Sometimes I don't feel like we have come far since Austin' s day.

[superstarheartbreaker]

Ok so feminism has given the vote , education and many other benefits but society still lokks down on single women right? Or do you think that this has changed too?
We are berrated for having casual sex and called sluts etc. I am always getting told I'll find someone rather than asked "what are you up to? " Hmm ..I think feminism has done many great things but we still have a long way to go. I am very pro relationship; just not as a 'better' way to be.

Austen not Austin.

I'm not sure that society looks down on single women any more than it does on single men. Maybe we do have a prejudice that everyone will be happier coupled off, but if people have any manners, they're willing to hear someone say, "No, actually I'm doing very well being single, but if the exactly right person comes along I might be persuaded."

As for casual sex, I think there's some acceptance that it's up to everyone to decide what they want to do sexually, and maybe some choices aren't wise, but the sex itself isn't a moral issue--maybe there's something to say about honesty or selfishness, but that's different, and applies to everyone. If someone is still looking down on women more than men for doing an equivalent thing, then I say they're being idiots.

The major point that's changed everyone's lives is that now women can earn a decent living and not be dependent on men. Every Jane Austen story is about a woman who finds a rich husband, and she had to write it that way because in her day, that was the only possible happy ending.

I do think there's a conception that women want to be married and men don't. Generally. Men only get married to please their partners', kind of thing.
But a woman can live independently now, which she couldn't in Austen's day. So marriage is seen as nice for a woman rather than essential.

What I don't get is that if women want to be married and men don't then how on earth does it happen at all? The odds are suerly stacked against us. I am pro-marriage as I am a romantic.

Har har. I can recall a discussion on another feminist board where the topic was whether marriage is good for women or not. The consensus was that marriage is bad for women, but nevertheless a man who's willing to do it is better than one who isn't.

superstar I think because that is a patriarchal lie.

The cult of hyper-masculinity says that all men want is loads of casual sex and not want to settle down blah.

IME in my life there are as many men who are as keen to settle down & start a family as women.

Yet again the gender roles assigned to the sexes have little to do with actual day to day life for normal people, and just serve to, well, I'm not sure what.

I think the major difference between now and then as tei says is that women are more financially independent. I also think that money gives you many more choices.

So (getting there!) IME I was financially fine, so never felt that I "had" to settle for anyone. I did what I pleased and had boyfriends, long term and short, and enjoyed myself and did whatever I pleased really for years. I met DH when I was in my early 30s, and he was lovely and keen and 5 years younger than me and having been around the block a few times I spotted a good one. He was the one who was red hot keen on marriage and children and all is good (some years later ).

His friends were all the same - basically looking to settle down.

The idea that men's natural state is "player" is nonsense, frankly. As is the idea that women's natural state is leafing through bridal magazines. It's all nonsense. As ever men and women are far more alike than otherwise.

Nothing wrong with being a romantic, also . So are many men. They have to do it on the quiet, obviously. But surely lots of great romantic poets / authors have been men. So...