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| | Were women better off 50 years ago?Page 10 of 21 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21) | I think you and your friend are right I mean in the '50s ya didn't have singers writing songs about "my beotch" or "my ho"...Thankfully we can still throw on an oldies CD and hear a song like "My Girl", "There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)"...or "Happy Together". Don't get me wrong I'm still gonna get out and shake my money maker  to Lil John's "Get Low" or Snoop Dogg's "Sexual Eruption" but I'm gonna feel dirrrrty about it  hehehehehe
One more thing though...ya gotta admit women have it better when it comes to bras now compared to back in the day...My God! I look at old pictures and think those women look like the Pentagon had the same people designing our jet fighters working on the bra designs. PRAISE VICTORIA'S SECRET My friend!! That's one awesome CHICK hehehehehee | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 3/22/2008 2:00:55 AM | I haven't read the entire debate so sorry if I am rehashing old news lol
I think to answer this question you also have to ask yourself "which women?"
There's been a lot of talk of respect for women, we have to consider that not all women were respected. All women across different ethnicities and classes did not have the same experience or access to respectable womanhood. Think about how lower class women were treated, how about portrayals and treatment of black and brown women as well or for that matter women who did not or would not fall into the narrowly defined roles for women. I was just listening to an NPR program where a black woman to the story of her grandmother who once painted her nails with nail polish, she went into a general store and the owner told her she couldn't paint her nails like a white woman. He then took a pair of pliers and pulled out every single nail on each hand. She didn't have access to respectable womanhood as far as he was concerned. Remember also when an assaulted (raped) woman could have her character used as an acceptable excuse or justification for any negative treatment she received? Or how about when the courts had to decide that a husband could actually rape his wife - i.e. previously a woman could not say no to her husband. Of course horrible things still happen to women but now the right or wrong of it isn't dependent upon her social status - at least theoretically.
As for sexualizing women, I think it's the same as always only now it's a bit more crude and out in the open, kind of like turning the light on in the closet, same crap is in there regardless of how dark it is. One difference now is that women have greater access and choice re career. I won't say work or access to work because many ethnic minority women and poor women regardless of race have always had to work (doing laundry, sewing, childcare, picking vegetables etc etc).
I would also put forth the idea that what served as respect in the past was actual patronizing and disempowering women. Putting women in a particular social role where they lack choice and self-determination keeps them chained to the needs of others in an unbalanced way and in effect keeps them in perpetual childhood. Calling it respect doesn't change that. Of course if a woman chooses to take a more traditional role, that's fine - the issue is choice.
Here's what I would ask, why do men feel the need to be disrespectful of women? To OP I would wonder for example what was wrong with that high roller that he thought it was ok to treat anyone the way he treated the woman with him. What's wrong with him? | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 3/22/2008 5:45:33 AM | >>>Do you really believe women would have liked to carry stones in a quarry, to dig for coal down a mine shaft, to fish in a dinky boat, instead of staying at home with the kids?>>>
Staying home with the kids including waiting to see who wasnt coming home to dinner from the Boats to the mines. Staying at home meant keeping your contant fear grieving and sanity as well knowing your sons would be next. . Do you ever notice how much those men want to just hold onto their wifes after all the rescues you watch on TV probably 50 years prior as well. Caring for the lungs of your fathers husbands brothers, so nursing would be added to her other list of chores. Rather is not the question but letting someone feel theyre nothing without a paycheck and there were the idle rich. Maybe just no middle classes. Where are the men that know theyre wifes mother and sisters were well loved and aspreciated on these sites. i know for years as well they have tried switchin a man from his job to staying staying home staying home I dont think so It would drive a man insane to ----stay----home--- he escapes 9 outa 10 x truth woman that go to work feel they are excaping too thats the normal terminology - when they ask the woman why they stay home and dont work hahah they really mean it. If they make more than their partners they may even lose their marriages go figure.  | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 3/22/2008 4:36:31 PM |
I think it's the same as always only now it's a bit more crude and out in the open, kind of like turning the light on in the closet, same crap is in there regardless of how dark it is. WHAMMO!!! Now that's some straight talk.
It's extremely superficial to confuse when someone is paying respect to an "office"...but who at the same time totally disrespects the individual IN that office. Hence, I would have to agree that indeed, it is a fallacy that women were more respected in the 50s. In the 50s, a man's WIFE, or a boy's MOTHER may have been respected....but the individual who filled that role was NOT the owner of that "respect". I'm an old movie buff......the other day I was watching "Sabotuer"....an early WWII Alfred Hitchcock thriller. I probably wouldn't have paid any attention to it....as...what the heck...I grew up listening the dumb woman jokes, so they kinda go in one ear and out the other! LOL! (ironic huh?) Anyhow... because of this thread, I thought....now...I wonder if all you ladies who seriously believe that women were more respected in the 50s would say so if you paid close attention to how life REALLY was. Lucille Ball could not have made a fortune portraying an intelligent and responsible woman. Nor could have Gracie Allen; and history reports that both of these women were extremely savvy business women. Society in the 50's simply would NOT....ABSOLUTELY NOT support any female who did not follow the same rule that I was raised by......ACT DUMB or you'll NEVER get a man. LOL! My mother is STILL trying to push that garbage on me!
B-DancerM has hit the nail right on the head when she says:
I would also put forth the idea that what served as respect in the past was actual patronizing and disempowering women. Putting women in a particular social role where they lack choice and self-determination keeps them chained to the needs of others in an unbalanced way and in effect keeps them in perpetual childhood. Calling it respect doesn't change that. We have only to look at EVERY film made in that era to see the reality of this statement. The OP in this thread began with naming June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson, but watch the episodes of either and see how often their intelligence was insulted. For the women today who think that women of the 50's were "respected"...and that everyone rallied 'round the "stay at home mom" and valued her "job". WRONG!!! She was referred to as someone who was too weak and too dumb to do anything ELSE. I didn't make this up.....and I certainly didn't write the manuscripts, so please don't shoot me for making the observation. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 7/9/2008 8:05:16 PM | | Hmmm?..Are women better off now than 50 years ago?..Lets see here what I can do and dont have to do now versus back then....I can attend graduate school with equal numbers of men and women, live on my own, travel alone on my own, keep my own name when I marry, move where I want to, go into a bar by myself without being harrassed, buy my own house with my own money, hold credit and a credit card in my own name, sign legal documents without a male cosigner, play a sport in high school that was funded by Title 9 during the 70s, I can utilize affordable and accessable birth control, abortion is legal, Im not expected to work full time time while being a full time housekeeper and childcare worker 24/7..I wasnt required to clean up after my male cousins or their brothers or my father or uncles nor am I expected to do that now..Im not pressured to "dumb down" myself and act stupid so I can get married..I dont have to fake the knowledge I have in front of men, even thou I may know more about a topic than they do.....If Im raped I have a fighting chance that I wont be blamed for the actions of the rapist,.I can wear comfortable pants to work and school and sports and dont have to wear a girdle, white gloves hot in the summer,nasty pinching steel garter belts that holds Sanitary napkin pads, or tight slip under a scratch petticoat beneath my dress...Im not required to wear uncomfortable hosiery that bags and runs holes and falls down that I constantly have to repair, and stilleto pointy toes shoes with 4 inch heels that wreak my posture, back and my feet and prevent me from walking properly...Birth control pills dont give me dangerous side effects from too much Estrogen.....Im not stuck in a mindless, boring job beneath me that keeps me in poverty like a maid or secretary "Girl Friday" giving coffee to men even thou I have the same college education and work experience as they do.....I dont have to worry about giving birth to a Thalidomide baby....I dont have to worry about using an IUD for birth control that would injure my uterus and make me infertile......I can enjoy sex without the fear of pregnancy, since I can get birth control pills and other BC from a doctor even thou Im unmarried....I can actually say I want sex without being branded a slut, I can ask a man out on date without being branded a slut....I can sleep with a man without being branded a slut...I dont have to sleep in bumpy hair rollers all nite or spray my hair with hair spray to look respectable...I dont have to get "Tony permanents" for my hair that burn my neck, head and face....YEP....I definitely think Im better off than women 50 years ago! | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 7/9/2008 8:21:49 PM | | I did not live in the 50's, so the only answer I would have is what I've seen in documentary's or read about. Personally, I don't think life is any easier for a woman or a man. And most of all, there are people who do have respect for all of humanity and there are people who don't respect themselves and therefore, can't respect any woman or man, for that matter. I don't like separating people. Sure women have different organs, hormones and are able to produce, where a man is not. But in reality, we are both people, human beings, and with that said, I think I made my point. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 7/10/2008 11:50:34 PM | | Society has changed and become more liberal however the women you speak of are our mothers/grandmothers. Within close-knit families they're able to instill the traditional values they lived by. Unfortunately with the increase in divorces and broken families, along with the way women are often portrayed in the media...it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Each one of us is a part of "society" so it's important to lead by example and treat women with love and respect. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 7/11/2008 5:23:52 PM | I believe that families were better off 50 years ago. This is an era of isolation, disillusion, and slavery to maintaining a standard of livings slipping through our hands, as impossible to control as mercury. I believe the most recent times that are like this one is the era before the Third Reich/Great Depression. I have been reading some history books on this subject and find that the similarites are quite astonishing and eye opening.
We make a lots of fuss about men and women in these forums, why do men do this, why do women not do somethings. We would do ourselves a service by investigating more fully why people 50 or 60 years ago were feeling more engage in society and felt more closely a national pride. And once we completed our personal investigations we should begin to apply the fruit of our researches. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/23/2008 11:21:33 PM | I think the women of my grandmother's generation were better off. as far as being treated. I listen to the men and women in their 80's at the hospital and I envy them in some small way. How the men talk and how they treat their wives is unreal (in a good way) . I'd fall flat on my face if I ever heard some guy my age speak to me and see him treat me the way these guys do (still!) treat their ladyloves.
You KNEW they loved them. Even in the arguments.
I CHALLENGE every guy reading this to behave this way for 24 hours and see what wisdom they gained. I can almost Guarintee that not even 25% will succeed.
Let the Challenge begin. Unless you're chickenshit.   | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/23/2008 11:34:37 PM | | i think you are absolutely correct on this issue...todays men and woman dont even know what a relationship are anymore n believe more in friends with benifits then commitment..n we lost something as woman when we gained our rights to be oh so independant...think about it..we now have to take care of the kids ourselves,clean the house ourselves,pay for everything ourselves,work,and still get underpaid...and look at society today...how many kids are torn between two homes and conflicted and have a million psychological problems today?and how many crimes and rapes and murders are there today???ethics,manners,morality,and respect got thrown out the window along time ago...it is very sad in my oppinion... | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 12:19:29 AM |
I CHALLENGE every guy reading this to behave this way for 24 hours and see what wisdom they gained. I can almost Guarintee that not even 25% will succeed.
I can almost guarantee that 90% of women won't keep their mouths shut, won't stay slim and nice for their husbands, and won't bake a cake.
Let the Challenge begin. Unless you're chickenshit.
If today women were as those from 50 years ago, I'd accept the challenge. But since they're not, I have better things to do, thank you very much. | |
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ndulj
| | Joined: 5/27/2007
Msg: 238 | |
| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 6:47:23 AM |
I CHALLENGE every guy reading this to behave this way for 24 hours and see what wisdom they gained. I can almost Guarintee that not even 25% will succeed.
I can almost guarantee that 90% of women won't keep their mouths shut, won't stay slim and nice for their husbands, and won't bake a cake.
Let the Challenge begin. Unless you're chickenshit.
If today women were as those from 50 years ago, I'd accept the challenge. But since they're not, I have better things to do, thank you very much.
do you realize that there are a few of us out here that would take on that challenge. You might even be surprised at how well we would excel. Given the opportunity to be appreciated in that context might just work.
As long as the man kept up his part of the deal I would be happy to keep up mine. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 7:06:54 AM | As long as the man kept up his part of the deal I would be happy to keep up mine.
You belong to a really small minority then. Sorry if I'm a bit cynic about that, but after reading all those "it's ok to stop giving BJs after the wedding, he's an ***hole if he complains" and "she can balloon as a beachball and you must keep loving her, you jerk" threads I lost whatever little faith I had in the female gender. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 7:39:28 AM |
I lost whatever little faith I had in the female gender. That's too bad, as well as for the women who have lost faith in men.
One must always remember that the bad apples are the ones that get all the press "bad news travels faster than good news", "get good service {@ a garage, store, etc.} tell one person, get bad service, tell ten"...these sayings all exist because it is a fact of life and human nature.
And btw, how much good gossip is there? Pfft...it's always about dishing up dirt, real or imagined and designed to hurt or malign...
Keep it in perspective, as most people are decent human beings. An added plus is that you don't become embittered.
HnH  | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 8:21:07 AM | Probably not...since June Cleaver stayed home and was totally reliant upon Ward's income and strength as head of household...and if Ward got restless or financially irresponsible... and indulged in "extra-curricular activities" ...such as heavy gambling, partying, or even a mistress on the side...June's welfare and well-being (as well as that of any offspring involved - Watch it, Beaver...) MIGHT be threatened...even compromised...
From that viewpoint...I think women are a lot better off now... | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 8:40:13 AM | The world isnt' any less f*cked up than it was 50 years ago, I think. Just from reading history, the types of f*cked up stuff that happens changes, but it's always happening.
200 years ago, marriage was a form of wealth and honor acquisition. Marry a wealthy, high-class woman, with a powerful respectable name - and you become wealthy powerful and respectful.
then a hundred years after that... Women were the 'home-makers' and men were the 'bread winners' of society. Nobody can really say how badly things went on back then for women, unless someone remembers being a wife back then.
There are just as many wife-beaters and misogynists now as there were then, as there were 2000 years ago. It all depends on the social paradigm working at the time, which favors one belief system or another. If the social paradigm is that men are the gods, and women are the submissive toys of the men, then that mentality germinates into the dominating gender - and allows for wife-beaters to flourish without reprecussions of society.
That paradigm wouldn't necessarily 'create' more wife beaters, just the more sociopathic types who do not beat their wives for fear of the law, would becomes abusers. Abusers wouldn't be spawned, unless it was encouraged by the society to do so.
Well, depending on the extremity of the paradigm. Women these days have options, as many have said, so they don't have to take abusive situations. Conversely, the other things that went along with society those times... such as the man paying for everything, or expecting to have to support onesself have changed. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I think 'better off' is a loose way to put it - at the very least. These days, it seems that both gender have a more equal burden of having someone with more money and more power, screwing them everytime they buy gas, or lettuce at a grocery store - or are poor with no way to get their child into college.
Gender equality is fleshing itself out - while not there yet - it's making progress. Our problems these days are more socio-economic and political in scope. | |
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bsg789
| | Joined: 12/4/2007
Msg: 243 | |
| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 8:40:55 AM | | No. There is still some gender discrimination today. But there are simply a lot more oppurtunities for women now than they were back in the 1950s and 60s. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 8:50:27 AM |
women in the 1950s were better off then women today.
Now granted he said that women have more opportunities and generally are more independant than in the 1950s, who were genally stay at home moms, but the treatment and respect for women has drastically dropped...from both men and other women... men were more respectable and dedicated to their partners, friends, and familes in the 1950s then they are now. There was a code of ethics.
I have to admit that I have seen a lot of disrespect toward women at work...I drive a taxi...and some of the abuse and hatred and disrespect directed towards women by the men that get into my cab, makes me sick...and there have been times where I just wanted to turn around and grab the jerk by the throat!
So is just the type of people I pick up or is there just a general lack of respect for women throughout society?
there is a mass Amnesia in the land. About 10 years ago my mom (b. 1916) got off on the old rant that Women's Lib is the cause of modern domestic discord. Wait a minute, I said. Didn't you have friends who were trapped in hopeless marriages? What kinds of jobs were open to you after the war? Could you even imagine college? Hmm. Maybe the '50s look better from farther away than they did up close.
People tend to look on the past with nostalgic hindsight and idealization. I'm pretty sure back in the 50's women were spoken to and treated just as abusively as they are today, if not worse. At that time, women were regularly abused physically and no one did anything about it. Women were sexually assaulted and no one did anything about it. A women who went out a night alone, with a man she didn't know well, or with a female friend was an easy target for assult, abuse, etc., verbal, sexual, and physical. The 50's were not a better time for women. The people you see in your cab who either take or give that abuse would have done it in the 50's too; it is down to the inividual, the type of person it is. I know as a child in the 50's, a female child, physical abuse by male siblings was considered acceptable as it was believed I behaved in a way that provoked and invited it. Nowadays, we would hope parents would not accept for one moment a larger, older male or female sibling physically or verbally abusing a smaller, younger, more vulnerble sibling...hopefully. Everyone has more rights and has a better situation now than in the 50's....women, children, minorities, etc. Let's not idealize the past, forgetting the reality that it was. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 9:22:16 AM | | It's kind of a catch 22. Although women's rites have come a long way since 1950, family values and the economic impact on society as a whole has deteriorated. Both parents working has become the norm and the price of a home or a car has doubled as a result of dual incomes. These days women have far more opportunity to work a well paying job or advance to senior management, and professional women are given greater respect and taken more seriously than 50 years ago. The one option that women seem to have lost is being able to stay home and raise a family. I guess they still could do that, but unless they're heiress's or the family income is extremely high the family has to sacrifice a lot of things we value in order to do that. I'm not saying that the 50's or 2008 is better or worse, just that times are really different. Like most things, some of the changes are good, and some have been detrimental. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 9:34:58 AM | not so sure that women were better off 50 years ago, but men were.
Men were appreciated for thier contributions to society... now we're treated as if we are pure hell spawn. Men are portrayed as complete idiots on TV, incompetent boobs for the world to laugh at.
People are so concerned about being Politically correct, that no one can call out stupidity anymore.
If you watch a movie, and a woman slaps the crap out of a man, or kicks him in the groin for, say, cheating... well, thats accepted as his just reward. You never see a man slap the crap out of a woman for cheating... that would be advocating violence against women.
Big double standard for all of our "enlightened society" of today. | |
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ndulj
| | Joined: 5/27/2007
Msg: 248 | |
| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 9:39:12 AM |
You belong to a really small minority then.
that may well be true Rock_Hunter but there are still some of us out here. Now finding a man that appreciates it is another story. Unfortunately the radical feminists have most men so confused that they don't know what to do or how to behave like real men. | |
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| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 10:13:55 AM |
that may well be true Rock_Hunter but there are still some of us out here.
You know the saying: "swimming through a sea of ***** to find the odd tootsie roll". Too much work, too little reward, and you never know what's the heart of the candy made of, until it's too late. | |
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ndulj
| | Joined: 5/27/2007
Msg: 250 | |
| Were women better off 50 years ago?
Posted: 9/24/2008 10:23:40 AM |
You know the saying: "swimming through a sea of ***** to find the odd tootsie roll". Too much work, too little reward, and you never know what's the heart of the candy made of, until it's too late.
so, RH, what do you propose? Just giving up? Or is your answer to get just as jaded as the rest of them???? | |
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