Does feminism mean the same now as it did in the 60's and 70's?

trisha
I am not sure where you live. In the hospital where I work we have a majority of women who are not only surgeons but are actually Consultant surgeons. Also we see more juniors coming through who are also women.

NannyC1

trisha
I am not sure where you live. In the hospital where I work we have a majority of women who are not only surgeons but are actually Consultant surgeons. Also we see more juniors coming through who are also women.

Only 14% apparently

Your hospital must be quite unusual if the majority of consultants are women

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/08/female-surgeons-frustrated-by-male-dominated-field-study-finds

It was grist to my mill. You were lucky to have an easier ride but then perhaps not so much to fight against.
After 3 years at the MRC I left science for the media finally becoming an editor in an educational publishers in Bloomsbury (via local newspaper and the Financial Times). I was never propositioned sexually and often spoke volubly about feminism fired from reading The Second Sex. I perhaps was favoured.
Possibly the strangest outcome was when I got married. I had never thought I would change my name but then I discovered that this old school educational publishers didn’t traditionally allow married women to stay on their staff. I was advised to keep my maiden name by my female commissioning editor. This was in the 70’s.
On the firms founding, after the First World War, it had employed many educated women who cut their hair - big issue and were suffragists. I became the editor of the house magazine and privy to its history and key to the library. Founded by philanthropic progressive aristos, perhaps it was a deal they made. Career or marriage not both. Interesting. For that reason being a born oppositionist I adopted my married name as that was the more radical thing to do! I know of no one else who did that!
Just keep fighting for what you know is just. We have never been in such a complex situation with women like Germaine Greer being cancelled and JK Rowling reviled. With trans- women insisting females who don’t transition are cis- women. Frightening times. We are still fighting to know what a woman is, we don’t need men trans or cis to tell us do we?

I took out a mortgage in my own name in 1975. No problems!

Reading some of the comments, I realise I was very fortunate. First and foremost my mother, born in 1906, was before her time. Aged twenty-one, and the only one of working age, she took on the responsibility of younger orphaned siblings, the youngest seven. All of them plunged from a comfortable home life provided by the family business into near destitution. She was not only my mother but also my inspiration and best friend. After WW2 and rationing easing, my girl’s school introduced cookery into the curriculum. My mother went to see the head to express her opposition. Her comment, I was later to discover “my daughter attends school to be educated, if I wanted a domestic servant, I could keep her at home” - just one of her many inspiring nuggets. Such was her opposition, limited family finance would not be funding the enterprise and never was. Like her, and thanks to her, I grew up knowing my own worth.

At the age of eighteen, I joined a company known for its paternalistic care and promotion of young staff both female and male. There was a six-month rota moving around administrative or scientific departments to access strengths and weaknesses. My first department on entering the company, salaries and wages, its staff consisting of three males, one over sixty and on the verge of retirement, another in his late fifties and the youngest about forty-five. After six months it was suggested the next move would be to the accounts department, and another group of middle-aged men.

By this time, I was familiar with the young female staff of the general office, all sitting behind typewriters, with painted fingernails and seemingly endless chatter. I thought I might enjoy some of this and suggested at my redeployment interview, all male, as the department I would like to join. The response “oh no, that is not for the likes of you - you have a long way to go”. Their assessment and consequence lead to a return to school every afternoon to prepare for accountancy exams and a wonderful inspiring professional life. A life as far removed from the company of men who provided the foundation and who saw an ability, I had no idea I possessed.

Did I ever feel unequal, the truthful answer is no. I never expected life to be made easy, and it wasn’t, but I have enjoyed it immensely.

Your last paragraph rings bells, I watch young women today and it’s sad to see, but I believe they have made themselves slaves to bottox, fillers, unnecessary surgery, and more. It seems young women have less freedom now than we had as youngsters in the name of vanity. At no point did me or my friends feel the need to abuse our bodies in this way.

AJKW as I remember it there were a fair number of girls I knew who went on various diets- the banana diet etc, some had their hair straightened or permed, some wore undergarments that were designed to change their shape. I have no doubt those girls would now (and may even have in later life) have surgery or botox. Changing how you look isn't new, there are just different procedures.
NanCL How interesting. It must be an unusual hospital. The figure overal is 14% of surgeons are women. But in certain specialities like Trauma and Orthapaedic surgery it drops to 5%. The reason for that used to be that this was an area where strength was needed. The introduction of modern surgical equipment has made that untrue, but numbers remain low.

I think some of the changes that we thought had been secured, especially regarding gender stereotypes, have been eroded in recent years by what I’ve seen described as the pinkification of society. Despite having female role models in every career, unlike in my youth, girls today are bombarded with glitter, unicorns & fairies. Their clothes carry messages like ‘Be kind’ & ‘Little Princess’ while boys clothes describe them as ‘Mucky Monsters’ etc. Gone are the days of unisex Lego & adverts showing children of both sexes building models together. My 7 year old GD asked me just yesterday “Why do all the boys in my class say girls can’t play superheroes?’ She went on to say how sorry she felt for her friend (a boy) who says pink is his favourite colour “because the others laugh at him & say he’s a girl.” I think society has seriously regressed in this sense, even while making progress in other areas.

SadieWord Pink used to be a boys colour, being a watered down version of red which was a masculine colour. Originally pink and blue were regarded as gender neutral colours, suitable for young children and to distinguish them from adults, rather than between the sexes. Towards the end of the 19th century parents began to dress girls in piink and boys in blue, although it's not sure why.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sparklingsilver28,
that's an interesting story, re the training, and glad you had a good life from it.
do you think those men's comments re the general office not being for the likes of you had a class element to it.
why were the girls in the general office not put on the rotational scheme.

What brought home to me recently the fact that we haven’t come as far as I had hoped was the following discussion.
Me to stepson’s girlfriend (who had just got a first class honours degree in business from Newcastle Uni)” so who did you vote for in the European elections.“
“ I voted for the Brexit party”
“ Can I ask why you voted that way?”
“ Because Jason ( boyfriend) told me to!”

I leave that one with you.

Susieq62 - that's a cracker. No words.

Welbeck - yours an interesting question and one I have never considered. Many years later, I was approached with the comment "with your funny brain could you show me how to do achieve this calculation". No matter how many demonstrations left them bemused, and the first time I realised what came naturally to me did not to others. And my "funny brain" more likely to have set me apart in the beginning. Highly amusing but has served me well.

@TerriBull I agree in that I think there has been some backsliding in women's control of their own bodies and rights in recent years. Maybe this is more of an issue here in the US than the UK. We have lost many rights to contraception, abortion and still work for just over half of what men earn, and have no paid maternity leave here. Also in the 70's/80's health insurance was usually provided by employers and now it is only partially funded if at all. Of course, we have no national health care here, because it's a third world country. It feels like we have lost rights in the 90's that we had in the 70's. It seems like there has been a big step backwards and strong backlash against the former gains that were made. The younger generation doesn't see the difference and doesn't see the need to continue the fight for equal rights.

"The younger generation doesn't see the difference and doesn't see the need to continue the fight for equal rights."

Nothing farther from the truth.

I continue the fight for my very young daughters, who deserve a better world.
I would do the same if I had sons, to teach them that genders do not matter. We are people first, not men and women.

What is really funny is that many GNs in this board still fully support the dil as the social secretary of the family, for example.
How feminist is that? Not at all.

Another example is when many posters also get mad when daughters in law do not accommodate visits when requested by the OP, and instead did blaming the son, they go all guns blazing for the dil.
Another: son is divorced but OP wanted to see the gc through the ex dil.

They fully reject the concept of " the son facilitates relationships with his side of the family, the wife with her side", which is a more modern and common way of doing things now.

Feminism starts at home, with family and friends.

Since 2010 the Equality Act has been in existence which gives the right to anyone who finds discrimination in their lives due to gender, race, religious beliefs, disability, sexual preference and much else to be able to take that discrimination to the courts.

However, it would seem that in today's world persons and groupings would rather place their cases of discrimination on social media rather than through the channels that really can bring justice, equality and through that an end to the intolerance they find in their lives.

By example to the above, Workplace safety has been transformed over the last forty years so that in the present day many return home safe and healthy from their employment who would not have done so in years past. That change was brought about through people using the courts and the legislation brought in to protect workers in their workplaces. Similar to the above should now be happening with gender discrimination but, sadly, that is not the case.

Protest and demonstrations can be effective when it is seen that new legislation is required to bring about change. However, with gender discrimination that comprehensive legislation is already in existence, and women must use it, for nothing else will end the bigotry that many find in their lives.

Thank god you are here grandad. Its sex discrimination by the way. Sex is the protected characteristic under the equality act.

Galaxy

Thank god you are here grandad. Its sex discrimination by the way. Sex is the protected characteristic under the equality act.

In that case Galaxy I will use the term "Sex Discrimination" in the future.

I stand humbly reprimanded. ???

Don't want a job as a legal secretary in our office do you Galaxy, as the above is the sort of terminology I am always be in pulled up on by them. ??

It's really important grandad. For some reason people, I dont mean you specifically, got all squeamish about using the word sex. It has caused unending problems for women which I dont really have the energy to go into.
I am not sure you and me would be a good combination in an office environment grandad but we can give it a go.

Hithere feminism starts at home with family and friends

That statement puts it simply and with accuracy. Legislation is important, it does lead to change but the legislation usually follows demands from the public. The influence of parents and wider family/friends can't be under estimated.

A minor bugbear - when I was younger and regularly ate at friends and friends of friends houses, it always seemed acceptable, even expected, that the man of the house would be ‘allowed’ to just drop off and have a snooze whilst visitors were present, particularly after a meal, whilst the women had the whole responsibility of being the host.

Feminism starts at home, with family and friends.

So true Hithere. Legislation can only go so far. We need to educate, educate and educate!

Glorybee - not a minor bugbear! I don't think this happens so often these days. Certainly in my family/friendship group, including the next group of parents now in their 30's the men share the cooking and the clearing up - and the child care (to a degree)

Iam64 - yes, I think, and hope, you’re right! I think that even today some roles to do with childcare are subconsciously and automatically undertaken by women. I once saw a woman really struggling to push a child in a buggy over the cobbles at St Michael’s Mount whilst her partner strolled beside her chatting to his mate. Also, I saw a couple set off on a bike ride with the woman straining to get up some momentum as a child’s trailer was hitched to the back of hers!