Should women have equal pay and opportunities?

Should women have equal pay and opportunities?

Yes.

After Bumface added bits I still feel as I always have - people doing equal jobs should have equal pay. After work hours, in the home hours should be spent with both working to accomplish whatever tasks may remain to be done (dish wash, bathe children, read to children, laying the breakfast table).

Perhaps the post was initially worded oddly. Many are.

Bumface, you have no need to explain or justify your post. You gave us a stimulating talking point, with no expression of your personal opinion, and people jumped to conclusions about you, which is interesting in itself.

Dickens I did not take offence, but I did not find it a goady post,but to be sure I asked the OP to come back and clarify things which she did.
I did not read into, I was bought up to believe, that these were her views, but the views of her parents and she used this example to start a discussion.

I hope we are all much wiser now!

I remember Paula Yates getting roasted for saying that encouraging women that they could "have it all" more realistically meant they could "do it all".

It seems there is not any great strides forward in that respect.

Well, Misadventure, This is an interesting point. I knew old fashioned views existed, but as a child, like Bumface, even when you disagree with them - and I had no reason to object to the family view, you do see those who think differently as being the exception, not the rule.

Because I was at a girls grammar school and most of my friends grew up in homes similar to mine - and the one who didn't shared our views and didn't agree with her father. I sgain tended to assume that the modern progressive views I grew up with were predominant.

I now realise how very fortunate I was.

Many of these points are perfectly reasonable points for discussion, I would say that generally the gender pay gap is in many ways a motherhood pay gap, young women tend to out earn young men, it is what happens after children that is the issue. It is mostly women who go part time etc. The statistics around share of housework and organisation with regards to children are fairly consistent in showing women take more of that role. I am not sure what the answer to this is but they are valid points for debate.

So you know that people hold different views to you and your mother.

Proves the point really, doesn't it?

I was born in 1943 and I was brought up to believe that the world was my oyster, that I was free to do anything and become anything I wanted to be . Yes, I would probably marry and have children because most people did. I just assumed anyone I married would be like my father, an army officer, who never sat down doing nothing if my mother was doing housework. He happily dusted, hoovered, gardened and did everything round the house. When we my youngest sister was born I remember him pushing the pram, changing nappies and feeding her.

I was brought up to believe that a husband was not a meal ticket that death(with two generations of young widows in the family) could leave you with young children to support and that every woman whould have a career she could return to.

All important decisions were the result of discussion and agreement between my parents. For most of my childhood my mother worked as a teacher.

This upbringing , plus going to a girls school, meant I left school and went to university to read a subject, economics, that to my surprise was mainy studied by men. I never expected to meet prejudice and when I did just walked over it. I spent most of my working life in predominantly male professions, engineering, energy and management consultancy. I got equal pay because I worked in big companies where jobs were graded and as I did not work in fields dominated by women, I got, like any man, the rate for the job. The only occasion I didn't, I promptly found myself a new job.

When I was young I can remember my mother having round to coffee another army officers wife who thought like Bumfaces mother. After she left we had a good giggle about how antquated her attitudes were.

People are "allowed" to post contentious views.
I'm sure we've all heard what other peoples parents bought them up to believe at some point or another.

It's also not trolling.

If others find it annoying, well, there's a saying I was bought up with, for that.

rafichagran

I did not find the OP goady or vexatious, it was to start a discussion. I asked the poster to come back and give her views and she has done that, and it is exactly what I thought it was.
I don't understand the suspicion or why posters choose to take offence.

I don't understand the suspicion or why posters choose to take offence.

OK - please don't take offence if I spell this out and labour the point, I'm doing it to defend myself and those others who obviously read the OP quite differently to you.

I don't know how much social media you trawl through but, generally speaking, when someone starts a comment with... "I was brought up to believe that..." they are, in fact, stating that they actually do believe in whatever it is that they say after that opening line.

So couple that with the title of the thread - questioning whether women should have equal pay and opportunities... can you not see why it gives the impression that the OP might not think they should?!

In fact, in 2024, when the head of the European Commission is (or was) a woman and we've to date gone through two female Prime Ministers (disregarding that one was a bit of a disaster - but that was not due to her being female) and millions of women are in positions of authority and power; many others being both breadwinner and parent / homemaker... it seems a bit of a daft question to ask, frankly, so that's why it appears a bit "goady".

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

I suspect, Bumface that your initial post is the one that caused such a reaction (and at face value, rightly so) - however subsequent posts of yours have clarified your own thoughts and beliefs - perhaps with hindsight, you should have posted them in the same post? I agree with you that at one time, attitudes were generally the way you describe in your first post, but of course (and thank goodness), these have, for the most part, changed, and people of whatever sex, are valued (of course, not by all, sadly, even this day and age), for what they give to society; and couples (by and large), work together and share roles - as it should be.
There will always be some, unfortunately, who still believe that certain roles belong to certain sexes - all we can hope for is that education and enlightenment will change their views over time.

Oreo

What a man! 🤩
Is he still available? I may swap DP 😁

Sadly, no ☹
He'd be over 120 now and probably not up to oven cleaning.

What a man! 🤩
Is he still available? I may swap DP 😁

Oreo

RunaroundSue

I was born in 1943 and when I was a school girl I remember coming home and seeing my dad ironing our pleated skirts. He worked shifts and in his spare time he cleaned the house and made meals. Both mum and dad worked so they ran the home together. It was always a partnership and that is what my marriage to my late husband was, a partnership.

That’s good, but fairly unusual for those times.

I was astonished when we got married that DH didn't clean the oven every week and also my shoes every evening. What a shock!
My father always did that, he could cook too.

What the OP describes is exactly how my parents marriage was for very many years.After Dad died Mum went to work but only to make money.They had a wonderful marriage btw and were very happy.

RunaroundSue

I was born in 1943 and when I was a school girl I remember coming home and seeing my dad ironing our pleated skirts. He worked shifts and in his spare time he cleaned the house and made meals. Both mum and dad worked so they ran the home together. It was always a partnership and that is what my marriage to my late husband was, a partnership.

That’s good, but fairly unusual for those times.

But did the men do the ironing?

111 years ago. Bolt thrown through the window of the Newcastle Labour Exchange with a label attached "Equal pay for equal work" from the suffragettes.
Women were employed as clerks there alongside the men.

Her husband was in the Navy and does the ironing because he's good at it.
Yes, that is one advantage of marrying a Naval man 😃

Dickens

Namsnanny

MissAdventure

women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them

I can't see the second point having much sway though

I can't see the second point having much sway though

Quite!

Husband: "You have been disloyal and ill-behaved, I shall not sleep with you tonight"

Wife: 😊😊

Oh thank goodness, I wanted to finish my book anyway!!

Namsnanny

MissAdventure

women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them

I can't see the second point having much sway though

😂😂😂

Agreed rafichagran
It was a provocative entry into a most absorbing discussion.
Seems not everyone wants a discussion.

I did not find the OP goady or vexatious, it was to start a discussion. I asked the poster to come back and give her views and she has done that, and it is exactly what I thought it was.
I don't understand the suspicion or why posters choose to take offence.