How have things improved in the past 20 years?

[LeslieKnopefan]

What changes do you see in the last 20 years?

For me the biggest positive is in football. 22 years ago aged 14 I played for an under 16 girls team. Whatever your age from 9 to 16 there was only an under 16 league locally and there was 6 teams in it. I had to travel 10 miles to my nearest team.

In my year at school there was may be 3 girls who liked football (for more than Ryan Giggs!) and even at games there weren’t that many women.

I see so many opportunities in football for girls and women now and of course more can always be done but playing or choosing to watch football is now seen as a normal activity for girls and women.

What else is better?

Nothing. In my opinion everything has got a whole lot worse.

20 years ago, 1998? Fewer people making sniffy assumptions about being a single mum.

Yes this is my house, yes I live here with my son, no someone didn't buy it for me.....

Definitely better.

I actually think the 1990s was a much better time for women and for feminism than today.

The behaviour of men at work is miles better IMO and in my industry - they don't do all the bantery stuff in front of women any more.

Sadly the feelings are still there underneath so while the surface is more comfortable the old attitudes remain but are hidden + there is additional resentment from men who feel oppressed, stifled, by having to "think about" what they say at work (because obviously it comes naturally to them to make sexist commemts etc).

From another thread - builders are much less intrusive now.

The internet has meant that women can share their stories and experiences now, removing the idea that all sorts of stuff is rare or a 1-off.

Overall in terms of legal progressions and shift in attitudes I think we are at a better point today than 20 years ago but it also feels like we are at a tipping point where things are in danger of sliding back.

On a purely personal level things 'felt' better to me in the 90s but this is probably because I was very young and hopeful (as opposed to a bit weary and jaded). I don't think my personal feelings are likely to be a wholly accurate barometer though.

Nothing. We've gone backwards where women are being denied the very thing that makes them women now.

When do you see women's football on MOTD?

Sport is the one area that is worse. How would you feel if a mans team turned up to play against your team ? Or a man said he wanted to join your team ?
20 years ago that wasn't an issue - it is today.
Employment - my maternity leave 30 years ago was a better deal than some women are getting today. I was able to choose to go back part time or full time. I know some women now who are lucky if they keep the same job.

more countries are making prostitution (paid rape) illegal. look at sweden, iceland, norway and N ireland

I think for many steps forward, there's been a tenuous hidden step back.

Don't let the current pushback and poor economic conditions mislead you. There have been lots of improvements to the official culture. The daily grind may have not changed or even worsened.

For instance there is now a police force in England - Nottingham - that has recently declared it will treat sexual harassment as hate crimes. Manchester police force recognised and published the fact that less than 3% of rape claims are lies, and vowed to treat complaints better in future. Speaking as someone who did not dream of reporting assaults for years, and when they did got bad treatment from the police, that is a significant breakthrough. We currently have the #MeToo campaign which is raising awareness of sexual harassment.

Unfortunately online porn is undoing much of that good work.

I dont think women's rights have progressed.
20 years ago single parents were demonised. If they tried to go to the job centre they were told they were taking a job away from someone who really needed it.
Today they are demonized if they dont work.

I think porn and the expectations on women as to what sex acts are normal/expected is a fucking disaster.

I agree it's better in some ways.

I just think the underlying hatred of women hasn't changed (by men or women).

For every single "Yes, this should be protected or promoted" thing, there just seems to have been something to take its place or someone who's subverted it into "what about the men?"

The recent transactivist movement is one example of this, where some people are undoubtedly desperate to fit in, but others are just troublemaking by attacking women's sports, scholarships, refuges and healthcare.

Porn is a huge, huge problem and I don't think we as a society even know the issues it is causing.

I'm not sure things have improved. More women are working outside of the home but are still doing more of the housework and childcare. Childcare costs are through the roof.

Porn has been a disaster in terms of influencing young men's attitudes to women. I think misogyny is worse in some ways now than when I was working in an office twenty years ago (although it was in a largely female industry so maybe my impressions are wrong).

On average two woman are killed by their partner or ex partner per week (an outrageous statistic - why are we happy to let this be the status quo?)

Overall, there seems to be a more adversarial and polarised relationship between men and women and less of a sense of being on the same team.

That's great about Nottingham police force though. Let's hope they have sufficient resources to really make a difference.

Men actually getting picked up on the sexist things they say and do in workplaces, at least in many workplaces.
Many more women in senior roles and boardrooms.
Senior chief police, directors of councils, companies, health authorities, etc.
Lots of backwards moves too.

A lot has improved for white, middle class women. Jobs, economic factors, attitudes. My sister is a high earning professional, single parent, dating various people. That would have been very frowned upon twenty years ago.

Women at the lower end of the economic scale are much worse off. Access to further education is now for those able to afford it, mothers are expected to work but not socialised (is that what I mean?) to earn much, all while still doing all the childcare and housework.

The rise of internet porn has had a dreadful effect, teenagers taking their first forays into sex are now expected to do anal, deep throat, choking.

Young lesbians are being transed. And girls in schools (and adult women) are being told to budge up to make room for boys who feel like girls.

We are being diminished, and it’s happened gradually and insidiously. And things that feel like a ‘win’ (#MeToo etc) really aren’t if you think about it. They just mean that for twenty years and more all this shit has been going on unchallenged.

I think back 20 years, I was 18 and full of hope for what the future held. And now I’m just full of rage.

Good things:
Men are much nicer than they used to be, I think: more empathetic, less cross, and better at having female friends and colleagues.
When I was at school you couldn't come out as gay. You could barely even acknowledge being gay existed.
Bad things:
Pressure on women to be "hot" has only got more pronounced, I think, and Snapchat culture hasn't helped.
Girls' and boys' toys and clothes seem to have become more differentiated, with even little babies dressed completely differently.

I am past rage.

All I feel now is complete and utter heartbreak.

The world has defeated me. I feel a failure for having had children, and specifically daughters.

It depends where you are. In some countries it has definitely got worse and most definitely not better - thinking about violence and abuse of women. countries where women have no rights as humans equal to men. Not allowed to vote, drive, choose how they dress who they marry, forcing a woman to marry her rapist. Trafficking. 'honour' killings..... Not to mention backtracking on LGB rights.
I also find it disturbing that so many young women strive to have faces and bodies like the botoxed, silicon filled women that are called 'celebrities'. And the creeping impact of porn....

However I felt very uplifted by a recently made film I watched this week about the women getting the vote in Switzerland. This happened in 1971 (OK, a bit more than 20 years ago and a bit before me), in 1981 women in Switzerland were recognised as equal. It was not before 1991 that the last Canton accepted women to vote in local elections.

The film showed the huge changes that have happened here in the last 40 years. Here in Switzerland women are in many, many ways still not treated as equals to men but in Switzerland's own sure and steady way things are improving.

Pressure on women to be "hot" has only got more pronounced, I think, and Snapchat culture hasn't helped.
Girls' and boys' toys and clothes seem to have become more differentiated, with even little babies dressed completely differently.
The pressure on women to have a particular look is heavily influenced by porn. 'Celebrity' culture e.g. Kim Kardashian. A looks obsessed society which causes so much misery.

As a childfree woman, I'd say nothing has improved in 20 years.

in fact, to some extent I'd say things have got worse.

Interestingly, my parents have some childfree single friends (women) in their 60s and 70s and they agree that women choosing this in my generation (I'm 42) are seen as odd and wrong whereas their generation was seen as making a choice that was natural in the context of freedom from being legally bound to men and stuck with no contraception.

In the workplace, I think there are much higher standards of appearance placed on women now - but no pressure on men.

Todayissunny - how you can feel "uplifted" by women getting the vote so late in Switzerland is beyond me!

The UK were held back in women's suffrage by many bizarre reasons - that Switzerland didn't get there till 1971 has boggled my brain a bit!

Interesting, Riverside. In my experience the attitudes are the opposite.
I have a lot of child free friends in the 35 - 45 range and haven't heard negative comments, nor have they mentioned any.
Yet my parent's generation, their single or childless friends were invariably pitied, referred to as spinsters, left on the shelf, etc.
I would put that down as something which has improved.

I don't think that things have improved at all to be honest. I think things are worse. There are so many backward steps being taken. I think a lot of people have become better at hiding their misogyny, but you don't have to probe very far below the surface to find it.