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).

Oh hey….right wing misogynist. Yeah, I’m fine thanks. I feel totally empowered and….fuck off

Read about the marital status of women and women's rights in Ancient Rome. These women were very equal

Don't anyone pull the 'husband/partner does 50% of everything' card, because the majority of men do not. And they still expect the wife/the mother of their children to go out to work though (as well as picking up most of the domestic work!)
Feminism has fucked over many women, because just like our mother/grandmothers/great grandmothers and so on, many of us STILL have no choice. The difference is many women today have no choice but to WORK. As well as taking on all the domestic duties, childcare, and gruntwork.

@zov you do have a choice, you should have a picked a better partner. I genuinely don’t know of any relationships out of my friends where the husband and wife are not 50/50 in childcare and housework. If you tolerate this, then your children will be next….as the manics said

On a slight tangent, I often wonder why the human race has evolved with the sexes effectively being encouraged to see each other as enemies? It seems utterly counter productive as essentially we're driven to replicate and create and innovate, yet the systems in place disadvantaged both sexes in different ways.

I suppose there's possibly either some biological underpinning, or it's just a further reflection of divisive tactics that enables political control and power. However, you'd think by now given all the marvellous progress, knowledge and technology we would have evolved to do better by now. I don't like the former idea as it plays into my pet hate, evolutionary psychology, which is being used as a regressive weapon against women by pseudo intellectuals like Jordan Peterson.

Sometimes I'm just utterly baffled by everything to be honest. Maybe there's a chance of enlightenment in the post mortem cosmic soup..... one can only hope lol....

You think the col is bad now try having 24.5% inflation (1975) and the inflation having to bail us out. There's a reason why we ditched the old monetary system. In the 80s interest rates on mortgages was around 14%.
Honestly you don't know how bad things were for the working class women. Look up why family allowance was brought in.

It didn’t evolve that way, it was constructed that way. Religion did a lot if heavy lifting on that side.

Oh deary me, again with the comparisons. Yes mortgages were 14% but the house prices were far far lower and salaries were higher - it was much more affordable. My Dad’s first house was something like £14,000. Ours was £210,000.

The difference is the ability to bear children and the expectation to do the lioness' share of their care and rearing.

I am a woman and I have never, ever had any issue with achieving equality. I have travelled, developed two professional careers, worked with men and women at their same level, with same opportunities and earning the same as them. In my relationships my partners and I have always been equal (the ones who weren't keen on it were given the boot or adapted pretty quiclkly, because I had the same power as them and did not need them). I am now 49, I am very comfortably, I work wnenever I want and set my fees most of the time, I am planning to spend next year travelling to celebrate my 50th, I have a house, an investment property and lots of savings. I love my life. Oh, and currently I have an amazing partner who is more of a feminist than I am. Longh may it last, but if it doesn't... I'll be perfectly ok.

Why could I "have it all" so "easily"?

There is a simple answer: I never wanted children.

I have zero doubts that my life would have been much less equal if I had had the desire to have children. For starters, pregnancy and birth, even if they go seamlessly well, would have set me back in my career and studies. In the worst case scenario, it could have caused me injuries that I would carry for the rest of my life, and set me back even further. Then childrearing: I could have worked on choosing the perfect partner as much as I wanted, but if my partner changed after the baby was here, of ih he proved to be useless with child rearing, then I would still have to do the lioness' share of the baby's cares, because I wouodn't have the heart to just tell the child: sorry baby, you dad is useless, so I am going to be useless too and let you suffer".

Women don't abandon or neglect our children in the same proportion as men do when they are unhappy, so we feel the need to compensate the child, who never asked to be born, for their useless father. So most women end up having the child living with them and doing the majority of their care while the father pisses off looking for a younger, freer woman (untill she has a baby, where the cycle normally repeats itself). Or even if the father stays home, if he refuses to do his share we don't simply refuse to do ours, because we are painfully aware that now there's another person here who will be the one paying for their parents' uselessness and lack of commitment.

As long as women are the only ones with wombs, and with a maternal instinct that stops them from abandoning/neglecting their own child when things don't go to plan, we will never have true equality.

I agree @aurynne
The lie that was sold to many is that we can ignore the fundamental biological inequality.
In reality, we simply can't.

Well homes were more affordable in one way - but so many other things like cars and holidays were unaffordable

the past is the past

women working didn’t screw the housing market - imagine that women didn’t work but house prices went from 3 times the man’s income to 6times … it would suck just as much and unless women working caused the house price problem it’s not the fault of feminism - that’s they world you are in - irrespective of feminism house prices have become uncontrolled

I would say a home is more important than holidays and cars - those you can live without. Not a home though. It’s crazy getting on to the housing ladder these days.

Yes, housing market is a whole other kettle of fish. But as previously mentioned, feminism and economics do intersect and affect one another. Many women are trying to navigate and juggle building careers, get on the house ladder, and start families. It seems impossible to do it all. I know to a certain degree it always has been a juggle, but the housing situation at the moment, esp in this country is particularly dire. Childcare is extremely unaffordable as well.

I wasn't allowed to do the subject I wanted to in school because I would have been the only girl in the class (I wanted to take tech drawing because I wanted to be an architect).
When I started work, I was paid literally half of what a male counterpart was getting.
I couldn't have got a loan (including a mortgage) without a male acting as guarantor. So no, I don't think I'm worse off today then I was in 60s and 70s.

This for some perspective.

This happened to me. I did technical drawing as
a CSE but was not allowed to do it at O level. I wanted to be an architect also!

Is technical drawing even on the curriculum now?

I feel we are comparing apples to oranges on this thread. I don’t think comparing women today to women in the 1950s/60s/70s etc is at all helpful. There’s such a thing as generational cohort differences. The struggles of women in the past were unique to that time, as are the struggles of women today. AI replacing a lot of jobs is a threat of today as an example.

It doesn't matter. The point stands either way that it is possible to raise a family without two salaries or marrying a man in the top 1% of earners however you want to define sahm. It may not be easy, or offer a lifestyle you are happy with, but it's possible as I've seen it done.

How do you feel feminism and economics intersect? Do you feel feminism has exacerbated these economic issues? And do you feel they would be less impactful in a world where feminism didn't exist?

Agreed, I suppose it just makes me feel weary that it hasn't changed fundamentally. We seem to be utterly brainwashed still, yet we live and die for human contact and often because of it.

Forgive me, I am suffering an acute attack of the morbs brought on by reflection of relationships I have had. My ex husband was definitely a war situation, masked by his manipulation. My late DP was the love of my life and as close to a feminist in male form I've yet encountered, but even then he'd sometimes revert to Northern Victorian Dad mode, and we had some brutal arguments. Not many, to be fair, but the same old tropes could come out. Usually it was down to external pressures that definitely highlighted sex based inequalities such as caring for his Mother when she developed dementia, which of course fell largely to me.

It's just so very sad that the struggle continues.....

@Ubertomusic He does have a disability and his work have been great at making reasonable adjustments for him. If he was unable to work due to this (and there may come a time that this is so) he would then of course qualify for certain benefits.
But it is definitely reassuring for him that I also work hard to pay a big chunk of the rent and bills so that it is not all just on him, especially during his "bad" periods.

Back in the day, my grandmother was actually the main breadwinner for her family, doing a job which she had initially only managed to secure by persuading her father to apply for it in his name but on her behalf. So my great-grandfather was officially the postholder but he never went near the workplace, my grandmother did all of the work and kept all of the money. That is to say, she handed all of the money over to my grandfather, because she wasn't permitted to have her own bank account. He worked too, but didn't bring in as much money.

While managing her job, my grandmother was also responsible for raising 4 kids, caring for her disabled mother and doing all of the housework without much help at all, except during the war years, when she benefitted greatly from hosting an older teenage evacuee who provided some much-needed assistance. There was no formal childcare available to her. The house had an outdoor toilet and no running water. Food was rationed for many years. Her DH occasionally hit her, and this was widely considered to be normal male behaviour at the time.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the suggestion that life is harder for modern women.

I don't think so, it's been replaced in the world of work by CAD.

Next I expect to hear that life is harder for women in Britain than in Afghanistan.

But this thread is about comparing now to the past - literally.

OP is saying life is worse now because of feminism

My Grandma had three children from the age of 19. She barely worked but had a good lifestyle and lived very comfortably in retirement.

My Mum raised two children from the age of 25 and worked part-time for the rest of working life in what would be considered a low skilled minimum wage job. She had a comfortable life and is well off in retirement thanks to my Dad’s pension.

I went to uni and have worked full time most of my life in professional jobs. Mid 50s now with no children. We have a much smaller house than my parents and grandparents. I think life would have been pretty difficult with kids and I definitely would have needed to work full time. I’m not sure my retirement will be as rosy as my Mum or Grandma’s.

In my case, I’m worse off.

Yeah, but I wanted to comment about how unhelpful that is to do.