My girlfriend told me she wished it was still the 1950's

[sfl]

Nope she wasn't laid off, her last job she quit because she wanted to stand up against her racist boss but that was early 2010. She went to uni for a term but then quit because her course was awful, as was her accommodation and flatmates, this was the point she started living with me...

[zengirl]

Nope she wasn't laid off, her last job she quit because she wanted to stand up against her racist boss but that was early 2010. She went to uni for a term but then quit because her course was awful, as was her accommodation and flatmates, this was the point she started living with me...

 

Sounds like she's stuck in a bad place. Thanks for settling my curiosity.

[musemaj11]

I have been following this discussion on the Daily Mail forums that just has me in such a pissy mood lately. There is a woman who flat out says that misandry is okay because it is now payback time. How am I supposed to stop being so bitter when I read stuff like that?

But payback over what?

 

For 50,000 years, men have been the ones working their behinds off to ensure the survival of women and children.

 

Seriously, if your gf wants to be a housewife that badly, she doesn't have to go back in time.. she just needs to find a guy that wants it.

 

It isn't that difficult, especially if she's willing to put up with the stuff that many women in the 1950s didn't have any choice but to put up with (husband having affairs and no option of divorce, abuse, lack of decision power, sex being an obligation, etc)./QUOTE]

Any female who wants to go back to 1950 is either only 13 years old or just plain dumb because she obviously is not intelligent enough to understand how life was for women prior to the 21st century. The same with 'little girls' who wish to go back to the 18th century because they think back then it was all about gentlemanly men treating women like princesses.

[paddington bear]

Any female who wants to go back to 1950 is either only 13 years old or just plain dumb because she obviously is not intelligent enough to understand how life was for women prior to the 21st century. The same with 'little girls' who wish to go back to the 18th century because they think back then it was all about gentlemanly men treating women like princesses.

 

Agreed. We are nostalgic for a past that probably only exists in our heads.

 

I was brought up by a single mother (father abandoned me and was never heard from again or paid any money, so life growing up was a major financial struggle) and from that I think it was drummed into me to get an education, be independent and never to rely on a man to finance me or my life.

 

He who holds the purse strings has the power as far as I'm concerned. I'd hate to have to ask my husband for pocket money, or for him to get annoyed that I'd bought something frivolous like new shoes with said pocket money and get told off like a naughty child.

 

I know a few women, relatives, of the older generation in these kinds of relationships, and many let the man do everything, pay the bills, organise trips etc. I often wonder how these women will function if their husbands die. They will be like lost little girls with no concept about how to function as an independent human being.

 

I think having kids is where things start to crumble, or rather, get incredibly stressful, when both people are working, having sleepless night and trying to juggle their lives to spend time as a family together and be a good employee as well. Having defined roles in that respect is possibly less stressful. But then of course, women have brains too, some love their career, have spent years studying and a lot of money and want to continue with that, others as soon as they have kids realise that they are more important than their formerly fulfilling career and suddenly want only to concentrate on raising their family.

 

My life has been really tough at times financially. Such a struggle that I sometimes just think I'm simply not cut out to be the career woman and how lovely it would be to have some supportive man there to look after me financially and I would be happy to look after him in return in other ways. (I guess though honestly I would have a hard time adjusting to this concept if it really were to happen in reality - just a knight in white armour fantasy thing when life gets really tough).

[musemaj11]

I know a few women, relatives, of the older generation in these kinds of relationships, and many let the man do everything, pay the bills, organise trips etc. I often wonder how these women will function if their husbands die. They will be like lost little girls with no concept about how to function as an independent human being.

Prior to the 21st century, men did see women as nothing more than big children.

 

I think having kids is where things start to crumble, or rather, get incredibly stressful, when both people are working, having sleepless night and trying to juggle their lives to spend time as a family together and be a good employee as well. Having defined roles in that respect is possibly less stressful. But then of course, women have brains too, some love their career, have spent years studying and a lot of money and want to continue with that, others as soon as they have kids realise that they are more important than their formerly fulfilling career and suddenly want only to concentrate on raising their family.

Couples should not have children until they are financially sound.

 

Marrying too early is not a bad thing because it allows the couple to start building a financial foundation together early.

 

Having a child too early is what is a bad thing.

 

In my opinion, ideally people should get married at the latest by the age of 25. Then they should wait and have a child in their late 20s.

 

My life has been really tough at times financially. Such a struggle that I sometimes just think I'm simply not cut out to be the career woman and how lovely it would be to have some supportive man there to look after me financially and I would be happy to look after him in return in other ways. (I guess though honestly I would have a hard time adjusting to this concept if it really were to happen in reality - just a knight in white armour fantasy thing when life gets really tough).

And thats the difference between men and women and I blame social conditioning for it.

 

Men are taught that relying on others is not an option while women are taught that its okay to depend on others.

Edited February 5, 2011 by musemaj11

[paddington bear]

Men are taught that relying on others is not an option while women are taught that its okay to depend on others.

 

I don't think taught - or if it is, it is taught as traditional family values.

 

Prior to the invention of the pill, imagine the impact of pregnancy, and lack of reliable contraception on women. Child after child, miscarriage after miscarriage. Having children and raising them, I think is why women relying on others came about.

 

After the invention of the pill, things changed. I always say that if suddenly there was no contraception any more, things would go back the way they were pretty damn quickly.

[musemaj11]

I don't think taught - or if it is, it is taught as traditional family values.

 

Prior to the invention of the pill, imagine the impact of pregnancy, and lack of reliable contraception on women. Child after child, miscarriage after miscarriage. Having children and raising them, I think is why women relying on others came about.

 

After the invention of the pill, things changed. I always say that if suddenly there was no contraception any more, things would go back the way they were pretty damn quickly.

Yes, unavoided pregnancy was the original reason in the past that forced women to rely on men other than the fact that most jobs were only available for men anyway.

 

However, today its no longer the same but the thinking pattern still persists and I think its due to ages of social condition which wont change in a fraction of time.

Edited February 5, 2011 by musemaj11

[Citizen Erased]

When I hear women that say things like that, I can't help but think they're lazy. Don't want to work or think for themselves, spend all day being treated like a princess.

 

Good luck to her with keeping the OP as her boyfriend, or anyone else for that matter.

[Zed]

The 50’s lifestyle was largely a myth. Stephanie Koontz book the Way We Never Were, exhaustively outlines the Ozzie and Harriet 50’s myth that the 50’s was some kind of special period of happy housewives and sacrosanct family values.

 

Sure there were some families that were able to pull off the dad working and the housewife but that was largely due the huge federal government investment after the end of World War II to allow for a new middle class that was unprecedented anywhere on the planet. The mid50’s style middle class could not even have been a possibility without heavy federal subsidizing through college educations, homes, and jobs. If that didn’t happen America would have still been suffering the vestiges of the depression, since the profiteering of the war would only be a temporary fix.

 

Still women were working out of the household even then because the rates of poverty were stuill pretty startling in that 1 in 4 Americans were poor. So the Don Draper type households were still only available to a small number of American families. On another note, 97 out of 1000 girls ages 15-19 were having children out of wedlock. So that means that 1/3 of children were born out of wedlock. Girls/Women were hardly being chase ands patiently waiting to get married and if they did they were many many shot gun weddings. However teenage pregnancies now in the 21st century have been the lowest in over 70 years due in large because of contraception. www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_06.pdf

 

She should be happy that she lives in the 21st century since she has far more options to craft her life. So pining over any period, especially the 50’s, is frankly myopic.

[Woggle]

You make a good point the government playing a role. If conservatives want a return to this kind of thing they should support socialism.

[sweetjasmine]

I know a few women, relatives, of the older generation in these kinds of relationships, and many let the man do everything, pay the bills, organise trips etc. I often wonder how these women will function if their husbands die. They will be like lost little girls with no concept about how to function as an independent human being.

 

The way it worked in my family, the son(s) would then step up to the plate and fulfill the same role. If you didn't have any sons or if your sons didn't give a crap, it sometimes didn't matter because families all lived in the same place, and someone somewhere would help you or take you in. If there was no one else around, well, tough luck.

[Scottdmw]

The 50’s lifestyle was largely a myth. Stephanie Koontz book the Way We Never Were, exhaustively outlines the Ozzie and Harriet 50’s myth that the 50’s was some kind of special period of happy housewives and sacrosanct family values.

 

Sure there were some families that were able to pull off the dad working and the housewife but that was largely due the huge federal government investment after the end of World War II to allow for a new middle class that was unprecedented anywhere on the planet. The mid50’s style middle class could not even have been a possibility without heavy federal subsidizing through college educations, homes, and jobs. If that didn’t happen America would have still been suffering the vestiges of the depression, since the profiteering of the war would only be a temporary fix.

 

Still women were working out of the household even then because the rates of poverty were stuill pretty startling in that 1 in 4 Americans were poor. So the Don Draper type households were still only available to a small number of American families. On another note, 97 out of 1000 girls ages 15-19 were having children out of wedlock. So that means that 1/3 of children were born out of wedlock. Girls/Women were hardly being chase ands patiently waiting to get married and if they did they were many many shot gun weddings. However teenage pregnancies now in the 21st century have been the lowest in over 70 years due in large because of contraception. www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_06.pdf

 

She should be happy that she lives in the 21st century since she has far more options to craft her life. So pining over any period, especially the 50’s, is frankly myopic.

 

 

I think that it is also true that, while people sometimes look at the 50’s in an overly rosy way, at other times they look at the 50s (and times before) and imagine them as worse than they were in the area of gender relations. It seems like some feminist arguments very often will hold up a terrible picture of gender relations in the past. They will imply that anyone who is against their ideas wants things to “go back to the way things were in year X”. Their concept of “year X” is a time when every woman was in some terribly unhappy marriage or relationship, abused, powerless, subject to her husband's every whim, with no economic opportunity, etc. Ozzie and Harriet is held out as some kind of bogeyman of what the world will become unless the feminists are followed. There is often an either/or mentality. Either you agree with feminist demand X, or you must be in favor of the horrible, terrible way things used to be.

 

I think this is also an exaggeration. For one thing, none of it bears any resemblance to the relationship my two sets of grandparents had. More importantly, I find it difficult to believe that the women of the past were so meek and submissive as to just let all that stuff happen. Sure, some of it happened. But, most men have strong inborn instincts to protect and nurture women. Women also have a lot of power over most men completely independent of their economic ability. I don't think the struggle between the genders was nearly so one-sided through most of history.

 

I'm sure things were different back then, but I don't think they were as different as some feminists make out.

 

Scott