1961 women's employment - wow!

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

Someone found this letter in a house she bought, & posted it on X. I've never seen anything like that before.

This is why we should all listen to the generations who came before us: we may think we know what's what, but history can always surprise us. I've been amused by posters on X claiming this weekend that there have never been communal changing rooms for women in the UK & that no teenage girls ever went shopping with their friends for fun. As a member of the biddy mafia I know they're wrong but they're quite insistent, even the men.

That’s fascinating, and Esh Winning isn’t far from me 🤣. I love an historical document that clearly shows the reality of the time.

My mum tells me how when she visited my dad at University in the 60s, they could not go to the pub as she wasn't allowed in.

And yes I used to go shopping with my friend for fun in the 80s and there were communal changing rooms.

That letter should be required reading for every secondary school student in the UK. I hope it's shared widely online.

Thanks for posting it, OP!

Sorry, I missed that about communal changing rooms? Did someone say there weren't any for women? I remember them in Top Shop in the 80s.

Great letter OP, thanks for posting.

This is why I support the women seeking compensation re the changing of the pension age.

We seem to have forgotten that until surprisingly recently, women simply did not have the same opportunities as men, weren't given the same services or deals or pay. Bank accounts, pension rights, etc.

Yes, I remember them in various shops around that time. I remember once getting unsolicited fashion advice from an older woman customer in one, when I couldn't decide which colour top to buy! And later on I felt embarrassed when I wasn't as slim as other women in the changing room. I know it happened, so I know the people denying it are wrong.

I think it's an attempt to say that women don't need an area of female changing rooms because every shop has lockable cubicles & that's the way it's always been. And no woman or girl has ever gone outside a cubicle to show anyone else what they're trying on, to ask for an opinion or another size. It's not true, obviously.

Communal changing rooms were common in the fashion shops in the eighties - all female, of course.
My mother was at a provincial girls' grammar school in the fifties and there were generally only three careers open to them - teaching, nursing and secretarial. My mother was unusual because she won a university place to read maths. A few years later, in the sixties, university became more common for young women, although it must be remembered that in the mid-eighties, when l was a student, only 10% of the population had access to higher education and there were still more male students than female.
Pioneering women, particularly from the early 1900s onwards, have done so much for us to enjoy the benefits we have today and we must never forget this.

Yes, of course there were communal changing rooms! They used to be heaving at the weekend. My sister was a new teacher and had just stripped off when some of her pupils walked in!

I know of pubs in the 70s and 80s where women were not allowed in unless they had a man with them.

No communal changing rooms? I remember a HUGE communal changing room in What Every Woman Wants in Glasgow in the late 70s / early 80s.

As for that letter, there is a huge amount of ignorance about the lack of rights that young women take for granted that our mothers and grandmothers generations had to fight for.

Communal but not mixed, as I recall.

Definitely not mixed. And I just asked DH if they had communal changing rooms for men in those days & he said no.

At one time women were allowed to be teachers, but sacked on marriage. (around start of 20th century?)
Women were legally obliged to cooperate with their husband every time he wanted to rape them, because he had 'conjugal rights'. (until late 20th century?)
Women doing the same job as men were paid half, or less, because Unions declared all males must earn a 'family wage' whereas females only need a little 'pin money'.

When at last there was an Equal Pay Act, it was circumvented in many ways, mainly by Unions declaring different occupations were male only, or female only: Of course, 'Female' jobs were low status and very low pay.
On marriage, husband and wife were one person and that person was the man. If she was entitled to a tax rebate, it was paid to him.

In the civil service in Ireland women were obliged to resign on marriage until 1973. I knew several who had been affected by it. Until then they were also paid less than men doing the same job, and had different retirement ages. One of the reasons many people feel the EU (initially the EEC) was very good for Irish women, and by extension the country, is that it enforced equal treatment.

My mum was sacked when she got pregnant with me in the mid eighties.

I also remember the communal changing rooms. I definitely used them as a child and possibly into my early teens in the early 2000s, even.

At one time women were allowed to be teachers, but sacked on marriage. (around start of 20th century?)

dMiL worked as a nurse in the 1960s where it was common practice to be sacked when you got married.

My mum was sacked when she got pregnant, NHS 1960s

Dorothy Perkins had communal changing for sure

Yes, the tax return was done by the man and the woman’s earnings were included. It meant that a woman’s marginal tax rate was based on her husband’s earnings. So when Denis Healey increased the top rate of tax to 83% for higher earners it meant all the wife’s earnings were taxed at that rate even if she only earned a pittance, she had no tax free allowance of her own. This stopped some women working - which was damaging later for their career and pension.

In the mid 1980s my DW was in the Civil Service and had to work away from base. She did this 1 week in 3 and visited the same area where the other factory was.

On one occasion she called a small pub/hotel to book her accommodation. Sorry we are full.

A little later one of her, male, colleagues called and booked his room.

DW called back.... asked why was it full for me and not my colleague.

A long bungled call/explanations/excuses.... But basically because they didn't want single women staying - with the implication that single women were likely to be sex workers.

She did stay. I think words were exchanged. The hotel was onto a good thing as it was convenient and there were several visiting staff going regularly.

Women would routinely lose their job because they get married (in the 1950s, nurses had to leave the NHS when they got married, for example as theyve always been at the forefront of sexism). One reason why the Sex Discrimination Act was originally implemented in 1975 was to create equality with men in this regard

Communal changing rooms absolutely existed until the early/mid 1990s. Top Shop for one. I’d like to say C&A also but I also remember grey curtains so im unsure. Anyone saying otherwise is either male so didn’t know or “trans age” and wasnt around then.

The SDA 1975 was also the first time that women could have a bank account, credit card or mortgage without male sign off.

In the 1970s my parents’ bank manager was surprised that my dad had my mum on a fully shared current account. He thought women should be kept in line with a small weekly allowance. That bank manager went down in family legend as a total idiot. I was also bought a train set and taught how to fix cars, operate tools etc. so apparently we were a gender non conforming bunch well before it was cool

My mother b1924 blamed her mother's mental health problems on the terrible way woman were treated in the period she lived in

Famously every time Victor Drummond the first woman marine engineer took exams the entire class was failed so the Merchant Navy would not have to endure a woman chief engineer

Eventually she got Panamanian qualifications

Read her autobiography and Diane Barnato Walkers

I went to university in 1988 and by then it was 25% of school leavers going on to higher education, so either 10% was literally university only with more going up polytechnics and FE colleges, or the decade is a bit wrong - I’d be surprised if it jumped 15% in three years.

Where were they? As a teenager in the 70s I went in to plenty of pubs alone, both in the UK and in rural Ireland where you might expect things to be a bit more traditional.

they were rare, but I can definitely remember mixed sex communal changing rooms in Kensington market and a couple of other trendy places in London.