Women's lib has given rise to the breakdown of family life..

[Francis]

Yesterday: Wait til your Father gets home...

Today: I don't need a man to help me bring up my children...

[Andy TG]

Yesterday: Wait til your Father gets home...

Today: I don't need a man to help me bring up my children...

@ Francis - Are in the mood of looking for a "Fight"?

[Francis]

Nope. Just trying to provoke some meaningful discussion.

[6FeetOver]

..."provoke" being the operative word here, n'est-ce pas?

[EvilBastard]

Yesterday: Wait til your Father gets home...

Today: I don't need a man to help me bring up my children...

Tomorrow: Designer offspring conceived in a petri dish, gestated in a test-tube, and raised in a hot-house to become perfectly obedient and loyal servants of the state.

Ok, in the interests of meaningful discussion, and because I'm too bloody annoyed to sleep right now...

It would be fatuous to argue that prior to universal adult suffrage, laws mandating equal pay for equal work, and property and inheritance rights being extended to women, family life was all springtime and roses. Check out some of Dickens' works to take a squint at the kind of life enjoyed by all but the most well-off families in 19th century England, and things weren't any rosier anywhere else. Plenty of women raised children single-handedly then, mostly not by choice it is true, but to suggest that the liberation of women is responsible for the breakdown of "family life" (whatever that hell that is) indicates a woeful understanding of the facts.

If we consider "family life" to be the concept of the traditional nuclear family - mum, dad, 2.4 children, dad works, mum stays at home and bakes - this is largely a modern (post-1945) construct. Before the war families tended to be larger units, often with multiple generations living under the same roof, more children (to compensate for infant mortality), and everyone worked because they needed the money. Family life tended to be hard, dirty, beset with illness, and littered with accounts of domestic violence. In many instances, wives stayed with abusive husbands owing to the social stigma of being a single parent and because of the lack of opportunities for women to be self-sufficient. My granny was lucky - her husband was only an alcoholic and a womaniser, but at least he didn't beat her or the children. Others were not so fortunate. Perhaps this is the idyll of family life that people who would wish a return to the days before "womens lib" would see a return to.

There has certainly been a breakdown in the cohesive nature of the family unit, but it would be difficult to ascribe this to the liberation of women. Let's take a look at some of the elements:

The contraceptive pill
Women became able to control their reproductive cycle, leading to smaller families and a concomitant increase in the health and wealth of those families.

Equal pay for equal work
Few could argue that this is a bad thing.

Universal adult suffrage
I can't find anything against this either.

The breakdown of the traditional family unit can be more readily ascribed to the nature of modern society as a whole. A general lack of moral leadership (governments tend to practice a "do as I say, not as I do" approach, rather than leading by example), a disregard for the work ethic, the widespread availability of credit, a lack of personal responsibility, and the idea that the state will provide for those too bone-idle to get off their duffs and get a job are all far greater causes for the breakdown of the family unit than a couple of bints burning their bras.

[boudicca]

I'd be more inclined to blame Freud (infamous misogynist, what a pleasant coincidence) and Margaret Thatcher (infamous misogynist, you be the judge)

Furthermore, it is quite possible to be in favour of women's lib, even to be a card-carrying Feminist, and to recognise at the same time that it is greatly preferable for a child to be raised with input from both a mother and a father.

I'd go as far as to say the view that "I don't need a man to help me bring up my children" is intinsically backward and anti-women's lib. It presupposes that a mother should not only be a child's primary care-giver, but that she can take on all parental responsibilities herself. And for some it's only a small step from "can" to "should". Women who make such statements are pretty much giving the thumbs up to the idea that males are simply on this planet to impregnate us and then go AWOL like a tomcat, leaving us to raise the offspring. It puts no obligation or responsibility on men at all, and does nothing to dismantle stereotypical roles. Want a career? Forget about it. Nothing very women's-lib about any of that.

[weebleswobble]

Equal Rights For Vegetables!

[Andy TG]

Bloody good job I dont do "KIDS" after reading those diatribes

@ Boudicca - LOVE the new avatar - very ironic

[scotty]

Nope. Just trying to provoke some meaningful discussion.

Good Luck

[weebleswobble]

Nope. Just trying to provoke some meaningful discussion.

Good Luck

FcukBawFannyShyte

[Obviousman]

"I don't need a man to help me bring up my children"

Obviously she could just as well go for another woman, but that'd be taking it too far, or?

[James Blast]

and... success has made a failure of our home...

[nodubmanshouts]

Yesterday: Wait til your Father gets home...

Today: I don't need a man to help me bring up my children...

Assuming your statement to be true, I fail to see what this has to do with Women's Lib - the vote, equal pay and generally equality.

But your statement is, of course, false, since in most cultures around the world, women are responsible for child raising despite having unequal rights to men.

In the West, people no longer feel as pressured to get married just because they made a baby, and that has more to do with a rejection of religious values, such as chastity and puresness, and that being a single parent is automatically "bad" and that a loveless marriage is better.

And that is most definitely a good thing, in nodub world.

[Ahráyeph]

Yesterday: Wait til your Father gets home...

Today: I don't need a man to help me bring up my children...

Tomorrow: Designer offspring conceived in a petri dish, gestated in a test-tube, and raised in a hot-house to become perfectly obedient and loyal servants of the state.

Ok, in the interests of meaningful discussion, and because I'm too bloody annoyed to sleep right now...

It would be fatuous to argue that prior to universal adult suffrage, laws mandating equal pay for equal work, and property and inheritance rights being extended to women, family life was all springtime and roses. Check out some of Dickens' works to take a squint at the kind of life enjoyed by all but the most well-off families in 19th century England, and things weren't any rosier anywhere else. Plenty of women raised children single-handedly then, mostly not by choice it is true, but to suggest that the liberation of women is responsible for the breakdown of "family life" (whatever that hell that is) indicates a woeful understanding of the facts.

If we consider "family life" to be the concept of the traditional nuclear family - mum, dad, 2.4 children, dad works, mum stays at home and bakes - this is largely a modern (post-1945) construct. Before the war families tended to be larger units, often with multiple generations living under the same roof, more children (to compensate for infant mortality), and everyone worked because they needed the money. Family life tended to be hard, dirty, beset with illness, and littered with accounts of domestic violence. In many instances, wives stayed with abusive husbands owing to the social stigma of being a single parent and because of the lack of opportunities for women to be self-sufficient. My granny was lucky - her husband was only an alcoholic and a womaniser, but at least he didn't beat her or the children. Others were not so fortunate. Perhaps this is the idyll of family life that people who would wish a return to the days before "womens lib" would see a return to.

There has certainly been a breakdown in the cohesive nature of the family unit, but it would be difficult to ascribe this to the liberation of women. Let's take a look at some of the elements:

The contraceptive pill
Women became able to control their reproductive cycle, leading to smaller families and a concomitant increase in the health and wealth of those families.

Equal pay for equal work
Few could argue that this is a bad thing.

Universal adult suffrage
I can't find anything against this either.

The breakdown of the traditional family unit can be more readily ascribed to the nature of modern society as a whole. A general lack of moral leadership (governments tend to practice a "do as I say, not as I do" approach, rather than leading by example), a disregard for the work ethic, the widespread availability of credit, a lack of personal responsibility, and the idea that the state will provide for those too bone-idle to get off their duffs and get a job are all far greater causes for the breakdown of the family unit than a couple of bints burning their bras.

Amen. Nail on the head...

[Francis]

..."provoke" being the operative word here, n'est-ce pas?

God damn you're perceptive.

And then there's the girls doing better than boys at school thing.

Not to mention the Gummi Bears generation...

[James Blast]

posting while pished may affect you in later life

[Francis]

What you doing up this late? Good ta see ya!

[Francis]

My financial adivser tells me I should avoid later life anyway.

[6FeetOver]

I'll be lucky to make it to later life. I hope to get there, anyway.

[Francis]

An erstwhile Norwegian colleague of mine espoused two retirement plans:

A) Head off north to live wild off beaver.

B) Head south to drown in cheap beer.

Plan B's my preferred option.

[splintered thing]

You can live off wild beaver?

[EvilBastard]

You can live off wild beaver?

You can, but you should know it's a short but very eventful life!

Incidentally, this article p*sses all over the notion that "Women's lib has given rise to the breakdown of family life."

[Almiche V]

Incidentally, this article p*sses all over the notion that "Women's lib has given rise to the breakdown of family life."

Was just thinking along those lines. If you're not happy then make yourself happy. Don't think the world owes you happiness. Don't worry about things, do something about it. It all comes down to attitude, and there are plenty of people in the England who have a sh1t attitude - men and women.

Don't forget there are decent folk aswell.

[6FeetOver]

Incidentally, this article p*sses all over the notion that "Women's lib has given rise to the breakdown of family life."

I'd move there in a heartbeat, if I could.

[EvilBastard]

Incidentally, this article p*sses all over the notion that "Women's lib has given rise to the breakdown of family life."

I'd move there in a heartbeat, if I could.

Let me know when you want to move - I'd be there like a shot. Apart from the ruinous cost of alcohol it is the grooviest place I've ever been to.