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.

OP, parents now spend more time with their children because they have more free time. It’s a freedom, a choice, a pleasure - not a burden. So I think you have that part of your premise the wrong way around.

They have more discretionary time because of labour-saving devices and outsourcing. e.g. costume-making to Asian sweatshops via supermarkets, online banking.

Physically running a household and participating in society (doing your bit as part of volunteer-run groups) took up far more time in the 70s-80s. Parents couldn’t do fun things with their DC because they were busy peeling potatoes, sewing on badges and buttons, baking, babysitting in return for a night off themselves, physically going to the bank and post office to get basic admin done etc. Other examples apply, depending on wealth and inclination of the household.

So they spent time with their DC while involving them in domestic activity, or let them entertain themselves.

Would you rather that necessity than having the choice between spending time with your DC on leisure activities, supporting their participation in extra-curriculars, or indeed playing board games, baking or cooking together, if that’s what you’d like to do?

Women born before 6 April 1950 were able to start claiming their Pension at the age of 60 (which happened up to 6 April 2010). So anyone over the age of 45 in 1995 when the legislation was passed was unaffected.

Those born after 5 April 1955 had their pension age change to 65 - so someone age 40 in 1995 who thought she had 20 years to go until retirement, now had 25 years to go (would be retiting in 2020 rather than in 2015 as she would have thought when she was younger, someone age 35 who previously thought she would retire in 2020 had it bumped to 2025 so 30 years to go not 25.

The cohort for the women with dates of birth between those two dates 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1955 had a sliding scale of delay to their pension age date, with the oldest in that cohort only getting a very small delay and the youngest getting a delay that was almost but not quite the full 5 years. If you were aged between 40 and 45 in 1995 there was a bit of arithmetic to be done to work out what your exact pension date would be (some time between your 60th and 65th birthday). No one did that maths for you specifically but there was enough publicity around to make it easy enough to do.

Then just for fun there was a whole new similar rigmarole in 2011 which affected both men and women but gradually raised the standard retirement age to 66 or 67 with similar sliding scales and potentially to 68 for those born after 1977 (that bit is apparently still 'subject to review')

I fall into the WASPI category, being born in 1958, retiring from full time work at 66. I really cannot get overly excited about those extra six years of work as it gave me more than just a salary. Life after work is full now, having had time to plan my retirement. Wasting life campaign for what’s likely to be diddly squat worth of compensation makes me think they’d be a lot happier focussing elsewhere.

I won’t hear a bad word said about ski Sunday!

I remember a lot of Sunday afternoon motor racing though…!

It’s actually one of the things I dislike as a parent tbh - all the content thru want is technically available in huge quantities at all times. There was a degree of creativity in that boredom but without any battles because… no other kids tv on!

I also went to work. I worked shifts as a nurse.

What was the privilege about my dm being widowed? We were definitely not wealthy. She was rasing 3 kids on a low salary.

It’s not about privilege. It was about pointing out that these things were available when people say they weren’t.

Well they certainly weren’t available to my disabled DM, raising 3 DCs on her own. I bought her first automatic washing machine when I started work in the 90s, which was something I always promised her when I was growing up.

Ironically she’s very anti-WASPI and thinks they should be more concerned about their grandchildren’s futures than complaining about missing out on pension that they were told about decades ago.

I agree @ArseInTheCoOpWindow I lived in a midlands mining town - dad was a roofer, they had all these things - when I married at 20 ( to a miner) I had all these things too -

Well that unusual.

I didn’t know anyone without a washing machine in the 80’s. Apart from when l was a student.

And again. It’s about people saying these things weren’t available when they were.

We had a twin-tub, as did lots of my friends’ mums.

You’re taking this thread incredibly personally, just because something is true or untrue for your own mother doesn’t mean there aren’t general truths that apply to a certain time period.

Like anyone over 40 ? I was born in 76 I have never lived in a house without a vacum cleaner ( there are pictures of me riding it age about 2). My mother did bak in the '80s, but then so did I in the 00s. We had a dishwasher on and off, I have to say we were expected to muck in from about age 7.

The way some posters are talking on this thread is more the 50’s/60’s than the 80’s!

That's because the OP referred to the 1970s as well as the 1980s. However, the 1970s and 1980s weren't some sort of homogeneous period. Things changed dramatically during that time. People are describing their experiences of what their mothers did in the 1970s which were for many, very similar to the 1950s and 1960s. They're not talking about the wrong time period, they're just describing their experiences 15ish years before you were born. WASPI women were born in the 1950s. A great many of them were running households and starting families in the early 1970s.

Maybe I am a bit. It just gets up my nose when people say “This was absolutely the case for everybody” rather than “This was case for some people, but it wouldn’t be for others”. There’s never any nuance.

A pp explained her own upbringing and someone replied “This is untrue” because a lot of people these days seem to lack the ability to accept that other people have very different experiences to theirs. It seems to be a modern thing, and it’s an absolute bugbear of mine!

And the washing machine was the biggest thing to reduce workload in the house.

This is what enabled women to work. There’s some very limited understanding of social history on here. There’s 70’s saw a big movement of women into the workplace. This got much bigger in the 80’s

Prior to this wash days took to a lot of time in the household.

No that pp was saying housework was hard and manual as in for everybody.

Well it wasn’t for everyone. I lived through it. My dm was a widow and we were skint. But she just prioritised household appliances and easy cook food to survive. It was not a privileged upbringing in the least. We had no money. She still did lots of housework.

And not having a washer until the 90’s was really really unusual. They were around for years but became more widespread in the 70’s

Yes, I agree @TheCompactPussycatthe 70s vs mid/late 80s were VERY different times.

The 70s were a decade of recession and home-made everything. Lots of houses lacked central- heating. From the mid-80s a consumer-boom brought in discretionary devices like microwaves, freezers, VCRs and soda-streams - for those who could afford them.

Kate Bush has a song called Washing Machine, eulogising its freedom-giving wonder. She knows.

So. Excuse my ignorance but is the argument essentially that the WASPI women were so busy working and then also having to do the housework, that this made it less likely they would have been informed properly that the pension age was changing?

Yes - there has been no explanation thus far as to what this has to do with the WASPIs complaints!

People have explained the tenuous link to the WASPI argument. The thread itself is more interesting.

Well you’ve pretty much made the case against the WASPI argument here.

Their point is that this was the experience of their generational cohort. This thread is pretty much saying that it was the experience of some but not all, or even most of these women.

From what I’ve seen, the WASPI campaign is basically an entire generation of women asking for blanket compensation based on the negative experiences of a smallish proportion of them.

I know that workplace discrimination was rife for women who were born in the 1950s. Lack of childcare etc.

Your posts show you have no idea what it was like, and how bad it was.

Well that’s me told.

My parents had a twin tub washing machine & fridge with small freezer compartment in 1970! By the mid 80s we had an automatic washer, tumble dryer, microwave ! Kids were also expected to help more with chores back then, especially girls! Parenting definitely not as intense, we walked 20 mins each way to school unaccompanied at 5-6 yrs old ! We played out with friends all day only going in for meals etc. I remember going to cinema with pals at 7 (which was walking distance). Hardly any family days out to beach or zoos etc. DM was fairly involved with our education but many of my friends parents saw school as childcare & didn’t bother with parents evenings etc. Comparisons to life today aren’t useful.