Open Thread

In the UK at least it was region by region, bxgrl. The area I am from was originally a textile manufacvturing region which employed women in large numbers from the start of the industry in the late 1700’s. In e.g. coalmining or shipbuilding regions or rural areas it was less common for women to work outside the home.

“There were millions and millions of people protesting (including me) and knowing it was unjust BEFORE it even started. . . . The people were lied to and many knew it at the time”

This argument overlooks one fact. In the 2004 election, George Bush laid his entire presidency on his decision to ivade Iraq. He even went so far as to say that had he known (in 2001) what he knew in 2004 (regarding the WMD), he still would have made the decision to go to war.

He won that election by a decisive margin.

My mother’s mother was a school teacher, and my father’s mother was a seamstress.

My great aunt, who lived to be 98-1/2, was a bookkeeper for a manufacturer, which couldn’t afford to pay her during the Depression, so they gave her stock. Eventually, she bought the rest of the company, and sold it and retired when she was 90. My grandfather worked with her, and he finally agreed to retire when he was 94.

My mother was a social worker, stopped working when she had kids, and then went back to work.

etson- I always thought that women in Europe worked outside the home more than in the US. I don’t know if that’s truly the case but I always thought that in this country the idealized family was a stay at home wife and a working husband. My grandmother always worked as my grandfather died 6 months after they came to this country. My aunts also worked because they wanted to. Even after they married. Neither of them would ever be a stay at home. My mother did for years- and she was the one who helped take care of everyone else, including infant cousins of mine.

Neither of my grandmothers worked.