Hmm...

Well... 1972 was the peak of standard of living in north America. Prior to that, the standard of living was getting higher every year, but it started sliding down from there, and has continued to slide, mostly because of a combination of union busting combined with sending jobs out of the country.

Women prior to 1972 were much most likely to be home keepers, living in a situation where there was a cach earner, the hubby, while she just took care of the home and ran errands like and shopping and going to the dry cleaners and fixing meals, etc., but by 1990 most women, married or otherwise, had jobs, because the guy just couldn't make enough money by himself anymore.

Pre-1972 feminists hated the way some societies made woman think they *had* to be stay-at-home wives, when in fact, it was just an option. It has always been open for women in America to go out and start a business or a do a career if they wanted to, but the rules of workplace behavior were biased towards the psychology of males, because they were the ones doing most of the paying jobs, and feminists hated that...

They wanted rules of employment and promotion to be expanded to include the way *women* like to climb corporate social ladders, and so, gradually, the guys learned that they could not act like guys at work.

By 1990, women had no *choice* but to go out and get a job, and I know *lots* of women who were very content with their housewife routine but who had to get a job even though their husband was still working, and they *hated* it.

It turns out that the number of feminists who wanted to see work-place rules changed from the way guys like it to being gender neutral is smaller than the number of women who were comfortable being housekeepers but to had to get jobs, so the overall average contentment of all females combined went down. A few feminists were happier, and a lot of home makers became unhappy.

Yes. We are supposed to have more choices, we have less. Being a stay at home mom is virtually impossible, we are required to join the work force because our families cannot survive without our income. Now we have the freedom to do it all, which ends up feeling like we have to do it all. In the end nothing gets our full attention and nothing gets done well. Our children are suffering for it.

In 1970, a "guidance counselor" at my school asked me what my career goals were. I told him I wanted to be a veterinarian, and had been working toward that goal. He told me girls didn't do that, and that I should consider something else.

When I tried to get my first job out of high school, I was told that my qualifications were excellent but that they didn't hire women because we worked six months, got pregnant, and left the work force.

It was considered perfectly acceptable to refer to female co-workers in retail grocery in the late 1970s as "rags" and say they couldn't do the work as well as men.

If a woman rose to a position of management, the common belief was that it was because she was sleeping with those in charge of hiring decisions. (Local plywood plant).

Women who divorced their husbands were often denied credit, or had their credit scores impaired by an irresponsible spouse.

I didn't need a feminist movement to tell me the deck was stacked against me in the job market and work environment. Other respondents have cited economic prosperity as if to indicate that the feminist movement was someone the catalyst that increased the price of housing and groceries. War, oil embargoes, war, inflation, war, savings and loan bailouts, war, dot-come speculation, war, and real estate scams were responsible for financial pressures, not women's rights.

Having options is always better. In the 60s, I already had friends whose moms had to work - but they were limited as to what they were allowed to do. I can't tell you how many of my high school friends had marriages fail and had to go out and make a living for themselves and their children or accept poverty, food stamps, and welfare. Several proudly and fiercely rejected those options, raised their kids, and are management themselves after 20 years of work. They aren't reliant on anyone else for their happiness - they made it for themselves. Life may not have been an unending merry-go-round of joy along the way, but being reliant on a husband hadn't worked out, either.

The feminist movement didn't offer women happiness. It offered us greater opportunities. Happiness, like security or discontent, is a changing construct with thousands of factors contributing. As a contributing factor, the successes of the feminist movement allowed us more opportunities to be happy and unhappy than we had before.

I have to agree that women are unhappier in today’s society. There are certainly a great many reasons for this change, many of which were, in fact, caused in one way or another by the feminist movement.
In my personal experience, the primary cause of strife lies in the numerous responsibilities a woman carries. Prior to many women joining the workforce, we were housewives. Our responsibilities included (but were not limited to): cleaning the house, preparing meals, cleaning the dishes, washing, folding and putting away laundry, caring for our children, etc. With women moving into the workforce have these daily tasks decreased? For most women, the answer is no. And it is no longer a choice of whether to work or not, as households are no longer sustainable on the average single income. Women, as a rule, must work a full time job and still continue to run their households. That is not to say that men don’t chip in where they can, but the responsibility still, in most cases, falls on the woman.

In addition, if a woman would like to further her education and obtain a higher-salaried career, she will need to go to college which may upset her ever-ticking biological time-clock. What a struggle it is to decide between going to college to better herself and starting a family before it’s “too late”. Many women are born to be maternal, loving people who want, and almost need, to have children - and until she does, she may feel a void in her life. Once she does have children, they need her attention as well as her support in going on doctor’s visits, or in their extra-curricular activities. Our children suffer from our lack of time to put into raising them properly and grow up to have a lack of respect, adding to our daily struggles. Add too these things, juggling such a busy schedule can leave women with little or no time for relaxation, time alone, or friends – of course this would cause her some form of depression!

If that isn’t enough – consider the pressures that females are subject to right from the start of their life! The media is constantly pushing images of ultra-skinny, airbrushed women at us. It seems that many girls now dream of being sex objects, rather than beautiful, well-rounded women. There is a constant pressure to be “sexy” and girls are becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages. If we fail to become these “sex objects”, we are branded as prudes or “bitches”. If we succumb to the pressures, we are called loose and fall prey to meaningless one-night-stands and empty relationships that leave us feeling used and un-loved.

Before the feminist movement, life was simple, albeit sometimes unfulfilling and boring. Women were to grow up, marry the man she loves, have a family, and care for them as well as she could. All this said, I personally still feel fortunate to be able to have a full (read: hectic/busy) and rewarding life as a modern woman, even if I do occasionally feel unappreciated, lonely or depressed. We owe a lot to the women who brought us this far, but I don’t think they intended to tie our hands and force us into the workplace.