How have things changed for women?

My daughter is in the unfortunate position of signing on for Universal Credits. She has to be available to work up to 29 weeks pregnant. It's wonderful that pregnancy is now under the Equal Opportunities Act, but the reality can be very different when your Job Coach is on at you every week, asking what you have done to tick all their boxes. Realistically, what employer would really want to take on someone who is pregnant?

What really changed the world? The pill.

What an interesting thread! My mother was widowed with 3 small children and was expected to stay at home and be grateful for her tiny widow's pension. When she could bear it no longer and found a job, went to university to study for a degree at evenings and weekends and made complicated arrangements for us kids, she was frowned on and often by other women . It wasn't a life she chose, but she had to for her own sanity sake. She needed to use her brain and meet other adults.

I admired her but was also envious of my friends who came home at lunchtime to a cooked meal when I was a latchkey kid and came back to an empty house.

Because of that I was determined to be at home for my own children, be an earth mother who sewed and cooked but I'm not sure they noticed or cared. I have always worked but part time and never been dependant on my small salary.
My own DD & DDiLs stay home for the minimum time with their babies and then need to work to help pay mortgages and childcare costs but also because there is no network of support for home based parents where they live.

One trend. I have drawn from this discussion. is that there is one thing that hasn't changed; that a woman's (and a man's ) chances in life are still largely dependent on attitudes at home. Where parents are keen on education, want their daughters to do well and offer them help and support then, generally they do well and take new challenges in their stride, but if a girl comes from a non-supportive background, no matter how aspirational she is, it is much more difficult. That has not changed, even though choices are wider.