This isn’t just your granny. This was your mom too. And it many ways it’s absolutely still going.
Marital rape became illegal in 1993 but is still not prosecuted in many places.
Roe v Wade is dead and women’s rights to their own bodies is not codified in law.
Almost all medical testing and development testing is done on men, usually cisgender white men of average build. This has far reaching consequences and thousands of women die every year because the treatments being applied were not designed for them. Artificial hearts fit men about 80% of the time. For women that number is 20%. There are so many examples of ways this type of testing and development harms people, take a moment to read up on it when you can.
Women are more likely to get custody in a separation, but not support. Unless the spouse she is getting away from can and will follow support arrangements, she is on her own. Same for new mothers of any variety. No paid leave, no childcare, no real mental health support despite alarming rates of ppd and related conditions. Nada. You will be heavily criticized and possibly have your child taken from you if you fail to thrive in these circumstances.
Women are still regularly fired for getting pregnant/having a baby. Is it illegal? Well yes and no, states like mine with at-will employment don’t have to provide a reason for the termination, or will just make one up. Performance issues, attendance, attitude, whatever. There is little to no recourse.
The list goes on. There is so much to it. Social dynamics, what is considered normal, legal loopholes and straight-up discriminatory laws still on the books and more being added. I can’t enumerate it all here but it is worth knowing about.
And this all includes everyone socially and/or legally perceived as a woman btw. They will assign you “woman” based on what they are trying to do. Trans women, intersex people, trans men, nonbinary people, GNC people, absolutely anyone and everyone under the queer umbrella, they will call a man to paint as a predator and deny support, and a woman to paint as weak and deny rights. It’s nuanced, it’s complicated, there’s a lot to it, but it is a very real and still existing problem. For all of us, regardless of identity.
Celebrate the progress, celebrate the wins, celebrate how far we’ve come. But don’t speak of it like it’s a thing of the past. Posts like this are a call to keep moving forward, not just a glimpse at life in the past to observe like a museum exhibit.
*this is from the perspective of a USAmerican and the laws and social structures described apply to the USA, dynamics and laws are obviously different elsewhere
