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).

Yes, and young women today have more rights, in every way, than I ever had.

Plus, so many modern conveniences. Women used to do outside work, and very few mid cons.

Everyone (usually) goes through some hard times - it’s nothing to do with feminism.

I don’t think too many young women would want to go back to the “good old days”. 🙄

Yep - It was a rhetorical question.

I think men probably feel like they’re ’doing it all’ today too.

Rather than blaming feminism, much of our overwhelm is to do with family structures (lack of community help), the collapse of domestic help (even the middle classes had servants back in the day…), modern life bringing so much choice / opportunity which makes decision making harder (suddenly having to ‘manage’ all sorts of subscriptions, diets, financial planning etc).

There are many other probable factors.

Well, very few people had domestic help. We don’t HAVE to subscribe to all the choices, no one died because they have to watch non streamed TV, they are a lifestyle choice.

We don’t have to subscribe to the incessant demands of our children - designer stuff, gaming machines, the latest smart phones, tablets etc - all choices.

These men can feel like they're 'doing it all' as much as they like.

Doesn't change the fact that they're not.

Yes, this myth trotted out by people who read too much propaganda and not enough history gets tedious. I can see why women fall for the “oh you have it the hardest, “they” did it too you” - its always a seductive argument. However its bollocks and it would be better to invest time in the sources of some of the propaganda.

My DM like her DM and GDM always worked as well as being fully accountable for the home duties and being legally denied the right to their own financial privacy or bodies. They were sacked for being married or pregnant, paid less than men doing the same job and barred from most higher paying jobs.

The laws allowing a man to rape his wife were not changed until the latter 1990s. The laws requiring companies to give women equal access to pension schemes were not changed until the same era.

But yes, any woman born before 1975 lived a charmed life, carried on golden cushions from birth until death, paid for by grinding the bones of hard working men 🙄

The premise is false. Women worked, they always worked even where it was a patchwork of jobs. It was an essential contribution to feeding the family.

True SAHMs were always a luxury financially, even where the SAHM in question was forced into the situation.

I can't say I agree tbh.

We can choose how we best want to live our lives. Not get pregnant until/unless we want to. Choose to be childfree or have a kid. Get married, or don't, because we want to, or don't. Instead of being financially dependent on a man. We have so many choices.

When people say silly things like your thread title (not saying you're silly OP you're entitled to your opinion) I often think okay cool, let's go on a trip to Afghanistan shall we, and see what the lives of women there is like.

The irony of it is how feminism has revolutionised the lives of women to such an extent we barely even recognise what we have because we take it for granted.

In 1900, 4/5 of the UK population was working class.

But Carla didn't claim that 'most women were upper or middle class'. She said that of those who were upper or middle class, most were not in paid employment.

Too late to amend the above - I misremembered my statistics on class. In 1900 only 1/5 of the population was middle class; 4/5 were either working or upper class. I'm not sure on the split of those 2 but would expect the working class to be the larger one by a considerable margin.

The laws allowing a man to rape his wife were not changed until the latter 1990s.

France is only changing it now.

Do you think those rules were good, then? Or do you mean something else?

There was no age of consent until recently...!

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56413881&ved=2ahUKEwimvrGa68KSAxVKQUEAHS42KlIQFnoECFcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3CGAsKv3E9R00pAz86rvjr

And rape was defined as requiring 'violence, comstraint, threat or suprise' which is partly a difficulty Gisele Pelicot had in her case..

Have you seen Cathy Come Home? Maybe watch it, to see why children didn’t grow up with absent fathers - if their mothers were destitute (because they couldn’t work and look after children) the children were forcibly adopted.

Thank you, yes I did say that..

But also, I think it IS true that as a whole, most women were not in paid work in the Victorian times. As I said, the link I gave estimated 43% of women as a whole worked then.

People cite domestic servants etc but an important detail is they often retired once married.

These stats don't include informal or domestic labour at home, so these shouldn't be ignored.

Yes the OPs good old days. Where I lived they sent pregnant girls, often ones who had been abused by family members to mother and baby homes, contraceptives were limited so women had big families, borstals were full and boys were being abused there by everyone around them, women were stuck in marriages being abused, penniless. God those horrible feminists how could they, it was so much better for women in the past.

I think I mean that there is no net gain to society as a whole, it has benefitted women in some ways, but the sacrifices either personally or more broadly negate any real benefit. They're just trade offs

This is more about failure of the welfare system

I don't think society now is worse than society in the 1950s. Quite the reverse.

No, it's more about the values of the welfare system - which reflected the values of society.

Clearly the welfare system did not reflect the values of the public if there was public outcry and the formation of several charities and a special cabinet meeting and changes in policy. Why are you so determined to believe the public were against this if a TV drama produces a tremendous uproar against the practice. Was there any public resistance to these changes?

Hmm,, I agree there are problems still but I don't think 'any real benefit' has been negated

It's a matter of perspective, as I was said in my post. Might be better for you. That's not a universal experience.

Re your comment about absent fathers, surely there's a middle way?

I mean surely doing all these things isn't the only way to get men to stay with their families? :

'Married women were then put on a short term contract, a contract which stated they could be sacked at any time and were not eligible to join the company pension scheme. The same did not apply to married men. Some of the lower level(not senior) managers were women but without exception they were older and did not have children. In other words the company thought it safe that they were well past the age of getting pregnant as they had been married a fair few years. Pregnant women were told if they did come back to work it would be on a part time basis. Mothers were never promoted.'

If so many men really do need all these restrictions on married women & mothers to persuade them to stay with their families, that frankly doesn't speak very well of them....!

Yeah, that's tradwife influencer bullshit.