The "good old days" weren't good for Grandma. Now we know better- suffer for what?

LindaBitz · 2021-10-26T02:55:37+00:00

I read something recently that stuck with me. “Women now know that they don’t have to live like their mothers did, while men still want to live like their dads did.”

PostbioticFibre · 2021-10-26T02:18:23+00:00

Oct 28 1974: Equal Credit Opportunity Act passes in the US. Until then, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income. They would also discount the value of those wages when considering how much credit to grant, by as much as 50%.

You've come a long way, baby.

SpiritualPlan5 · 2021-10-26T10:33:15+00:00

I posted something on twitter about how I used to judge my mom so much for not understanding banking, but I had no idea she couldn’t access it alone until after I was born. Some pick me came into my comments with “well that can’t be true as a female CHILD I had a savings account.” Umm, duh, because daddy set it up for you. Ugh

JulyParade · 2021-10-26T01:57:46+00:00

I think about this a lot and try to remember how much history informs older women's view of the world. When I was born, it was still legal for a man to beat his wife in some US states. When my mother came of age she could be denied education, worker protections, and bank accounts just because. Today I could take these institutions to court for that! We truly have the freedom to level up in a way grandma never did!

kaoutanu · 2021-10-26T02:44:18+00:00

Ahh the good old days, when divorce wasn't a thing, and marital rape wasn't a crime. The good old days, back before mammograms and PAP screening and sex education. It sure is a mystery why great great grandma had so many children and died young...

modernmedusaa · 2021-10-26T07:40:11+00:00

Ah the good old days of my gran being smacked in the head by her aggressive husband and society shaming divorced women so their kids grew up around toxicity

The good old days of the 1930s when women were locked in mental asylums for the rest of their lives for having kids out of wedlock & refusing to marry abusers

The good old days of marital rape not being considered a crime until 30 years ago

The good old days of women being given Valium to ‘cope with the kids at home’ aka their abusive husband

Platipus6 · 2021-10-26T02:58:56+00:00

Ah yes, when Uncle Touchy was the family joke. When if a wife died, the eldest daughter became the surrogate wife for the man who can't cope as a parent. When you just had to let him, as payment to keep yourself and your 4 younger siblings from homelessness and starvation.

If marriages weren't hotbeds of trauma, slavery and incest, maybe they'd last.

Defiant_Marsupial123 · 2021-10-26T03:50:56+00:00

It's also important to understand that divorce is not new, and women divorcing MEN is not new.

Plenty of roman emperors, just as a broad example, were married to divorced women and would adopt the sons of lower status men.

There is a myth going around in redpill circles that this is a time of unfettered prosperity for women at mens' expense, and it's not actually true. In fact, women are up against more hostile sexism in some ways TODAY than we were even hundreds of years ago (when rapists were stoned, for example).

FullTimeOrNoTime · 2021-10-26T02:26:10+00:00

I really think things like this are exactly why most men behave as they do. 100 years ago men were interviewing women to fill the role of wife, because women needed a caretaker and protector. If you didn't marry, it was your father, brother, etc. An unmarried woman in her 30's was a person to be pitied.

Now, with women being fully capable of caring for themselves, we are interviewing men to fill the role of husband, and most men haven't caught on that they're no longer in a position to force a woman's compliance. We don't need them. An unmarried woman in, or even beyond, her 30's isn't even all that rare.

Professional-Pea-317 · 2021-10-26T03:23:42+00:00

It's shit like this that makes me forgive my mother for tolerating my abusive father and not just divorcing his inadequate ass.

SupremeDearLeader · 2021-10-26T14:54:35+00:00

My adoptive father was a pos adulterer who had a secret family on the side and abandoned us in middle of night when I was 14 , no phone # we had no idea where he went. I didn't qualify for for any student aid [ I had to work to put myself thru school] because his tax return was " too high" ....he hadn't so much as checked to see if I was even alive in 5 years but I was stuck to his " financial info" ......

HolaHulaHola · 2021-10-26T16:59:03+00:00

I remember when this happened. I also remember when abortion became legal. Everything my parents owned was in my father's name. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. It was only in the 1980's that her name was put onto the accounts and deed to the house.

When my mother was born in 1916, women didn't have the right to vote or even hold a paying job without written consent of a husband or father. She also had no right to birth control or abortion, both were outlawed in the USA.

The reason marriages don't last like they used to is becuase we don't have to remain eonomically dependant on a no value man who beats us, shames us, rapes us, forces us to bear unwanted children, and cheats on us and thinks it's all good...for him at least.

We can and will leave.

If you want to see 21st century NVM whiny pity party, go to their dontmarry wordpress blog (I won't post it here, you can google it).

Lurking males: The problem isn't women. It's YOU.

BusinessTwistofLime · 2021-10-26T06:45:12+00:00

My grandmother needed male "sponsorship" for her financial accounts. Now I'm her sponsor since she waited too long to teach herself the best practices for her financial health.

Her personal saying was essentially, "learn to do it yourself or earn enough to pay someone to do it for you." FDS is essentially teaching us what our elders wanted us to know.

FDS-MAGICA · 2021-10-26T14:44:56+00:00

Additionally, it wasn't until 1975 that the concept of the No-Fault Divorce came to the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce Previously, a couple couldn't be divorced unless you could prove one of them cheated or beat the other or was infertile, etc. With no-fault divorce, you can just leave.

jenneke-gotenberg · 2021-10-26T09:53:27+00:00

My mother - an anaesthetist - having to get my father's written permission in 1975 to undergo a tubal ligation 😆

Feministtiktok · 2021-10-26T19:44:09+00:00

My mom told me this. She said women didn’t divorce their husbands because women needed them. Like basically women were in positions where they couldn’t leave men or survive without a husband because life would be too difficult due to laws and social pressure.

GlitteryMoss · 2021-10-26T08:51:11+00:00

Yes, because back then women had NO way out! And for centuries, no way to get educated and work/make money so they had to depend on a man to be able to eat. And in many places still, women might be left destitute if they divorce so that is a sad reason to stay married, so you don't starve to death.

purasangria · 2021-10-26T01:35:03+00:00

This isn't the case. I just asked my mom, and she said that she had a bank account in her name in 1968. And my great grandma had bank and investment accounts in her own name in the 50s.

I will agree, though, that now that more women have the economic ability to opt out of shitty marriages, we are so much less available for men's garbage behavior. That's the reason why "marriages don't last today."

ThrowRA_08t · 2021-10-26T02:20:18+00:00

I think that’s for the UK, America was a bit earlier in the 60s

Title	The "good old days" weren't good for Grandma. Now we know better- suffer for what?
Author	sacchilax
Upvotes	2355
Comments	69
Date	October 26, 2021 1:08 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/qfv4he/the_good_old_days_werent_good_for_grandma_now_we/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/the-good-old-days-werent-good-for-grandma-now-we.1081807 https://theredarchive.com/post/1081807

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