Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Did it ever occur to you that *your* situation might be the exception?

Get serious.
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Supporting the values I learned from my parents and grandparents is not the same thing as advocating that women don't own property. I did not grow up in the 19th century.

I have never seen hard data that proves that more women were abused in the 1950s than are now, and "assuming" that it all must have happened behind closed doors and nobody heard about it is just bullshit.

My mom's career was our family, and our family was far better off for it. Anybody wants to call her a failure as a Woman for not spending more time in a cubicle, that's their privilege. And in most of the places I lived, this was the rule, not the exception. You can mollify yourself by telling me that certainly all those women were frustrated victims, probably all drinking heavily, and being abused by their husbands. Fine. Go for it.

So, what do the hard statistics on crime, divorce, intact families, children's well-being, domestic violence, and other indicators of family life tell us? Which way are the curves moving?

The fact is that a lot of people my age know damn well what families, homes, schools, towns, and the streets were like back then, and what they are like now.

A lot of things have improved for women over the years. But a lot of babies got thrown out with the bathwater, too. Sometimes literally.

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