To partially disagree with the argument about the 'second shift' made by some WASPIS?

[Carla786]

I know that workplace discrimination was rife for women who were born in the 1950s. Lack of childcare etc. I'm not disputing that.

I disagree partly with the argument made by some WASPIS that the 'second shift' (housework/childcare) they had to do while in paid work is important to their case.

For one thing, women in the 1970s & 80s were more likely to work less hours, work part-time. Men were more likely to work longer hours, do more overtime. Obviously this was fuelled by discrimination, lack of childcare that I mentioned above.

This ties to my other point : in the 70s & 80s raising children was often less labour-intensive than today, in the sense that children played out a lot more, ferrying to many activities was less common, parental input even in primary school was generally a bit less intense than expected often today. Studies (I'll link) have shown mothers (and fathers) spend longer with their kids today, whether or not they work.

So I suppose my point is: did that many WASPI age women experience a second shift as such?
I'm not disputing the misogyny of the era often but otoh if childcare was less labour-intensive than today, and many women were SAHM, part time, and less likely to work overtime, were a lot of women necessarily experiencing a 'second shift' in the sense of spending more hours working than their husband? In this equation, housework and childcare are counted as work, as well as paid work.

We had a b&w TV in the '80s we also had periids without a TV, although that was unusual . We always had a washing machine though and central heating my DM was born in '49.

My grandchildren do fewer activities than my children did.

I don't think the argument about the second shift is that it was harder to look after a house and kids then than now, it was that the men went to work and that was it and the women went to work and then did all the housework. And so the women getting their pensions earlier was to compensate them compared to men of their generation, not women of this.

My mum was a single mum and so did it all like many single mums do todays. But with my friends' families it was certainly the case that in general the men went to work and came home and sat in front of the telly or went to the pub. And the women went to work and came home and made the tea, did the ironing, cleaned the house, etc. If the house had a car, the man would almost always have it to go to work, even if the mum was at work in the morning then picking the kids up from school, getting the shopping, taking the washing to the launderette, (and calling in on her PiL to look after them, because that's obviously women's work).

That's all a bit of a caricature, and of course there were men who would do some housework. Quite a few who would do a fair amount of gardening or DIY, though rarely anywhere near as much time wise as their wives did in housework. A very small number who would do half or more. But overall, women did a lot more hours than men and had a lot less time where they could do as they pleased.

Women have always had a second shift. Yes I played out a lot, but my mum did all the cooking and housework. I don’t think it was necessarily easier for their generation as kids played out more.

I thought that women got their pensions earlier because they tended to be younger than their husbands and expected to look after them in retirement?

I don’t think that the second shift argument is fair. Parenting and housework was different but a different kind of tough.

I don't think the "second shift" argument is valid for the current WASPI case. It would have been a valid argument to have made when the original legislation to equalise and then postpone retirement ages was being written, scrutinised and voted on. However that's not what the current WASPI case is about - it's about whether it was reasonable for government to assume that something that their policy changes which were headline news for many months and which was widely reported on in all media, was therefore going to be something that everyone has heard about, or whether they shiuld have spent millions of pounds on a direct mail letter to every adult in the country who wouldn't already be retired by the time the changes hit, telling them how the changes would affect them personally (and the changes did affect things for every adult, to different extent, so that direct mail would have been insanely complicated and expensive to put together - the WASPI cohort is one particular segment of those affected but the campaign group's cut-off is arbitrary).

It's not about life in the 60s or 80s - for the "second shift" argument to be valid for the WASPI case you would have to show that the cultural and social expectations on women who were aged 30+ in the mid 1990s (the first changes wre passed in 1995, then subsequently changed further in 2011) were so onerous that they could not be expected to have the vaguest awareness of current affairs - never listened to the radio or had the tv on for the news or looked at a newspaper or in any way paid attention to public discourse, had no idea how to write to their MP to protest, but yet would have paid attention to an individually addressed (and produced in a personalised way at huge cost) letter - rather than just ignoring it as junk mail.

I am only a little younger than the cutoff for being part of the WASPI campaign - I am "affected" just as much by the changes but the WASPI campaign doesn't include my birth year, presumably because with literally 2 years more "notice" (though exactly the same access to information about the changes) my plight is not worth fighting about.

I wish I could retire at age 60 too. It's a natural wish. I do not believe that a relatively small number of women who actually managed to keep themselves totally ignorant of current affairs in the 1990s, plus a much larger number who weren't actually ignorant of it but have spotted that they might profit by pretending that they were, should have this level of attention. I do think that it would have been better if the changes had happened on a different timescale. It was clear by the mid 80s that retirement ages needed to be pushed back for everyone and that should have happened sooner (but the tories were in power and it would have been seen as a betrayal of their voter base so obviously they were reluctant) and the structure for equalising things for women with men rather than having women automatically getting 5 years extra should have been approached differently but this was widely discussed at the time and the legislation was nevertheless democratically passed by a legitimate government.

So not a second shift then if you weren’t in paid work and also popping into school several times a week at the same time.

Thanks Cactus, you have explained this extremely well.

I’m finding the discussion interesting, even though the premise is dubious.

So for the record, in childhoods spanning mid-70s to mid-90s we did have central heating (early memory of this being installed), washing machine, vacuum cleaner, one car. Freezer arrived mid-80s and was for storing home-grown and bulk-bought items to save money. Convenience food was tinned food and angel delight. I know Findus crispy pancakes existed but the kind of high quality ready-meals we have now did not. Pizza was a craze, parents made the dough themselves (in every house I visited). At some point in the 1970s bakers went on strike and all the mothers made bread.

We never had a dishwasher, microwave or video player though better-off households with more space did.

Some clothes and all costumes were home-made. Women had grown up with the expectation of sewing so the skills and sewing machines were there. There was a brand called Clothkits that sold ready-marked patterns - you just had to cut out and sew.

An important point is that lifestyles don’t change overnight. People often carry on the habits they were brought up with - rather than switching to those of the ‘new era’. There can be huge differences between mini-generations born five years apart.

School had dress-up days once a year or so but there were also fancy-dress parties and school discos and the effort that went into costumes was huge. You’d always make fancy dress out of old sheets, tissue-paper and foil etc. For adults there were fancy-dress hire shop’s because ready-made costumes were expensive.

We had extra-curricular activities but also space to read, play creatively and be bored. There were playgroups - run by groups of mothers - and baby-sitting circles. There were crèches at some work-places and there were childminders.

Generally, a lot of things cost less because they were reliant on the voluntary efforts i.e. unpaid labour of women. True of adult clubs and social activities too.

Stuff like scrubbing front steps is a class difference as well as a time one - that in particular came from working class terraced housing in tight communities- like the mining communities blown apart by Thatcher in the 80s.

But it is true that prople had high domestic standards and judged women whose houses and children were not clean and tidy - more so than now. The idea of declaring yourself too busy with interesting things for cleaning would have been very avant-garde - the domain of communes and left-over hippies.

So I saw a really substantial second-shift being performed - bigger, more essential for basics of family being clothed and fed than now.

You choose to ferry your dc round multiple activities, some people did that then. Less well-off households don’t do this now.

Yes they did have a second shift.
Everything was manual in those days- no dishwashers, twin tubs instead of automatic washing machines, carpet sweepers instead of vacuums, all food prepared from scratch, no supermarket, no second car . People have very short memories- maybe asked someone who was there? I’m not a waspi btw

My great grandmother lived somewhere where people scrubbed steps (and I have a vague memory of this from the mid 80s), but that's a class thing (working class, northern terrace). She thought it was stupid!

There were supermarkets in the 70s and 80s! Mass market vacuum cleaners were around from the 60s!

Again, Waspi women were born in the 50s. Not running households then. I don't think anyone is arguing about a second shift. I think what they're saying is it isn't necessarily more onerous than the second shift women put in now. You only have to look at some of the mn posts to see that.

I would say that yes, women did a “second shift” in the 70s/80s but that many still do today so why should WASPI women be compensated and not younger women?

I find it a bit distasteful that some women on a women-orientated website are trying to minimise the non-remunerated work of other women to imply that they had it much easier than the current generation and therefore should just suck up the financial goal-post shifting that has happened. Women have always shouldered the majority of domestic responsibilities and we all know how wearing that is; even if you don’t work it pisses you right off and grinds you down after a while. Add in the lower status of women in society at the time, the lack of equality in the work place and often at home, the way women were objectified, restricted and held back by a thoroughly misogynistic patriarchal society and the fact that it was that generation of women who fought so hard to change that situation they should be given whatever they want, IMHO.

I think it was worse. Just because some unwonted less doesn’t mean they all did. And they had far less technology to help them. And working class and poorer women had even less.

They were expensive and therefore only the select few could afford them

No first car in a lot of cases. I was the first person to have a car in my immediate family and passed my test In 1990

Not sure that’s true - my mum fits in to the WASPI age group and we had tumble dryers, microwaves, a Dyson vacuum etc etc

However, my mum definitely worked a second shift as she was a single mum and working full time!

I’m WASPI age but not a WASPI.

Worked part time after the kids were born; had friends who were SAHM and part time, fewer worked full time.

We all had washing machines, microwaves etc and Equality at work was on the rise, but mental load and management of household and children were generally not split evenly among my peers.

But we were hardly holding down positions of responsibility then rushing home to scrub the doorstep and make sure our husbands’ slippers were warm when they got back from the pub.

Wait, what? This whole thread is based on the argument that WASPI women believe they had it much harder than other women and have been treated unfairly. We’re just discussing that perspective.

If they’re going to open up this conversation then perhaps your distaste should be directed at them.

My DM was born in 1952. DBs and I were born between 1974 and 1979. We didn’t have mod cons in the 80s. Just because they were available doesn’t mean that everyone could afford them.

We still laugh about the time I took my younger DB to my friend’s house and they had a microwave. He went home and declared to DM “Jeanette is dead posh. They’ve even got a little telly in the kitchen!”

It’s not valid because it’s irrelevant though. If some women work and do all of the housework and childcare that’s not the responsibility of anyone else and it certainly shouldn’t have financial consequences to the tax payer.
It doesn’t even make sense being linked to wanting earlier retirement than all future generations of women either. Would child free waspi’s not get the pension compensation, is that what they’re suggesting? Would women who were simply sahm’s (of which there were many in that generation) not receive the compensation either? Since they weren’t in fact operating a true second shift?

No this isn’t true.

I was born in 63.

Manmade fibres ( no iron came out in the 60’s) My dm didn’t iron anything. Sheets were bri nylon and didn’t need ironing.

There was loads of pre prepped and frozen food. My dm was a widow with 3 children. She worked full time. Didn’t have time for ironing or fancy cooking. We had a freezer and washing machine. Didn’t need a tumble dryer.

We ate M and S meat loaf, mince roll and chunky chicken all the time. All my clothes and hers were crimpelene or other man made fibres. School uniform all man made.

l was a young women in the 1980’s. I worked full time. I lived with my then bf. We had tumble dryer, microwave and all mod cons. We ate loads of cook chill ready meals as they were new then. Had a takeaway at least twice a week.

I’m just below the was waspis age range - (64) - I would certainly say housework was a bit harder going and an awful lot of men did jack shit too . ( still the same in a lot of cases)?However other aspects I would say were easier , there was far less expectation on ferrying kids around to clubs /activities or paying for them - a lot of my friends had homes with more room than is common today with very average jobs and an awful lot more of young parents had their parents on hand to ‘spread the load’ - and expected that to be the case - I don’t have that much sympathy of the whole situation, partly because there was a lot of notice and partly because many of my friends actually did very few hours after they had kids , but now with changing circumstances in many cases suddenly expect full pensions In their own right having contributed very little in fiscal terms over the years.. it doesn’t work like that - it’s based on NI contributions and to be fair all gvts for many years allowed for this in child rearing years - yes it did put men at an advantage but I know plenty of women who still didn’t work even with young adult children and after that too .

Check your privilege. Just because that was YOUR experience doesn’t mean that it’s “untrue” that others were living a very different experience!