incomes.

So no, I dont feel at all like I would like to go back to that. I love my education, I love my easy well paid office work with sociable hours. I love my bodily autonomy, I love I can have bank accounts, I love maternity leave, I love good quality childcare.

I know some women are still having shit lives and feel they work too hard with no support, but I dont think me also having these things removed would help them.

https://katethompsonauthor.substack.com/p/how-the-worlds-first-womens-refuge?r=1ro8m2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawNuvoxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrh6oJqmDpplbY6jG21cBVD-i16ajHf9tRLal9OPYzrteYGnDs2eiTiVkSpX_aem_gFpOwTNFK2HptLAB631LiQ&triedRedirect=true

Coincidentally this article came up on my Facebook feed after my first attempt at reading this thread, and after initially thinking FFS with a sense of weariness that comes from feeling obsolete in my 50s due to a series of unfortunate events, I decided to come back.

Very heartening to see previous posters pointing out that the lie is capitalism / neoliberalism, which is from observation one of the biggest pyramid schemes dressed up as meritocracy going, due to inbuilt systemic bias in as many areas as can it afford to enhance the wealth of those gaining the rewards of it.

Feminism is a word that is shorthand to explain the movement to afford women equal rights to men. It is derived from feminine to immediately signify that. You couldn't call it peoplism or humanism - the latter exists and is something in and of itself. Like all "labels" it has been bastardised, has evolved, and its meaning has been used to signify other issues, with much complexity and nuance overlooked. It's now a handy catch all when men and women are casting about for something to blame for the parlous state of the modern world, and takes us full circle back to "Adam good, led astray by bad Eve".

Capitalism has "worked" for as long as it has, theoretically because the game is rigged.

As others have pointed out, feminism was supposed to raise women as a class - and children of both sexes - from the status of chattels and property, as per the "Biblical" model, and a whole load of guff from "learned men" that used pseudoscience to demean women, their intellect, and give them unfettered access to their bodies.

We're seeing a resurgence of this vile rhetoric with the likes of Andrew Tate at one end (easy to dismiss his rhetoric unless you're a man who feels disadvantaged and is in a certain demographic) and Jordan Peterson at the other, who I frankly think is far more dangerous with his cobbling together of psychology, religion and air of martyrdom using big words and appealing to those with more brain cells. Friends of mine I have known for years and are incredibly intelligent and successful are also Libertarians, and are now dismissing the notion of structural disadvantages to women that still exist, even if there's window dressing to pretend they don't.

This is what I think is dangerous, as the trad wife thing goes viral, reproductive rights need "discussion", right wing Christian Nationalism is on the rise etc etc. And you've got the heady mix of true believers and grifters with pound signs in their eyes plus the technological means to spread any divisive nonsense at high speed to anyone at any time.

But back to this article.

OP this is what "Feminism" embodies for me. Women working collectively to help other women and children and protect them from male violence and subjugation because patriarchal power structures dismissed them as collateral damage.

And if you think we aren't regressing, you must be blind. First culprits are capitalism, neoliberalism and nationalism, with "religion" bringing up the rear. Blame Feminism/ women, and i can guarantee you won't enjoy the Gilead adjacent consequences.

WE have bank accounts, rights to property, proper childcare provisions. and I don't have to rely on pocket money from men to cover household costs with no power if he decided to piss his pay-packet away at the pub or gambling.

We have to option to be self sufficient and reliant and lead full and safe lives wether partnered or not. I have no desire to live the life of either of my grandmothers thanks. with limited options to work like taking in ironing while watching 5 children.