‘Young women need to stop complaining about how hard life is’

I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently titled ‘‘Having it all’ is a lie for Australian women‘ and it really got to me. The writer says ‘Australian women of child-bearing and child-rearing age have been raised on a lie. The “you can have it all” lie’.

It makes me angry that young women today have so many more opportunities, education, and skills and services than we did growing up, but still find something to complain about instead of taking positive action.

Not all baby boomers were strutting their stuff down Wall Street. Most were brought up to be ‘good little housewives’ and not encouraged to get an education because they were all going to get married and have babies. Many were determined to make sure their sons did not treat their partners as chattels, there for their pleasure and services. Many taught their sons to clean and cook as well as support their partners.

The article references a survey on women’s health, where approximately 7,500 of those surveyed had depression or anxiety. Do these young women think because they have access to more highly trained psychologists telling them they have it hard, that things were not as hard for the older generations?

In my generation, a married woman with young children lived in fear of her husband dying. If he did die, there were limited medical and support services available to her and her children. It was also likely that the family would ‘lose the farm’ (or be thrown out of their home) and made destitute by the banks, all because they were a woman. I doubt the young women of today live with that fear.

Women should understand that no matter how much ‘training’ men have, it is ‘other men’ who belittle them and deride them for being a true partner in every sense of the word. If this generation were brought up on a lie, what do they think the older generations were brought up on?

Do you think women today have greater opportunities than 30 or more years ago? Were you told to forgo tertiary study and instead become a housewife?

Go in the draw to win some great prizes with Starts at 60. Simply sign up as a contributor and submit your stories to Starts at 60 here. You can also join the Starts at 60 Bloggers Club on Facebook to talk to other writers in the Starts at 60 community and learn more about how to write for Starts at 60.