Do these attitudes really still exist?

[baramewe]

Just wanted to get other people's thoughts and experiences. I'm late 20s, married, 1 DC, work part time in a low paid manual job but I have aspirations to do something more with my life and be able to provide for my family not just be reliant on DH. I'm also ambitious just to learn and explore, it's not just about money. I went to uni first time round but it hasn't got me anywhere. I'm now in my 3rd year of a masters degree of a specialised subject I'm passionate about. It's not yet obvious what career it will lead to but I want to keep improving and studying.

Now the reason for this post is my ILs have always quietly had a problem with both my degrees. They've always refused to talk about it, refused to help with childcare (I had DS whilst studying, it was tough but DH and my family have been amazing.) just generally always hated me and I think my education and the fact I have opinions really infuriates FIL. This was one of big factors on us going NC back in the summer.

Now I've just heard from a close friend her DPs family has told them they're not welcome at their house anymore. She's in a good career and also going onto a masters degree next year. Again the reason given was that she was feisty and had opinions- I.e not a doormat. In both cases our partners families have no history of going to uni and I think they look down their noses on those who have been to uni, particularly woman.

Has anyone else experienced prejudice as a result of a woman wanting to study? Can't believe these attitudes still exist in 2018! I keep quiet about my degree when getting to know someone cos I never know how they're going to take it. It's a balancing act trying to fit study in with family life but DH is an equal partner and very supportive. And I'm doing it for DS too, and I just think of all the girls around the world who are fighting to just read and write, and feel so lucky to have the opportunity's we have in this country,

I'd see it as they think you are a threat and will question their total ignorance. Their loss.

They just sound like ignorant tools to be honest. I'm sure there is a sprinkling of mysogeny in there but you're non-contact with them now anyway, so fuck 'em, right!!

I’m afraid that these attitudes are endemic in our society . It’s fine for women to get an education as long as it doesn’t interfere with their primary role of serving men by doing all the domestic labour and childcare.

Your IL are pissed off with your because you are not a good enough servant to their son and you have not subsumed your whole life and being to him. This is seen as selfish - you are not supposed to have wants and needs of your own.

I’ve had similar experiences. I think it’s because you are living at the intersection of different social classes. There’s a lot of weirdness around being educated there and not just for women - though women have specific and different problems in this area.
I’m just about to have my PHD viva at the ripe old age of 50. I tried to go to uni at 18 but had to leave due to ill health. I did a BA as a mature student with kids aged 30ish and an MA. If it hadn’t been for my Mum and DH doing a lot of childcare and DH helping support me, not just financially but with encouragement and pride I wouldn’t have got through any of it. To date, no one in my family has wished me luck for my forthcoming exam. (Except DH obv) My two sisters were the first in our family to go to uni. Everyone else in both my family and DH family looks down their noses at educated people. (I’m sorry but I find that so bizarre! How is it a thing that books are not for the working class? Books are for everyone! I think this may be a specifically UK attitude, I know Irish WC intellectuals and also Spanish ones, correct me if I’m wrong) DH family are typical well to do working class, my family are middle with working class roots (self employed/employers)

In my experience, though its officially ok for women to get educated, as another poster said, unofficially, we are not supposed to have needs and dreams of our own. I have found this attitude to be strongest in working class rooted communities. However, because I work in an area heavily populated by proper toffs, I have found that outside the more bohemian, artistic communities this attitude is still strong. Upper middle class women are also put under disapproval pressure to put their own personal development last. To me, this demonstrates there is something specific to women in this that transcends the weird snobbery of anti intellectualism.
I want to say well done to you and any other woman who has got themselves an education. For too long women were barred from university and around the world they still are. Stuff those people who sneer, stuff those people who ignore and discourage us, my education has transformed my life and my self. I always knew there was something wonderful out there and I found it.

Allison- you have hit the nail on the head there! I would of just disregarded the whole thing as there issue but now it's happened to my friend too I'm wondering if this is something people still think? That woman shouldn't study or want to improve themselves?

Thank you for your post wrapped up, very thought provoking but also inspiring to hear from someone who has worked hard and pushed social boundaries and come out the other side. I have plans to do a PhD one day and it helps a lot to know of another woman who has managed it and had a family.

Interesting point on class structure, I get a lot of the feeling of people looking down on those who choose to study. It's why I don't mention my degree a lot of the time but maybe I should. My own family are liberal middle class and very supportive. In the late 60s my grandpa (farmer) stayed at home for a number of years and did all the school runs, tea etc whilst my Granny went out, trained as a social worker and worked. Quite a head of the curve! All the woman in my family are kind and compassionate, hard working and driven. I feel for those who don't have that example to follow and it seems to be rather 'unspoken' that actually woman (particularly mums maybe?) aren't really supposed to have their own hopes and dreams.

Yes, they do, I'm afraid, and just you wait until your degree does actually lead to a good career. IMO it's exactly what @wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool says: women not being meant to actually have their own dreams and pursue them - except that, in my experience, it's not just a toff thing but more a case of a very narrow group of educated MC types possibly being about the only ones that don't systematically engage in this.

Point in case: I was 30, had just been promoted into my first 'serious' managerial role and was making rather good money for the first time in my life while exH was trying and failing a variety of harebrained business ventures and relying heavily on my income in order not to starve (and fund his conspicuous spending habits9. Nonetheless, I was the selfish one according to both him and especially my sanctimonious MIL because apparently, I should have been concentrating on supporting his entrepreneurial dreams and give MIL a grandchild instead of following my own ambitions and making sure exH had a roof over his head in the process.

The divorce cost me half a fortune in pension funds - it was a price well worth paying for being allowed to have my own ambitions and getting rid of them.

exH is now married to a woman whose main ambition is to be a SAHM and look after her family. To no one's surprise, that's also not acceptable to exMIL and that woman really ought to be pulling her weight financially. Dear bossy, you see, always had her own money to pay for luxuries and wasn't imposing on poor exH ... just so long as a woman is appropriately miserable, I suppose!

exH comes from a decidedly WC background, by the way.

"I'm just about to have my PHD viva at the ripe old age of 50."
Best wishes. I won't say good luck because it isn't luck, it's your chance to argue in depth about an area where you are the expert with people who are deeply interested. And you'll then have the chance to use a non sexed title which impresses bank managers no end (if such mythical creatures can still be found!).

In the past it was working people that set up educational institutions and libraries. But my dad refused to use Dr and said now you think you're better than us. It was annoying.

I have not found it to be the case at all to be honest. DH family are all WC - so are mine... I have a first in Maths.

Neither family looks down on me being "educated".

They do look down on SIL - not because she is also educated - but because she acts - with every fibre of her being - as if she is superior to them because she is educated.

Would look to your own attitudes first sometimes - an air of superiority is easy to spot in others - not always easy to spot in oneself.

Thank you some dyke I’m very much looking forward to using dr on any forms I need to fill out in future.

Beyond the page I think you may have been lucky with your family (though it sounds like your SIL hasn’t) but I disagree most strongly. I didn’t get my degree till my mid 30s but those people sneering at education around me preceded this by many years. I was aware of the attitude for as long as I can remember and have come across it in the wider community when doing work in SOAs around the UK. On one memorable occasion in a family learning room a group of children stuck their fingers up at our lovely tutor every time she turned her back while their mothers laughed and she’d them on. A free course, in art, with free biscuits and juice. So I don’t think it’s my attitude that is the problem here.

I have not found it to be the case at all to be honest

No nor me. I don't think I've ever come across the attitudes described.

I do however have one friend who is a professor who can be very irritating when she goes on about how clever she is. She once commented about a new boyfriend that what attracted her was that he was one of the few people she had met who was as clever as she is. Finding that irritating however has nothing to do with her education.

I do think there's a strong class element - my FIL was banging on about academics and how useless they are, how they're disconnected from the real world etc. I had to remind him that his own son was an academic. For him it's an inferiority complex.

I think there's also an extra layer of misogyny. My PILs can't seem to get their head around me working at all. DH and I run a company and I'm the CEO but they still seem to think I just do a little bit here and there while he is the real Big Man. I don't think they can compute at all a situation where a woman actually has her own life and dreams - she must always be supporting a man. MIL had to give up her business and move countries when FIL lost his job when DH was little. It was a ridiculous situation - they moved to a horrible place where they never fit in, leaving behind their dream house and MIL's dream career so FIL could have exactly the job he was entitled to. At no point did it ever occur to them that it might be far more sensible to stay put and for FIL to just get a shitty job to keep money coming in (as women do all the time). I've seen this happen with friends too - the woman's career/dreams just get thrown in the bin in favour of a man's need to always be at the level he thinks he should be at.

Lass we can all come up with anecdotes I’m not sure it proves anything. My deeply anti intellectual mil describes a Nephew who was first in her family as having ‘got above himself’ I’ve also met WC people supportive of education but this doesn’t mean there is no anti intellectualism in our society. Its like the not all men argument.

It’s a phenomenon easily observed and has an insidious effect especially on women who are socialised to seek approval. Its really difficult to stand up to family who are undermining your desire for knowledge. It’s important we don’t pretend this doesn’t happen.

It’s also manifested structurally through the type of help single parents can get to get back into work. I was lucky that I had the little support I had because all the help on offer from the government (in the 90s) directed me towards low skilled, low paid caring jobs that would have kept me poor and dependent on the state. I didn’t want that.

I sympathise to some extent with those who get defensive around education and the educated because it’s not easy. But I don’t think the answer is to retreat from confronting the attitude and I’ve had some great success in the past with introducing individuals who were very scared of education to returning to learn. It’s never too late and a decent education can transform a persons life, confidence and prospects. I’ve made a massive difference to people’s lives and happiness. That’s why I challenge anti intellectualism where I see it.

My ex-husband is my ex-husband partly because of the way he reacted to my going into higher education. What makes it particularly ridiculous is that his own late mother was uni educated. But then, he hated anything at all that too my 'attention' away from him, and that included our kids.

Really sorry to hear that you get this opposition from your in laws but good on your dh for thinking for himself, and I bet your family are incredibly proud of you.

No nor me. I don't think I've ever come across the attitudes described

That doesn’t suprised me LassWitheDelicateAir. Because I know hundreds of people In your profession in your city and you are the only woman who claims there is no sexism or misogyny.

And you have NEVER encountered ay sexual harassment yourself so obviously it doesn’t exists . Or women are making it up for attention.

So it doesn’t surprise me at all that you have never encountered sexist attitudes towards women’s education. You do have form for being a bit of a flat earther.

Theres another thread by a woman who runs her own business, and wants her husband to do more childcare. The first page is full of people telling her she is being unreasonable and selfish.

I'm pretty sure if it were the other way round and it were her husbands business, she'd be told to suck it up as her husband is trying to build a successful business for his family.

Its still a really common attitude that women should put themselves second, not be too clever, not earn more than their male partner, and be grateful.

No Allison (btw no idea who you are yet you seem to know all about me.I always think it is a bit sneaky to name change but harp on about another poster in the way you have just done) I'm not going to lie about having encountered the sort of anti- intellectualism being described here.

I totally agree OP and have experienced the same - a conflation of sex and class.

ALLISON - great comment. I also totally agree.

When I was 12 my father said to me that there was no point in educating girls as they would just go on to have babies.

Even at that age I had to laugh out loud at how fucking ridiculous this man was. He lost his job two years after I was born and never worked consistently again. He was entirely supported by his university educated wife.

Even when the evidence is right in front of some people's faces they can't see it.

Lass - Oh for fuck's sake. You complain about your irritating professor friend, but many of your own posts are equally as sanctimonious.

I agree Irk.

Witness also thread after thread telling women that they shouldn't expect their husbands to get up with a baby at night because he has to be rested for work, or telling women who can barely move from illness that they are unreasonable to expect their partner to take a day off to look after children. Women are supposed to do without sleep and carry on when very ill to avoid men being inconvenienced in any way.

Sorry I've missed some interesting discussion today! Beyond the page, your comment is interesting as surely that attitude is part of the problem. If someone is experiencing prejudice it must be their fault in some way. You clearly think just because I mention that I feel superior. I don't, that's the point of the post, it's the other way around. If you read my comments you'd see I say I don't even talk about my studies with most people because of pre-conceived ideas such as yours. And some lass, the 'if I haven't experienced it it must not be real' is boring and doesn't add to the discussion.

Bossy bitch and la croissant thank you for your stories, sorry you've both had such a difficult time (and again with in laws!) it does just make you feel like a breeding machine. I don't have a daughter yet, but it is saddening to live in a world where we still have to fight to stand alongside men. If you haven't had to, count yourself lucky. I'm approaching 30, don't feel I've achieved much yet and feel it's going to be an uphill struggle to achieve something.

*that I study I feel superior. Baby brain! This is why studying with a small child is so hard

Keep studying OP you will get there in the end. Whatever else happens you will have developed your knowledge, skill and confidence. It’s not just about the piece of paper ( though that’s also important) and mature students often do really well so give yourself a pat on the back and keep on.

Lass - Oh for fuck's sake. You complain about your irritating professor friend, but many of your own posts are equally as sanctimonious

You have rather missed the point there. No one finds her behaviour irritating because of anti- intellectualism.

As for Allison knowing "100s of people" in my profession in my city who have apparently experienced this not once have I heard any of the women I have worked with say anything of the sort.

and some lass, the 'if I haven't experienced it it must not be real' is boring and doesn't add to the discussion

Well I didn't say that did I ? Or are experiences which validate your experience only relevant ?

Your question was "do these attitudes really exist"? Your answer would seem to be you have a particularly troglyditic set of in-laws- why do you pay any attention to what they say?