Should women have equal pay and opportunities?

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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".

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.

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.

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

Proves the point really, doesn't it?

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.

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.

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.

I hope we are all much wiser now!

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.

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.

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.

Tho my mum worked full time and my Dad did bits he was not involved in that never ending cooking/cleaning/childcare role. So I did grow up believing women could work but when I was first married sort of carried on without thinking much

- except my first husband and I shared childcare and cooking and its responsibilities without "discussing" it, but I did the household thinking.

DS and DiL share a lot more - initially I think my son was slower to catch on but with a very disabled child and 3 others its all hands to the pump.

Read "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez. (or listen to it on audible) to see why women are essential to the paid workforce, and paid work is essential to women.

MissAdventure

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.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

My own parents had much the same views as the OP but still managed to have a lovely happy marriage.Horses for courses.
Back in the day it was what many people thought.

Oreo

My own parents had much the same views as the OP but still managed to have a lovely happy marriage.Horses for courses.
Back in the day it was what many people thought.

Indeed.

Mum stayed home, Dad worked and drove us to/ from school - fortunately the war had ended and he was home by the time we went to school. Mum didn't even drive when I was young.

Life was different in many ways. Better appliances, my favourite tumble dryers and no long hours ironing like mum.

I spent hours driving to/from, only iron linens - which is better?

Both include happy loving marriages and families.

I believe that if there is love, respect and recognition for everything that each partner brings to the relationship it can work out perfectly, no matter how 'traditionally' or not the couple choose to live.

Oreo

My own parents had much the same views as the OP but still managed to have a lovely happy marriage.Horses for courses.
Back in the day it was what many people thought.

Perfectly valid.

Although there must've been times when money was short, I think many couples could manage on the man's wage allowing the mother to stay at home with the children - and there's nothing wrong with that!

Much as I value my independence, and liked my work, I would really have loved to have been able to stay at home with my son when he was an infant and toddler.

Different phases of life.

The only 'beef' I had or have with the 'way things were' is that some men were adamant that their wives should not work - even when the children were at school - or had left home in some instances... maybe because they felt it was a challenge to their status as provider, I don't know. It seems an awful shame that women who maybe had talents outside the home were deprived of fulfilling them because of the male ego. Though how often that was the case, I don't know.

I remember years back, the late Peter O'Toole was asked a question about his wife's (Siân Phillips) acting career - he responded with "she doesn't have a career, she has a job"

I’m not convinced that the women of the generation above ours, albeit some were in happy marriages, were happy with their lot in life, it was just the accepted order. Married women had to work during the Second World War, many enjoyed it, and were resentful at being forced out of roles they were very capable at when the men returned from war.
Society never really returned to what it had been before the war. My own mum worked in the civil service, and had to leave when she had me - it still rankles now at 95.

Teachers had to leave when they got married. Women teachers, that is, of course men could carry on in the profession.
The ban must have been lifted by about 1950 because I remember my school friend's Mum taught at our infant school, although Jane wasn't in her class.

What happens when the man runs off with someone else and the "little woman" is left destitute, with few skills and little employment experience?

Is the OP aware that many marriages break down these days?

Eloethan

What happens when the man runs off with someone else and the "little woman" is left destitute, with few skills and little employment experience?

Is the OP aware that many marriages break down these days?

The OP came back to declare that she didn't actually agree with what-she-was-brought-up-to-believe.

Both the title of the topic and the way her post was worded gave many of us the impression that she did and - like you - we responded accordingly!

It was misleading.

Casdon Plenty of women in the generation above us did work, although possibly in the minority. My mother, born 1912, worked for most of my childhood, and I am the eldest of three, my MiL worked, as did the mother of my best friend.

Most of them had jobs where career progress was difficult, but my mother always made it clear that she was not happy as a stay at home mother/wife. What is more both my fathe, DH's father and my friend's father were quite happy with their wives working.

On my mother's side, there has never been, as far as I know a non-working wife. Poverty and being widowed made work essential for man(while he lived) and wife.

It was the women who would have been career women had they been younger today that I was thinking of Monica, I think that was the change the war brought, to aspiration for more women. Many did work afterwards, but it was in low paid jobs generally, and work wasn’t seen as a career .
My mum was born in the late 1920s, and she was a career girl. She wasn’t allowed to continue in her role after having me, whereas her single female friend did, and ultimately rose higher up the ranks. My mum did still work, and my dad never held her back, but it was the lost opportunity that she resented. I know many of her contemporaries felt the same.