Happy to be women today in the UK

[mrsmuddlepies]

I posted about this on the Chat forum but no one responded and I think it is a significant piece of research.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37600771
The level of satisfaction with being a woman in the UK today is higher than it has ever been, a huge increase on that of 50 years ago and much higher than that of male satisfaction with being men today.
A cause for celebration?

"It is no longer illegal to be a lesbian"
Just to be really pernickety, but it never was illegal (unlike various male homosexual sexual acts). Just frowned upon, meant you could be kicked out of the forces, lose custody of your kids in a divorce etc (with one of my favourite anecdotes that when a women was being asked by the judge in a custody case if she and her girlfriend used 'appliances', she apparently replied -- we've got a Hoover...............).

The whole 1967 thing (with (I know is constantly referred to as legalizing homosexuality) was about gay MEN.

I'm not controlling the discussion at all. Nor do I want to.

I'm suggesting that wanting to talk about celebrating the progress we've made (as you said in your OP) may not have been your entire agenda. Or in fact, your agenda at all.

I just suggested up thread that if we did want to talk about the progress women have made then maybe talking about the hard work women have done in this area would be a good start. Nobody has to take me up on that and it would be absolutely fair enough.

Interesting that you construe that as trying to control the discussion though.

You know I thought I'd got that wrong as I wrote it, SomeDyke. Thanks for clarifying.

I am glad you maintain that you are not trying to control the discussion on these boards. I post elsewhere on Mumsnet but not on these boards and you were making me feel that I couldn't express my ideas without you having a go at me. I haven't got an agenda (let alone an entire agenda) but I do want to be able to express my views without there being a subtext about what can and can't be posted.
I think women have much better lives today than they did for my mothers and grandmothers generation. It must be good news that today 9 out of 10 women would rather be female than male. UK society is obviously heading in the right direction. 😊

But if you're me, and you were asked if I was OK with being a woman, or if I'd prefer to be a man, I would say that yes, I'm happy being a woman because there is no alternative, I am, and always will be a woman, I see no point thinking of anything else there.

There are a lot of bad things in society that are done to women rather than men, but because I'm a woman I got to grow my own two children, and that was pretty special, and I wouldn't want to erase them by being a man instead.

It's a weird question, and I'm not sure that you can draw any kind of conclusions from a weird yes/no question like that at all

And still, how women feel has no bearing on how men feel - we don't have their lived experience, so even if we said 'yes, I want to be a man' we would never be able to have it to compare.

I think the question probably refers to opportunities. Seventy years ago when Woman's Hour first asked the question only 5 out of 10 women were glad to be women (lack of opportunities, independence I would think). Today 90% of the women surveyed were glad to be female. Surely, this implies progress?

Asking whether someone is happy to be a woman is different from asking about their state of mental health or happiness.

I am happy to be a woman and I'm in a poor state of mental health at the same time.

There seems to be some conflation of the two.

I knew while reading the OP how this discussion was going to go. The agenda was pretty clear.

If someone asked me if I would rather be a woman or a man, I'd say woman. Because that's what I know. That's what I'm comfortable with. I'd also say that a lot of progress has been made with regards to women's rights in comparison to 70 years ago.

That doesn't mean I think that women now have it easier than men, I certainly don't think they do. It doesn't mean that there is still a LOT more progress needed. As happy as I am being a woman, I still believe men, as a class, have a much "easier" life than women.

I wonder how many of those suicides were done after the man had killed his wife/ex-directory and/or children. I suspect significantly more than the reverse.

What's that expression - when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Survey link (for questions comparison)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37600771
I don't think the survey was looking at mental health, just at their preference to be male or female.

I don't know enough social history to be sure, but I imagine with the growth in care homes, there are fewer women tied to looking after elderly relatives or ILs without option.

The reason why sometimes people think "feminism is about choice" is that a lot of feminism, historically, was about bringing choice where there was none - votes, legal right to say no to sex in a marriage, keeping a job open after maternity leave, removing the marriage bar in various occupations, getting a mortgage as scallops mentioned.

Of course a woman seeing a man has more control over his life with respect to important choices like these will be unhappy about that.

When I was a kid a man I knew married a lesbian because otherwise she was facing a court martial for being gay. In those days getting married whisked a woman out of the forces. A great and generous act, but one that these days is no longer necessary. So there's progress.

As for suicide rates, I understand that men's is higher but that this is not understood to be due to them suffering more than women but more to do with men often being motivated at least partly by rage (family annihilators being the most dramatic examples) and that men tend to choose violent methods which kill instantly and leave no time for second thoughts.

OP, you do realise that the points you're making are classics from the Men's Rights movement? I've noticed you posting distastefully about martyr mothers elsewhere and am wondering if this is a bit of a theme with you.

Growapear, I think you completely misunderstood what Buffy was trying to say.

For me violent and aggressive behaviour should be checked because it hurts other people. Whether it is "natural" is a bit of a subjective issue. The point is that you are not considering that women suffer because of male aggression, "natural" or not, so they in their turn "naturally" expect that one sex should not have the advantage over the other and that society should change if that is the case.

If we're going to go into dubious evo-psych, a lot of aggressive male behaviour to women is claimed as "natural", up to and including rape.

I agree with pp in that I'm happy to a woman and recognise that I have more opportunities and independence than my mother and grandmother in many respects. However, there are still areas where the pressure is new/different. For example, my mum and gran were subject to the woman 'should be sexually pure before marriage' narrative. Society is now more open about sex but with it has come increased sexual expectations. The level of grooming/anti-aging expected of women has increased in the last 20 years. When I was a teenager, it was easy to go with a natural look and plastic surgery was something rich women in Hollywood did.

Buffy

So the current manner in which men try to manage other mens aggression and violence (and they invest massive amounts of effort and research into violent means of preventing aggression) is not suitable as it requires violence itself in order to be effective. Is that what you are saying ? So something like - as long as men are violent, other men will be required to be violent to stop them, and this puts women at a disadvantage because men are physically able to use violence more effectively (by and large) ? What evidence is there that any alternative works ? Can you teach men not to be violent ? Supposing I was a women, I would indeed be wary of men, I'm wary of men myself depending on the situation - I cannot imagine ever not being wary of men because I just didn't believe them to be capable of violence. Can you ? This is where i struggle to see what concrete steps could be taken to actually effect any difference. Stopping small boys from having a laugh and running around whacking each other with plastic swords does just seem a bit mean in light of it all.

Who is actually stopping small children from running around playing with swords?

I was at a birthday party with my kids when they were about 4. The boys were being "rowdy" and were chasing each other around and hitting each other with cardboard tubes and other assorted implements, having a laugh. The girls were not doing this, but some of the mums got worried about there being an accident, and the swords/tubes were removed and everyone was directed to the bouncy castle. When i was a boy - we liked to scrap, make of it all what you will - it's just anecdote.

Everyone needs ti share the space.often playgrounds are taken up by groups of boys playing large games with little space for girls or quieter boys

Children need to learn that different activities are appropriate in different environments.

It isn't appropriate to hit each other with cardboard tubes at a birthday party.

I'm wary of men myself depending on the situation - I cannot imagine ever not being wary of men because I just didn't believe them to be capable of violence
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone didn't feel the need to be wary of men, because men could be relied upon not to be violent?
That's what we are talking about pear. Women are conditioned to be more scared, and also have an added increased risk of sexual violence but really it's not women saying they feel scared that's the problem here

I think we're in danger of confusing two things here. Boys are 'naturally' supposed to like rough&tumble play (and girls not). We certainly teach boys that they are supposed to like it and the 'sissies' who don't get teased (but the girls don't they are just being girls!). It's quite easy to see how this develops into men being more likely to be physical and violent, and women being less physical/active/noisy/sporty. But violence and activity aren't the same thing, but activity/passivity certainly are gendered, as are violence and non-violence to a large extent.

Grow, unless I have massively misunderstood your anecdote, it wasn't that the boys were having fun playing with cardboard tubes and that's why parents felt that it would be better to redirect their energies, but that they, quite rightly felt that it was inappropriate to play like that in that space, hence redirecting them at a different, but still boisterous activity? How is that demonstrating that boys are stopped from having a laugh? All it really demonstrates is that those parents took a sensible decision in light of the available space.