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.

OP, just wondering, sorry if it's already been answered, do you know what's happened to the original letter from your OP?

R v R (1991) is the case about rape in marriage. Before 1991 there was no such thing.

disgusting really.

the equal pay thing - I don’t disagree with in principle. The sad result of it, and unintended consequence is that now, everything costs significantly more, homes need 2 salaries to be affordable, and childcare is eye watering. Women were sold a lie about being able to have it all. We can’t.

not really progressive in the way that it was intended.

I went to a school like yours and had a father like @Imdunfer's. I can't imagine how you think a headmistress could have challenged a man's decisions on his own household budget - set him some lines, make him stay in at break??

I went to an all girls grammar school where the headmistress refused to sign UCCA forms (as Ucas was called then) for any girl who wanted to apply for medicine or law. This was the later 1970s and still was still there until the mid 80s with the same outlook. Girls got around this by leaving, working for a year and getting their employer to sign. Risky in those days as gap years were highly unusual and medicine was notorious for not liking gap years. I know several who were successful with this route despite, not because of her outdated views.

She, the headmistress, really was a bag of contradictions; she lived with her close female friend, which was suspicious even in those days!

the headmistress refused to sign UCCA forms for any girl who wanted to apply for medicine or law

OMG, @DPotter 😡 any idea why? She must have been asked!

the headmistress refused to sign UCCA forms for any girl who wanted to apply for medicine or law

She probably thought that they would get ideas above their station.

We were expected to have modest ambitions, and in that our headmistress wasn't disappointed. Really we were being prepared to be wives to men in the same mould as our fathers came out of: middle managers, the doctor, the dentist, the local solicitors, the bank manager, the town clerk. Mine numbered in one of those.

There was just so much talent wasted. But she herself never married and quite a few of the senior mistresses were single. (Some were good, others had only gone into teaching because there weren't the choices available to women.)

we were being prepared to be wives to men in the same mould as our fathers came out of

I went to a class reunion in 1995, when we were all 30. I was very startled to learn that the main focus of competition between classmates seemed to be the status of their husbands! It was only then that I realised the truth of what you've said, @Peregrina.

The few of us with careers we cared about ended up huddling in another room. Interestingly, half of this group were the 'bad girls' who'd been viewed, at best, as non-compliant.

Our careers visitor was shite, as well. She told me that as I clearly had 'ideas' (didn't want to be a teacher or civil service admin) I should aim to be a secretary at the Foreign Office. This being presented as the pinnacle of ambition, I did actually start a bilingual secretarial course. By week three, it was clear that secretaries sat in meetings to write down what the delegates said. I wanted to be at the table, so I changed courses.

The girls who ended up as surgeons, finance wizards and world-changers were the ones with parents who knew how wide the horizon really is. School did us a great deal of good, but failed terribly at showing us our potential.

This is a fascinating thread - partly depressing but also optimistic to see how things have improved - albeit some way to go!

it’s reminded me of a colleague who announced in our male dominated office tgat there was no point educating and training women as they just went off to have babies and never came back.

in some ways he was correct that historically this had happened but we were on the cusp of that changing. He got his ear well chewed off 🤣

If I were of the younger generation I’d have “cancelled him”. But Apart from some dodgy attitudes he’s a good chap and I now employ him. I prefer the latter as it earns me decent money and is quietly satisfying so there’s a lot to be said for having a thick skin 😎

A friend recommended the Leicester Building society to me in the 70s exactly because if you saved £50/month they guaranteed you a mortgage after two years even as a single woman. The only one that did IIRC

Honestly, some people (and I'd surmise that many of those on this thread who "had no problem" and doubt everyone else's experiences were much more middle class than those who did) have absolutely NO idea about how life works for those without their own privilege.

Was the case then. Still the case now.

It's incredibly easy to be complacent about your rights when you've not personally seen the impact of them either being taken away or not being enacted, and when you've not been a position where you don't have the power to change that.