General Chat

thread.

I was just reading "mother holding toddler's hand is attacked by five other mums" and it made me ponder...that's not a headline I think that would have been seen when I was a child....

Have women 'generally' become more aggressive ? is that a result of young women feeling that because they now 'have equality with men' they have to behave like them to prove it ?
( huge generalisation here! ;) ), I'm thinking of the binge drinkers and so-called 'ladettes' who can be found on city streets on a weekend throwing up or picking fights.

Do you feel under pressure to 'compete' ( either with men or women who are 'achievers' )? or are you comfortable with who you are, be that as a 'housewife' or worker.

if you are in the position of being in business or a full time job, as a woman do you hanker at all for a time when you could have stayed at home, and let OH bring home the bacon?

Going out in a minute, so I'm not ignoring if anyone replies

:-) :-)

I'm comfortable in my own skin thanks RR. Trouble is, it needs ironing :-D


Cx.

I was in business and had the 3 children, we had a nanny ...lol but I was working at home as much as possible and when I wasn't there himself was so we had the balance right. However when they were 4, 5 and 6 we bought the farm and I stopped work as I'd had enough of the rat race. When they were 8, 9 and 10 I returned to work, the children were happy with that, if they had felt uncomfortable I wouldn't have. So I guess I was content both times mostly. Now I have no choice other than to be stuck at home and I dislike it immensely.

Re the youngsters now, I asked 2 teenage mums very politely to move their car from a disabled parking space and received a tirade of foul mouthed abuse. I don't ever swear badly and so had no answer which they would have understood (that being words of more than one syllable). I felt truly sad for their children who were subject to hearing this language.

Watching TV reports of girls being drunk and violent makes me cringe, I don't believe it has anything to do with equality, it seems to be a general lack of self restraint and is a sad reflection on society in the past decade or so.

Just my opinion of course.

Maybe it's just me getting older...and I am comparatively old compared to some of the mum's in the playground who are still in their mid twenties...... but I do regularly feel an aggressive undertone there...many's the time i've heard screaming rows about whose child was to blame and what the mother will do to the other mother if child does it again etc etc...all said In front of the children as well which is so so wrong and sends such a poor example to them.

I've even seen a fist fight in the playground between two mothers fgs...couldn't BELIEVE what I was seeing !!!!!!!!

imho there's a time and a place for everything but...I think I'm in the minority here(where I live) in thinking that.

I don't feel any desire to enter into all that...or wear a full face of make up and totter into the school dressed up to the nines like some. I am perfectly happy being *me* and steering well clear of all that nonsense.

I'm also perfectly happy to be a *housewife* or *domestic engineer* or whatever it's called these days lol...I'd hate to leave the care of the children to OH. Gawd knows what they'd end up being cooked for dinner for one thing !!! (beans and chips most days I suspect)..I'm miles better at all that stuff than he is...and his earning capacity for now is greater than mine so it's a no brainer to change it for the sake of it....probably old fashioned but it suits us x

taking it that as most of us on here appear to be of an older generation,

do you think that much of the younger generation females have degenerated into fat arrogant slobs?

ooops edit that..............overweight, arrogant ,beer swilling ,less than moral,.....slobs?

Bob

No Bob, I don't. I think a lot of them are very thin, "arrogant, beer swilling.......... " lol ( though I think there may be an argument for saying that 'larger' girls seem to be comfortable showing more flesh than they used to, as opposed to taking pains to cover it up to look slimmer)

As I said it was very much a generalisation ;)

I was recently giving job information out at a jobs fair, a good percentage were young people of both sexes, they were pleasant, caring individuals who had all spent time helping others.

It's a complicated issue i think, partly perhaps down to a real feeling that there's not so much to aspire to these days? With Uni fees going sky high, and jobs for everyone being scarce, what do young people have to look forward to? 'sex and drink and rock and roll' lol.

Granted, I suppose that in our day.......minimal telly, no computers, or games consoles for many of us there were the snooker halls, dancing at your local Palais de glide, cinema......
and a myriad of other outdoor entertainments, on which we burnt both our hard earned cash, and energy,
and making our own entertainment, in general.

too much, these days I think is "ready made"

work was abundant, unlike today.

with hardly any apprenticeships......every one wants to be a graduate of some kind, without needing to get greasy, or dirty....
as I see it....
when I was young we either worked" in the building" or in a factory, sadly there seems to be not much of that about these days......
Bob

Ps, and many of the young ladies that I knew worked in a shop, or tate n lyles!!

I think its become the norm for the younger generation to be sworn at either by a man or woman and its not concidered offensive in a general way,,,,,,,,parents foul mouth their children from an early age so the child accomodates it as part of their growing up lanuage,
so the aggressive behaviour and lanuage completes the ovrall image for some who aim to equal....and that goes for the blind drunkeness seen most weekends in most towns and cities

as for the night hawks seen in some programes,,,,I wonder if a parent watching cringes when it shows their offspring being less than the wonderful person who lives in their home.!!

true Kay, a few years ago(1987) I had the opportunity to be on a course in an apprentice school that catered for both sexes........and I was shocked at the way the girls were spoken to by their fellow apprentices..., AND worse still, answered back....with embellishments!
if thats Equality...........then give me feminism, any day.........
Bob

Hi Rose,
The five women who attacked the other woman who was holding the hand of her child, was it a physical attack or a verbal one, and did you read it in the sun newspaper.
I feel that must have been a very rare occurrence, as I could not believe mothers would attack a lone mother if she was with her child....strange.
Then again women do seem to have changed since I was a young man.

I have on many occasions seen young girls coming out of night clubs totally smashed out of their heads, being sick in the street, falling all over the place and generally making asses of themselves, funny thing is they all seem to look and dress alike...lol. and it's not only on city streets.

Women becoming as aggressive as men...??
The difference between women who work or are in business as compared to a housewife. I think being a housewife is a full time job, and probably harder that doing a 9 to 5 spate of work.

I also feel there is plenty to aspire to these days, IF THE PERSON WANTS to. lots prefer to take the easy way and not.

Just my personal view....LOL

Foggy :-)

I find it interesting how you genderise behaviour in your first post, Rose.

LOL Foggy, I don't read the Sun, come to that I don't get a paper at all, but I do look at the news online, usually compare versions from the BBC and the Mail or the Independent lol...this was from the mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004147/Playground-horror-mother-holding-toddlers-hand-attacked-5-mums.html

lol Cat , I DID say it was a huge generalisation! ;-)

If I think back to when I was of an age to be drinking, I just don't recall any of my female peers getting that drunk... and male or female one does I think tend to be more aggressive ( or less indeed, happier or more morose) if you've drunk a lot.

I wasn't intending to suggest that aggression has ever been solely a masculine trait, it certainly isn't, nor that all men are inherently aggressive....but in my experience women's agression tended to be more verbal than physical.

To be fair, I did miss out posting my thought process that linked up the news item with ladettes...and I have just sucessfully mentally skewed my argument in the opposite direction lol...so I think I'll go and have a re-think ;) and then say what I mean.

edit...I think somewhere at the back of my mind there was lurking that old saying "if women ran the world there would be no wars"......?

I think swearing is much more common than it used to be but I've not noticed much change in young women. I'm under 40 (just!) and have a few women friends 10-15 years older who have always been drunken brawling fishwives. In my usual 'crowd' of friends, the women are in their twenties and don't generally behave like the television news or the Daily Mail suggest.

Rose, I think when the poster begins with an article from a tabloid, you're gonna get a few generalisations :))))))

My Mother was agressive when it came to any of us, I used to look at her when I was a child and she was my mum and just wasnt scared of anything, she would stand up to anyone and wasnt afraid to tackle anyone, she didnt go out looking for trouble as a widow she thought she had to adopt amore masculine role, as there was no man in the house, being brought up with 7 older brothers this was an easy trait for her todo.

I too have seen fist fights over children in a playground....COMMON...in my opinion.

Oh! I meant to say too many people seem to think that the way people behave on Eastenders and Jeremy Kyle is normal (and I'm not fussing soaps cos I like them) - hence too much shouty aggressive behaviour these days

I dont think drunken behaviour from women can just be blamed on age/gen or social circles....take for instance I was at the races last saturday, I saw a women poss 40/50 stagger in to the gents she was legless and she had wet herself, we went in to York later on and the place was full of the race goers, at one point I saw a couple man and women around my age ish 30/40, both dolled up to the nines he was eatting his kebab, she was clinging to the lamp post for dear life, and her shoes were about 4 ft high, as i walked past her I heard a thud, she was on the floor flat on her back, she was wearing lovely underwear, he carried on eatting his kebab, I walked back if only to cover her up and ask were she got her underwear set from, but her bloke gave her a hand, without letting go of his kebab.

Trouble is lots are allowed to act just as they like at home from an ealry teen age,telling parent to go forth and the parents giving as much back,,,,give them a key at 13/15 and ask next day what time they got in at,,,!!!,I see youngerst no more than 15/16 out at 2/3 or on the way home with the milkman !!,,,I would never have been allowed to do that and sure lots of wasnt,,,,,,,and parents were mind readers that you darn't even think a swear word let alone mime it silently...... :-D :-D :-D :-D

Hayley I'd have done just the sam e and gone to ask her,,,,,,La Senza or Sparks and Marks...... :-D :-D

Speaking of milkmen...did anyone else have a parent who would put the empties out and make a point of rattling them when you were in boyfriend's car kissing him goodnight for too long? lol, I had to be in at a reasonable time, I was very late once ( not my fault) and the atmosphere when I got in ...oooh , not nice lol.