“Feminism has left middle-aged women like me single, childless and depressed”

[MongoFrogman]

Article by Petronella Wyatt, thoughts?:

https://archive.ph/IBlas

Apparently she had a pregnancy but chose not to keep it - so now she regrets that?.

I think feminism gives us the choice not to marry Mr Collins. What it doesn't give us is any guarantee that we will marry someone better than Mr Collins.

So we can choose to settle for Mr Collins if we want to be married at any cost. We can marry (or more likely cohabit with) a fuckboy like Wickham. We can hold out for a Captain Wentworth (Mr "Nice But Dim" Bingley and Mr "Rude, Arrogant Arsehole" Darcy wouldn't be my choice) if we're willing to take the risk. Or we can choose to embrace singledom.

The other thing we can do, thanks to feminism, is get divorced rather than going to prison for murdering Mr Collins in his sleep.

So feminism is the answer to a lot of problems, but even feminism can't fix the shortage of decent husbands in the world, unfortunately.

And, crucially, we can have a fling with Fuckboy Wickham, realise the error of our ways, and move on, instead of having to marry him to save our reputation. Thanks, feminism.

And, if we don't marry, we can live independently, earn a living in any profession, get a mortgage/loan/bank account in our own names and be financially autonomous - none of which was possible in Austen's day and some of which wasn't possible when PW was born. Thanks, feminism,

And if we do marry, we don't lose all rights over our property, we can divorce, we have parental rights over our children, and we aren't deemed to have consented to sex whenever our husband wants. Thanks, feminism.

Yes and a termination.

Is it possible that she was just commissioned to write some anti-single woman and anti-childfree piece? Along with all the "poor men" talk I hear about?

I was unsure whether to comment because it seems posters think she was recently sectioned? I know nothing of her or her private life.

So just to put my own perspective...

48, single, child free, and that was always my plan. I groan when I think how much shit I had to listen to about this when I was in my 20s! I basically stopped going to any family gatherings as a result.

Interestingly, after I crossed 40, I have had some women tell me quite openly that they feel I made a good choice!

I never had any issues with loneliness and considered my friends to be my family - until lockdown, which killed a lot of my life. (There are distant family members who would probably meet up for drinks but I'd rather have no company than the wrong company).

I had my first batch of antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds at age 20. Probably, in these days, I'd have got them as a teen?

I think I'm probably a very good case of faulty brain wiring but being drastically overworked didn't help.

However, I was working extremely hard for good reason and I knew that I didn't ever want to combine my income with someone else's.

When I have had boyfriends, the relationships inevitably ended because I didn't want marriage - and it had no effect at all on my mental health whether I was seeing someone.

In fact, I would say the most recent boyfriend, much as he tried to look after me, probably stressed me out more - it's almost like having double the load of problems! It was a very strange glitch in my life after more than a decade of not seeing anyone.

Also, I knew I'd never have children so that balances things out in £ terms.

On loneliness - I don't want to curse myself, but after a tough few years, things seem to be looking up!

But when they have been really awful, the things really kept me going were knowing I made the right decision in being single and childfree. I love getting home to my home, mine alone.

And obviously I have feminism to thank for that choice.

. I might not be 50 yet but I don't feel I have to hide away like she is saying. That's bizarre. What's that about?!

Despite my loneliness, I do still have the friend I had my 40th with and we are hoping for another big US trip to mark it 💃🏽 She's also single and childfree - worth mentioning she's older than me and happy with her choice too.

If anything, I see her less often than I'd like because she's got so much going on in her life!

I feel sorry for this author but I'm sceptical of anything I read now. Does feel there's an anti feminist agenda out there.

Yes didn't she get pregnant by Boris Johnson and he apparently pressurised her into an abortion? She was a grown adult with a high profile career. One of Johnsons other lovers had the baby, so she had more choices than many ( as a result of feminism). She made poor choices to firstly waster her time on a married man, and then chose not to have her baby. I mean the kid would have tied her to Johnson forever, but she still made that choice.Is she saying she wishes she had been forced to have a baby against her will because feminism allowed her to make a choice she now regrets?

I know plenty of middle-aged women - myself included - who are child free and blissfully happy.

If she's not happy then it's neither feminism nor the lack of offspring that has caused it.

Nail on head.

Boris Johnson is like some sort of anti-feminism force field. And also seems to be the main reason for this woman's unhappiness.

I suspect a PP is right - she was asked to write an anti feminism piece and here it is in all it's illogical glory.

I would say most women over 50 are more miserable due to misogyny rather than feminism.

I would say certain types of feminism do devalue unpaid caring (including elder and child care) and consequently make life for a lot of over 50 women that are carrying a large caring load harder. But it's a drop in the ocean compared to the impact of the societal misogyny that doesn't value that work in the first place.

She decided to sleep with something which has eyes so close together they're virtually in contact and obviously can't live with herself. I'd encourage good quality counselling to work theough this issue but personally I'd opt for a radical hysterectomy if I'd ever made such a mistake

Didn't she know It was ever thus ?

She had no problem having an affair with married Boris Johnson.
Not my type of woman.

Nah! she got paid to write this don't forget and she gets to spend it, without having to have sex with a mr collins eugh

She had at least one abortion. Not judging

That’s a very interesting read thank you. Ummm well I don’t know too much about the feminism movement tbh but I am of a similar age. I do not agree with her article and I’m not sure how she has come to those conclusions.

I am very grateful for things I have been able to do as a female compared to my grandmothers and before them. I hope that all women younger than me and also women in other countries, different races and religions than me will be as free as I have been able to be.

I have had a child as a teenager who I brought up alone. I have studied and gained a degree, the first person in my family to ever do so. Amazingly for part of my course in the 90s there was actually some funding for childcare and without that it would have not been a possibility so I felt very lucky at the time and worked as hard as I could to get the most benefit.

I have worked in all sorts of jobs since I was 13 and I have had a career, did not turn out as I expected, and I have been self employed running my own business. I have suffered sexism and worse especially when working in bars and nightclubs. And in my career even worse from females above me, my last role in my career I had a horrendous female bullying me daily who made my life hell.

I have been able to learn to drive and afford and run a small car. I have been able to rent a house alone and have a mortgage in my own name, not something that was possible for my grandmother. She had to have a male relation on her finance agreement for a three piece suite even.

I have been free to have sex with whomever I chose, to have relationships or not, to be free to choose to never marry, been free to chose to have a child and to choose to not have a child and the freedom to legally be able to make that choice.

I have been able to vote even when I have had to spoil my ballot slip and free to voice my opinions on topics.

I have also been free to do as I please, wear whatever I like, walk in a pub and be served, walk the streets of my town for miles in the dark, walk alone in the countryside without any fear or threats.

I have sadly suffered horrific trauma from a sexual assault as a young girl and a coercive violent relationship. The police, all men, were useless on all counts and the treatment from them affected me as badly as the actual abuse. So that’s something I hope has changed. I never want to have to personally find out but I do hope so. The only thing I seem to have in common with the writer is MH problems but mine are linked to the traumas.

As for living alone in your 50s why on earth the writer thinks that is a negative is beyond me. It’s called freedom.

I think she has it all wrong as I’m lucky to have been born in this era with women like my grandmother before me being a trailblazer and making all of these things possible.

I think she's failing to take responsibility for her own decisions to a large extent.

That being said, there is some truth to the idea that some popular forms of feminism, especially among a certain class of professional people, really tended to poo poo the possibility that a woman who focused on a career and having fun with sex, to the detriment of forming a stable family of her own, might come to regret it.

You see posts from that viewpoint every once in a while in chat - someone says that younger women should think carefully about the consequences of missing out on those things, and almost always pipes up to say that this is some kind of sexism, that women can be fulfilled without them, and usually posts some old study showing unmarried women are happier.

To me that seems clearly silly, of course it's not "unfeminist" to give questions like that serious thought, and remember that what seems most important can change as we age. But I know, because I've seen it, that some people tend to just accept narratives like that without much reflection, and assume their own feelings will tend to stay the same.

That could end with a feeling of having missed out, a combination of a social narrative among her group of peers, and not being super-insightful herself.

"Her own union might as well have been to a cipher as opposed to a husband. Indeed, when the Thatchers dined with us, Denis withdrew to the drawing room with the women."

I enjoyed this little nugget of information. My parents used to have dinner parties where the women withdrew to the sitting room and the men enjoyed a bottle of port. I used to bring in the coffee. I can't imagine a poor Dennis sat in the corner on his own. Interesting to think of the men all in thrall to Thatcher who probably frowned in the port and brandy. It must have been rather exhausting for them.
A fascinating detail.

I think feminism gives us the choice not to marry Mr Collins. What it doesn't give us is any guarantee that we will marry someone better than Mr Collins.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

I know, because I've seen it, that some people tend to just accept narratives like that without much reflection, and assume their own feelings will tend to stay the same.

That could end with a feeling of having missed out, a combination of a social narrative among her group of peers, and not being super-insightful herself.

This is very true. If all of the author’s friends were feminists at the time she was pregnant, I seriously doubt she would have had any support if she expressed thoughts of keeping the baby. With BJs pressure to terminate and the narrative from her friends “Oh, your life won’t be your own, you’ll lose your freedom, he won’t be a good father, you’ll be better keeping your life as it is”, and so on, that tiny voice within her saying “keep this baby, we could have a lovely life, the two of us”, would be totally squashed down.

When I say feminism has been the cause, I don’t necessarily mean directly either. Men used to have to think seriously about being a good provider and get married in order to even have sex. That sharpened their focus about being good marriage material. A bi-product of the sexual liberation of women, has meant that men can now have their cake and eat it. Sex has become entirely divorced from procreation. Also the destigmatisation of abortion, means men like BJ can feel it’s ’no biggie’ to expect a woman to terminate - they can continue to shag around, irresponsibly, with no consequences to them - only the women bearing the consequences. (Obviously we DO NOT want to go back to the horror of back street abortions - but this is a side-effect).

what's your point? that you didn't need feminism?

my parents had quite formal dinner parties (in the 70s) and after dinner they played strip poker. My mum and her friends were fervent 2nd wavers

But remember Charlotte Lucas marries Mr Collins purely on economic grounds — she’s a plain spinster daughter at home, has aged out of the marriage market at 27, and her brothers will have the job of supporting her after their parents’ deaths and are already referencing this. In a world without self-supporting careers for women, marriage is an economic decision for her, just as it is for the Bennet girls, who will be homeless and living on their mother’s tiny income as soon as their father dies, making it even harder to marry someone with enough money to support whichever sisters haven’t married, and Mrs B.

Lizzy and Jane get the fairytale of a love match that is also moneyed, but Charlotte is closer to JA’s own situation when she briefly agreed to marry a rich brother of her friends (before changing her mind overnight and running away).

So feminism has meant that women can have work which allows them to be self-supporting, so they don’t have to marry Mr Collins on economic grounds.

I grew up in the Thatcher era and it helped me believe I could do anything I wanted. What Thatcher didn't do was have prolonged affairs with married men. She married and had children and a career. Petronella's poor choices relate to her taste in men not feminism or Thatcherism.

Exactly.

And for what it's worth, the best that can really be said for Darcy is that he was very rich and fell in love with Lizzy despite his reservations about her family.

In a century where Lizzy could have been a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon or a bestselling author she might have decided there were better ways to spend her life than being mistress of Pemberley. She might have remained happily single, or married a man without a pot to piss in but who was her intellectual equal, had some social skills and actually liked her family.

It was only the fairly short-lived radical feminism that rejected the family and marriage as institutions in any case. Some misguided, traditional rags seem convinced that this small movement was the sum total of all feminism.

My first thought as to the usual 'feminism is evil' whinge was: I'll bet she's written that for the Mail or the Torygraph. They are constantly featuring mournful little articles from women who claim to have been sold on the feminist 'myth' and ended up lonely, unhappy and riddled with regrets.

Underlying message: 'the Patriarchy really knew what was best for us all along'.

Well, fuck that.

And here's one middle-aged feminist with a family and career who's proof positive against this self-pitying BS emanating from the genre of so-called 'confessional journalism'. Ugh.

I wouldn't even bother reading the words of such a grifter.