Some young women have no idea of the battles we fought?

[MrsSnippyPants]

I was pondering on this recently, because many of us fighting to stop self ID and the rolling back of women's rights seem to be of a 'certain age', much like the middle-aged nurses who were reported to have stopped Saville having access to patients.

Tonight I was watching 'Madam Secretary' (I do love an American political drama) and in the programme this quote from Susan B Anthony really chimed with me;

"We shall someday be heeded, and when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everybody will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people think that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses always were hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past."

My daughter, the mother of my granddaughter, gets it, yet my DiL (as yet child free) thinks I am just a dreadful bigot. They are the same age.

What opened your eyes, and what do you think works best to open the eyes of younger women?

I thought the hard work had been done and we were continuing to gain ground. I took my eye off the ball I have to admit.

Then I saw a news report today of a Hindu ‘leader’ announcing that women who cook while menstruating would be reincarnated as a dog (I guess he thinks that’s a bad thing) and I wonder what the world is coming to.

I always 'got it' but I grew up with tyrant father and was motivated by seeing the power imbalance in my household and being afraid of men from a young age. At university I read in the library feminist books that had nothing to do with my course and became good friends with someone whose mother was a 2nd wave feminist.

But in spite of all that, there was still so much to learn and I didn't fully understand the extent or nature of DV and male violence and how much some men hate women until joining these boards and purposely reading more and more into the subject.

Maternity discrimination leading to losing my job when my dd was only a year old. Feeling so incredibly vulnerable knowing my career was over and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then realising that while my childhood had been frustratingly gendered in some ways (for instance prevented from playing sports I loved like football or rugby because girls should play netball and hockey) it was nothing compared to what my daughter now faces. Sure, on the surface everything appears equal but just underneath there’s this expectation that girls must be kind at all costs, should be in pink and sparkles, and that if they diverge from the set feminine path they are not really girls at all! That is not progress!

It’s got worse. I never had pink sparkles as a child - I can’t remember ever wearing pink for that matter. My sister always had action man and space ships and I had my typewriter and toy dogs. We had skateboards and bikes. I never went in for the my little pony or cabbage patch dolls. I hated dolls (gave me the willies).

My mum and grandma were quite ‘strong’ women who brought us up that ‘girls were best’ to be honest. If we wanted to pain our room grey then we could.

My parents were WW2 kids and had a better grasp of gender and sex than most people I meet today.

All this pink, sparkles, unicorns, mermaids and rainbows - and creepy ‘love for all’ blasted all over kids clothes makes me uneasy.

I’m young-ish and struggle to understand why these gender critical debates are so all consuming for some people.

I’m not trying to be rude or start an argument - I’m just sharing my view point in the hope that it helps explain why some of us aren’t engaged.

I look at the broad arguments and I have sympathy for both sides - but the truth is this has no impact on my life. I am not worried about changing rooms etc for example, I figure if things don’t work out we will have to rethink then.

I am far more worried about the environment and wish your energy would be there - this is where the young want/need your influence and wisdom! So in answer to the OP, I am grateful for the battles you have fought historically ... but I just can’t get worked up about this either way. I don’t understand why you can’t re-focus your energy to a more important cause!

You can fight more than one fire at a time. We aren’t so old a feeble that we can only consider one thing at a time!

The gender issues here are dismantling the rights of women and safeguarding of children.

Maybe because you don’t remember how shit it was before and how blatant the sexism was then you don’t worry about how it will actually play out.

Try it and if it doesn’t work then do something else? Really - how may people need to be hurt for this experiment?

Why have sexes been segregated until now, why has gender - in the history of mankind - all of a sudden before hazy? The massive hike in children being ‘confused’ beside schools and on the groups are telling them confusing things.

Businesses aren’t going to go to the expense of changing facilities then change then back because it doesn’t work our.

Why aren’t they focussing on disability access? People with disability was here and now have problems in daily life but the focus is on allowing male bodies into female only spaces (because you rarely hear if trans men crying that they will kill themselves if they can’t use a man’s loo). Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?

I definitely got angrier after having children. I'd expected motherhood to be better by now. I do feel though that most women my age (born late 70s) don't appreciate the struggle previous generations had. My mother couldn't get a mortgage because of her sex, my grandmother couldn't continue her career once married. We've come a long way, I think maybe the idea that men see becoming female as an attractive option is a mark of progress in a funny way.
In a way I'm delighted that young women are less aware of the struggle. My daughter, shes only 12, but shes got no sense of her sex dictating her outcomes, she doesn't feel limited by it, I'm sure she'll encounter sexism along the way, but I'm hopeful for her.

Most people don't think TWAW. If they were aware of self-ID most people would be against it, but its very much a niche debate for most people. For most people what is happening at Tavistock seems crazy I think, when you really get down to the issues, but in the media we're presented with these 'brave and beautiful' individuals, no discussion of the impact on hormone blockers on mental health and normal development, no discussion of the long term side effects of messing with hormones. If that side was discussed it would be a different matter. I know very few people who understand the 'debate' and are sold on self ID and TWAW.

I look at the broad arguments and I have sympathy for both sides - but the truth is this has no impact on my life. I am not worried about changing rooms etc for example, I figure if things don’t work out we will have to rethink then.

Why would you only think about the impact on yourself though? I'm unlikely to go to prison or need a domestic violence shelter, but I care about those women who are much more vulnerable than me that do and want female only space to feel safe. My DD appears to be heterosexual but I care about young lesbians who are mutilating their bodies because they think they must be trans for not liking feminine stuff. My 86 year old mother wants a born female person to help with her personal care, as so many older women.

I also care about the environment!

DM never defined herself as a feminist, she just cracked on with being her, but my role model was a working mother who drove, discussed politics and could do DIY. Meaning The door to feminism was always wide open.

And like PP having children, and especially returning to work with young children, was the eye-opener. My employer allowed a flexi half-nine start, but then I had weekly meetings at 8 am. Presenteeism, a prerequisite for many senior roles, is easy when you are young and single but becomes more of a challenge post motherhood.

And I need to give credit to Mumsnet and the knowledgeable posters here for accelerating my learning and presenting challenging ideas. I suppose what I’m saying is that I have developed as a feminist over time through a combination of knowledge and experience.

Having daughters really drove it home for me - but I'd always been brought up to appreciate the importance of women having the vote and what they had gone through to achieve that... my 6 year old has been learning about "real life heroes" in school recently with an exact 50/50 split between men and women and came home very indignant that women had had to fight to be allowed to vote like men - so hopefully the next generation are getting started young!

That's a really interesting question. I'm 26, no children, didn't sit around the table debating as we grew up but am still an avid lurker of these boards and had been thinking about posting a "what can we do" action taking thread as the issues that get discussed really worry me.
I hadn't given much thought to inequality at all until I started my own business. I think in my previous two jobs I'd been very lucky to work in female lead teams and companies. When I started my own business the doubts and patronising attitudes from men came crashing in and it absolutely opened up my eyes to the attitudes that still exist. All I could think was "if these feels miserable, how did it feel just 80+ years ago? How does it feel in countries where women are refused education etc.?"

I think as some earlier posters have said, some of the "lack of interest" comes from the incredible way women before us have made our lives so much more equal and we don't see nearly as much injustice day to day. It took some patronising attitudes and serious mansplaining to thoroughly piss me off and start me on this road!

I do of course also worry about being traceable online when looking for jobs in the future, we've grown up in a time where you have to be so careful what goes online because employers check you out.

I've instead used particular exhibitions at my business to fundraise for the Campaign for Female Education in sub-saharan Africa (Camfed) or to paint paintings that celebrate female artists, e.g. Camille Claudel. These just feel a bit safer. I'd like to be braver with expressing an opinion and taking part in the debate though.

Hope that's a good insight from a young-ish non-mum lurker.

I always got it, even as a young child. I can remember being incensed that women were expected to change their names upon marriage, that a schoolfriend's father was asked to choose between the life of her mother and her when giving birth (she told the story in class) and in sex ed. I was furious that we were told that contraception was only important up until marriage and that after that it didn't matter. Feminism is about more than having babies and worrying for daughters.

Alas age and experience makes you more cynical. The young are more naive and idealistic. And motherhood is relevant: most of my concerns centre around children in all of this; I doubt I would feel so strongly if I was child-free. And I wouldn't be aware of as much of the pink sparkly shit as well.

I get it. Always have. I remember when I was in sixth form (I'm early 30s for reference), it was a "thing" for girls to loudly proclaim "I'm not a feminist! We don't NEED feminism!". Used to make my blood boil. To the extent that for an A Level history project we were told to research a historical period of our choice and I did the suffrage movement. I'm not sure my subsequent half hour rant did much good for those Cool Girls but it made me feel better :D

My sister - when she got married - couldn’t have her salary considered for the joint mortgage. That was how it was. And she was pissed at the time as she earned more than her husband.

Getting pregnant and having my son. For various reasons. 1) the immense challenges ( as well as joys) of pregnancy and labour made me feel a kinship with all other mothers and think about how much we go though - on the basis of our sex 2) thinking about how much I want to raise my son to be a loving, caring man who treats women well and is not a sexist.

Also, working in an eye wateringly sexist office, the 'banter' and jokes were beyond belief in their sexism. Disabused me of any notion that sexism was dead. In 29 for reference

Something else, my 22 yo daughter still rolls her eyes at a lot of my rants, (though now she’s working she’s beginning to see some of it). But she went to an all girls secondary, and was protected from some of the excesses of sexism during her teenaged years.

I think Lonny makes a good point with “brilliant, they haven't seen it, they only see the benefits”.

We so need to make sure our progress isn’t eroded by expanded the definition of woman.

I was brought up with tales of the suffragettes and a copy of the Female Eunuch on the shelf (the cover, with a body-like swimming costume sort of thing fascinated me.)

In the 6th form, during planning for a school trip to France, joint with the boys' school, there was a suggestion the girls would need different accommodation to protect them. I had never knowingly been treated differently because of my sex (though I am sure there were a million examples I never noticed,) and it never occurred to me not to challenge it, because I couldn't see any reason that made us different. Thus it was we were in tents too, like the boys. I particularly remember it, because my mother supported me, which was quite unusual in itself.

My history degree included modules on women's history, but I mostly thought that, barring the odd dinosaur like the French teacher at the boys' school and a particular friend of my father's, that the big stuff was mostly done. And yet now, in my late 40s, I am talking to my union about equal pay (50 years since the Equal Pay Act, and you still can't take it for granted,) and I am the only woman in my department and toys and so on seem to have gone backwards in that they seem to be more gendered than in my '70s childhood.

I think that women mostly do realise that every right had to be fought for, but I don't think many realise that it was as recent as it was, and I think until you start coming up against promotions and payrise and having children, you don't realise just how it all works against us and that there's still a long way to go.

The biggest problem currently for me is the risk to the rights already won. Until we can genuinely take it all for granted, we have to keep chipping away at it all.

I was born thinking that I was an entirely equal human to my brothers, and we didn't have a gendered upbringing at all. Not in purpose, just, we were the kids, our parents were working, I was out in the street on go karts, climbing trees, getting mucky.
After puberty the attitude changed and I suddenly has restrictions, but also the street harassment started. By 15 my whole focus had changed from being someone who never thought about how I looked and was very much about what was inside my head, to being a "girl", wanting to look pretty, wanting others to admire my looks.
Then about 15 years of still seeing inequalities, but still caring desperately what men thought of me. I WAS the "cool girl". The tough girl, not a victim (still at heart the one with all the brothers wanting to be like the boys) wanting the guys to know I was first, but in a sexy way..😂
I spoke up for women's rights but not too loud.
After a bad marriage (understatement) and motherhood, I saw everywhere how women are being conned,how we are not seen as fully human, how all along men are seen the default humans, even by women themselves. I realised that the gendering if everything is pushing girls back in their box as the ones who "care" about everyone else's feelings, who have to place prettiness over everything else and whose sole worth is to be decorative and never, ever loud or ugly.
Its a shame that now I have a voice as again, now I shout out loud, men and younger eomen dismiss my opinions as u am

I think there is an age component - I'm nearing 60 and feminism has always been there for me. Back in the 60s things were more explicitly anti feminist, eg couldn't play football or cricket, yet hockey was considered OK as it was a non contact sport (Yeah right). No maternity rights, women expected to quit work on marriage, couldn't take out a mortgage without a male signatory, etc etc. I went to a grammar school where the female head would refuse to sign and give a reference on UCCA forms (predecessor to UCAS) if you wanted to do law or medicine as she thought they were not suitable professions for a women. So maybe it was easy to see that once those barriers began to come down, that the war was won. Sadly these were only the opening skirmishes to a long and dirty battle, let alone the war. Low hanging fruit if you like. We have yet to really get to the crux of the matter - deep seated misogyny held by many many and intricately woven into our society.

To the young woman up thread who wrote that she didn't mind mixed changing facilities and that if it didn't work out we'd sort it out - my head is in my hands with utter sadness. We've had this battle, we prevailed and now you're giving it away- willingly, blindly and without the imagination to see what will (not could) be the price. 'If it doesn't work out' - will mean a woman, a child is attacked, is groomed and that will have life long repercussions for that individual and their family. Separate sex changing facilities are the preventative steps we have to take to protect the vulnerable from sexual predators. Maybe it's not ideal, but we live in the real world.

As for shifting my focus away from the feminist issue and on to the environment - sorry that's just plain patronising. I am more than capably thank you of supporting and working for more one thing at a time. I'm there with protecting the environment, I'm there with fighting for good care services for the elderly and I'm most certainly in the fight to maintain and push forward the rights of women and the vulnerable - frankly whether you want me to or not. Do NOT tell me the fight for this is won - sadly it is not.

Lost my end bit!
They think I am a bitter old witch ha!

Fridakahlofan
When women speak about one issue we are told there are other, more important things to worry about. Its a pattern we are familiar with.

Women know the environmental crisis matters, we've been warning this situation is coming and campaigning for decades, and that's on top of all the other work we've been doing. And we've been denigrated every time we speak.
Haven't you heard of the McLibel case? You are being dismissive of women who were hands on activists, and those who fundraised to support their cases in court; of women who were deceived into relationships with spycops, treated as enemies of the State for being involved with environmental causes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_case

You are being dismissive of women who were active at a time when Government operatives ran false flag operations and even started fires in several Debenhams department stores.
People went to prison for those crimes, that the State knew were perpetrated by their own operatives.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18423441

Do you think the important battles have already been won by other women who came before you, so don't need your support now?
Because if that's the case you are not listening to women today, and you have no idea of the risks they ran in the past.

For me it was having an abortion aged 29. Even though I desperately wanted a child and thought the man would stick by me. He didn't. I was a student, in a foreign country, no income, no family, no support. I went through with it but a light bulb went on. I swore: no sex unless with someone who could commit and would want a child. I kept that vow and found a great committed husband. I realised how serious sex was, and how casually men regarded it... and that it's almost always the women who bear the responsibility.

It's individualism, isn't it? @Fridakahlofan is the perfect example - nothing bad is going to happen to me in a changing room so it's chill. Well, you know, nothing was ever going to happen to my clitoris but I still opposed FGM, and I was never going to be trafficked, but I still oppose trafficking.

Individualism very much reflects the state of the world.

In terms of the environment, women have been told for ever that their issues will be looked at later. It's a running joke in socialism 'we'll do feminism after the revolution, meanwhile be a pet and make a brew.' We're allowed to focus on what we want to focus on. Also where feminism intersects with capitalism (bc intersection isn't just about gender issues) is where real change can happen in environmental terms.