Are things better or worse now than in recent decades?

[Leafstamp]

Not sure if this has been discussed before…

I feel things are worse for women now than at any other point in my adult life (I’ve been an adult for nearly 30 years).

But I don’t know if it’s me having rose tinted spectacles and just being ignorant in my younger years.

Reasons I think it’s worse: general misogyny, porn, police issues, infiltration of women’s spaces and services by males.

Am I missing all that has improved? What is better for women now than 10, 20, 30 years ago?

[LobsterNapkin]

I was under the impression that there has been somewhat less pube removal the last few years.

I think the demographic for it is a bit older than 30, as well. I'm 45 and it was pretty much expected when I was a university student, though it was fairly new at that time.

[SenselessUbiquity]

I suspect that young women living with men and perhaps children don't really get any more help from their partners than women have of any generation. I don't know though, other than anecdotally. Women of my age and a little below (I really mean women with children of about the same age as mine, and I had mine late) have very little support with domestic and childcare stuff, work very hard outside the home too, and have to pander to pretending to believe that their partners do an equal part.

I think the outside world is different from what I remember of the 80s, 90s and noughties - better in some ways, worse in others - sexual objectification of women has takes various different forms. Now you are a lot less likely to see a girlie calendar in an office, but you are just as likely to attract resentment and punishment for not "taking care" of the men around you emotionally and practically, to your own disadvantage - except it will probably be some kind of PA punishment.

At home, I think women have a rough time now. The old days of strict gender roles did deserve to be challenged, but I don't think the outcome was great, which is that women are now expected to be responsible for everything. There is a huge pressure on families with nightmarish cost of living: wages ratios and that means that women are working very hard outside and inside the home. In theory that hits men just as hard, but in practice they have managed to maintain leisure time and retain a distance from certain areas of responsibility. Most of the women around my age (50) whether they are single or not feel incredibly unsupported: pressure at work, relentless targets to achieve more (never just do a good job but always showing you have done more better - this is all jobs, not just management jobs); lack of support at home.

I never wanted (and still don't want) to be a surrendered wife but I can see how some women have decided it is the only way to get a break, to not be responsible for absolutely everything. My mother, who was very competent and clever and assertive and effective, would have said without a shred of shame "I can't help you with x, my husband deals with that" and it would have been fine (perhaps to end the conversation, perhaps truthfully). Now it isn't socially acceptable for a woman to have any sphere where she isn't endlessly responsible.

No one thinks that women with children should be materially supported, by the state or by their husbands, yet they are treated like crap when parenting responsibilities conflct with WOH, and the fathers of the children won't do it. Who exactly is supposed to be looking after these children if women aren't allowed not to work and work remains bloody-mindedly inflexible to the needs of parents?

I think we live in a very dishonest time. I think the reality of how women and men do things in private, in families, is really different from the "dads are all hands on too" myth we are being fed.

[user1471519931]

Some things are better for women now - like it's ok to be gay...or not get married...or not have children...working is generally acceptable if you have kids, which still wasn't so widespread as back in the 80s.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

Better. Lots better. Some rose tinted glasses here.
OK, porn is more widely available, can't deny that.
Apart from all the legal and work related improvements, you don't see page 3, topless calendars, girls in bikinis advertising cars or whatever, Miss World on mainstream TV, glamorous assistants on TV shows who don't speak, lads mags, men do now call out other men for sexist jokes, etc.

Pics of topless women everywhere you looked.
Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman being presented as fairytale romance.
Frequent inappropriate / really dodgy open leering, comments from men. Trying to chat you up when you were clearly about 12.
Loads of really sexist telly. Women often butt of joke. Benny hill, Cupid stunt. Women often presented as thick, shallow, hysterical etc. Ho ho ho.
Quiz shows etc had women who often never spoke. In tiny leotards to do whatever they could think of. Turn cards. Show off the prizes. That sort of thing. Doesn't she look lovely!

Yep!

[BigFatLiar]

Neither better or worse just different.

In 'ye olde dayes' when I was younger we didn't have internet and pop videos were basically the performers playing/singing.

Now we have internet and looks are very much to the fore in pop videos which I suspect adds to self image problems. Anyone looking for porn would find it on the top shelf in the newsagents now its everywhere.

[TheElvishQueen]

I think it’s a LOT worse now. Porn culture has really changed men’s expectations and created a society where women are expected to do whatever a man wants sexually regardless of her pleasure.
Life used to be kinder, gentler and safer. There was more humour and less taking everything so seriously.
I find it frightening that Love Island is so popular with viewers now. The drive for more and more women to get plastic surgery/ injectables/ present themselves like sex dolls is terrifying.
It’s an ugly world we live in. To top it all, there is apparently no such thing as a woman now.

[Texasfucked]

Frequent inappropriate / really dodgy open leering, comments from men. Trying to chat you up when you were clearly about 12.

This still happens

you don't see page 3, topless calendars, girls in bikinis advertising cars or whatever, Miss World on mainstream TV, glamorous assistants on TV shows who don't speak, lads mags, men do now call out other men for sexist jokes, etc.

Women's bodies are still available for consumption, easily accessed and in private so it can be as dark as you like with no line visibly crossed.

And I don't think men are regularly calling out other men. You only have to read some posts about partners being on WhatsApp groups sharing titties and other things. It's just all moved online, more hidden so they don't get scolded.

[Worldgonecrazy]

@deydododatdodontdeydo

Better. Lots better. Some rose tinted glasses here.
OK, porn is more widely available, can't deny that.
Apart from all the legal and work related improvements, you don't see page 3, topless calendars, girls in bikinis advertising cars or whatever, Miss World on mainstream TV, glamorous assistants on TV shows who don't speak, lads mags, men do now call out other men for sexist jokes, etc.

*Pics of topless women everywhere you looked.
Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman being presented as fairytale romance.
Frequent inappropriate / really dodgy open leering, comments from men. Trying to chat you up when you were clearly about 12.
Loads of really sexist telly. Women often butt of joke. Benny hill, Cupid stunt. Women often presented as thick, shallow, hysterical etc. Ho ho ho.
Quiz shows etc had women who often never spoke. In tiny leotards to do whatever they could think of. Turn cards. Show off the prizes. That sort of thing. Doesn't she look lovely!*

Yep!

I think in the old days objectified women were in certain places, so they stood out. Now objectified women are everywhere, so page 3 has gone but the images are everywhere, with nipples covered.

I think it’s got a lot worse since I was young. I’m mid 50s now, and believed that women had achieved equality in the workplace, yet the executive level in every place I’ve worked has been made up of mostly middle aged white men. Sometimes the token woman has been the chief exec but the majority still men.

Porn worries me more than anything else though because it degrades and that seeps into everything. Women become lesser. I remind my daughter often that until a couple of hundred years ago women were bot regarded as fully human and were literally the property of men. I think we are certainly seeing a beginning of a return to that viewpoint.

[TheElvishQueen]

@Worldgonecrazy

I agree.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

And I don't think men are regularly calling out other men.

I see it on the internet a lot. For example Twitter or Facebook posts. Men call out other men for comments which are sexist, rape jokes, etc. Maybe more common online, as you are behind a screen so no physical danger. But I see it a lot.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

Sometimes the token woman has been the chief exec but the majority still men.

I don't think they can really be called token if they are the CEO!
It's not like they've been put there to tick a box.

[Worldgonecrazy]

@deydododatdodontdeydo

Sometimes the token woman has been the chief exec but the majority still men.

I don't think they can really be called token if they are the CEO!
It's not like they've been put there to tick a box.

Actually the last chief exec search I was involved with was very much along the lines of getting a woman in so they could tick that box and also improve the male female pay ratio . The board, all male and white, were the ones making the decision.

[EightWheelGirl]

I'm not sure it helps that so many girls seem very keen to get their kit off and make titillating vides on TikTok.

[Worldgonecrazy]

@EightWheelGirl

I'm not sure it helps that so many girls seem very keen to get their kit off and make titillating vides on TikTok.

If girls get the message that their value within society is based entirely on how sexually attractive they are, then it is not so surprising to see them feel they need to act in a hyper sexualised manner. So sad to see this.

[CheeseMmmm]

In the he 80s (and 70s?) we had page 3. Sam fox at 16.
Porn mags on top shelf in the newsagents.
Women having situations where they had few clothes on and top fell off for some reason/ had to run out of shower etc with hands over breasts remember carry on camping Babs and an episode of mash I remember for some reason but it was a thing that seemed to befall women a lot on those days!
Not sure what years made but loads of carry on on telly and mash repeats I assume. Films like police academy, porkies...
Some places I remember mechanic / garage places and places selling car stuff topless calendars usually.

Plus more..

Yes it's changed. Moved to internet and away from that. But again. I think rose tinted view. Now bad then bad but in different way. Imo.

[EightWheelGirl]

Exactly. They will swear up and down that it’s their choice to wax all their pubes and bleach their arseholes. And of course women have the right to do that if they wish, but don’t pretend it’s anything other than porn.

Before porn was readily available very few people worried about their pubes beyond their bikini line. Now porn is everywhere and no women under 30 have pubes.

Porn is just really streamlined sexual fantasy and it caters to what people find attractive, although admittedly there is a chicken and egg element. People who follow the practices in porn just want to appear as sexually attractive as possible. Men weren’t getting ‘back, crack, and sack’ waxes 30 years ago either.

[EightWheelGirl]

Don’t care if I get flamed but I think a big hairy growler isn’t attractive tbh. Times change and so do sexual fashions. We don’t see men in tights, face paint, and powdered wigs like was once popular.

[youkiddingme]

I thought most things were sorted for women in the 70s. My view was no doubt naive, but I believe it has got progressively worse since then.

[EightWheelGirl]

"It was better in my day" has been a common human trope for many generations.

[CheeseMmmm]

Lol

Amazing the human race are still here given the fact men are repulsed by 'big hairy growlers'

Unless you are not heterosexual eight in which case obv as a sexually active woman who has sex with women that's your choice.

Of course if that's a personal view only, then the above doesn't apply.

Although I do then wonder why you think your personal preferences around pube pruning is relevant.

And reading again you did say that it's done because it's attractive to sexual partners certainly implies you are suggesting it's a very widespread thing.

Which does bring us back to. How did men being themselves to have sex with women before waxing became a widespread thing?

[Queenoftheashes]

Ages ago, I read that sex had gone from something men do to women to something women perform for men and that really struck a chord with me. I think empowerment did somehow turn into this.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

Not sure what years made but loads of carry on on telly and mash repeats I assume. Films like police academy, porkies...

Someone upthread posted there was more gratuitous nudity these days which I find amazing.
In the 60s, 70s and 80s it often seemed like women were just in films to be the love interest and get their breasts out.
There's a lot less gratuituous toplessness or nudity these days.

[EightWheelGirl]

Amazing the human race are still here given the fact men are repulsed by 'big hairy growler

Well, it was seen as clean to have a bath only once a month in relatively recent times, yet I doubt many people nowadays would want to share a bed with somebody who hadn't washed in four weeks.

And I said I don't think they look good. Who said anything about men?

[CheeseMmmm]

Ah instead. Public hair then you feel is repulsive and having any is dirty and repulsive?

Most men don't wax. Dirty and repulsive?

And when were baths once a month the norm? Once a week sure. Omce a month, recent history. Rough year?

I think you will not answer.

As you haven't answered why your preferences when it comes to the pubes of your female sexual partners are in any way relevant to the thread.

[CheeseMmmm]

@deydododatdodontdeydo

Not sure what years made but loads of carry on on telly and mash repeats I assume. Films like police academy, porkies...

Someone upthread posted there was more gratuitous nudity these days which I find amazing.
In the 60s, 70s and 80s it often seemed like women were just in films to be the love interest and get their breasts out.
There's a lot less gratuituous toplessness or nudity these days.

Agree totally.

Now it's online hidden and way way worse though.

Both harmful but very very different.