Do you think adversity makes for tougher, more independent women?

Question

After answering a question about traditional women who are helpless after the breakup of a marriage, it got me thinking. The 50s and 60s were boom times economically. It produced a lot of dependent women, largely because they were able to stay at home. Come the 70s, we saw the advent of feminism. This was the era of inflation, war in Vietnam, gas lines, recession, and the onus was on women to help support the family.

My grandmothers brought families through the Great Depression. They were the toughest, most capable women you'd ever meet. If they didn't understand exactly how a refinancing worked, they sit down with all the paperwork and d**n well learn it. By next Tuesday, they knew more about it than you. Neither woman would have recognized the word "feminist," but if you made a sexist comment around either of them, they would have torn a strip off you.

Prior to that, we had the industrial revolution (boom time) which saw women observing highly repressed roles.

Do you think tough times makes for more independent and rights-conscious women?

Answer 1

That's rather obvious, isn't it? One of my best friends, an older lady, served in WWII and became a celebrated, accomplished artist who had shows in several museums; she was amazing and very very independent. I dealt with cancer, the loss of my mother and being entirely alone during the worst time in my life, dealing with her illnesses and making life and death decisions at the hospital and everything else, including total isolation for the first 8 months after my Mom passed. So yes, I am independent because fate decreed it. You don't have choices in life, sometimes you do what you have to do in order to survive, and that is within the grasp of everyone.

I have always been pro rights for women, so nothing new there either.

Answer 2

Maybe so, but you will never see one in the NFL, the NHL, the NBA, or in MLB...

Answer 3

The thing that worries me is this, during previous economic crises the female component of a family could always go out and work to make ends meet. Now we might well be facing an economic situation like that of the 1920s.  In the feminist economy, it is accepted that the average family needs both components working in order to make ends meet so who will go out to earn the extra now?  We truly are on the brink of disaster and the feminist ideal of swapping one form of dependence for another is in someways responsible.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article581...

Re your question, I believe that the woman's historical oppression has been somewhat over played,  just like wage gap, dv and rape. All these things have been used to enrage and manipulate you.

I suggest you cease to think like a feminist and join us, think like a human, we are all in this together. Men and women are now polarised, this is the division of the last human groupage, we need to stand together.

Answer 4

I agree with you that tough times made for resilient people.  It certainly doesn't bode well for children these days who have everything given to them without having to work for it.  Maybe this is the reason that many young girls do not appreciate the struggles their mother's and grandmothers went through to obtain a semblance of equality.  I am one of those older women who vividly remembers the discrimination that existed and I still see sexism alive and thriving in our society.

Yes I agree that difficult lessons teach us how to cope and to thrive when times are difficult.

Answer 5

I agree. A perfect example is Black American Women who have had to struggle since day 1 keeping up house & raising children, basically being the matriarchs while the patriarchs were often found elsewhere (either out of a job or whathaveyou). It's not all the time but I believe that adversity more often than not strengthens & prepare independent women.  

Answer 6

I do think tough economic times made for more independent women but most were not thinking of their "rights", they were thinking of how to feed and clothe their families. As the economic climate becomes more stable, they realize they don't want to go back to how it was and then would persevere to make the independence they had gained a "right" rather than a short term gain.

My grandmother cleaned houses for wealthy doctors for a living and during the depression she was the only one in her family working. She knew the black market butchers and where the bath tub gin could be gotten. And she was one tough lady!  

Answer 7

If tough times made for more "independent and rights-conscious women", I would have to question what happened from 1863-1963?  Very few Black women agitated for their rights, with notable exceptions of Harriet Tubman & Sojourner Truth.  Their lot in life was little better than it was from 1619-1863, when they were slaves.  Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, inferior education, night riders, lynchings & cross burnings all conspired to keep them in their place.

There were hard times for over 300 years for Black women.  Where was that spirit to throw off the shackles of oppression in all that time?  Where was that call to rally for their rights?  When the governor of Alabama stood in the schoolhouse doorway, in 1958, to block the entrance of Black children trying to go to school, where were the women> both Black & White > to protest this outrage?

If your premise applies to all women, I'm not seeing it.

Answer 8

Not necessarily.  Stress makes many people sick, both physically and psychologically.  Each individual handles stress differently, and a great deal of how we handle stress is encoded in our genes.  "Tough times" reflect a higher suicide rate.

"Now another grim phenomenon is rearing its head: the suicide of homeowners who have lost their homes during the mortgage crisis."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitch...

Posted July 24, 2008

Answer 9

Yeah I do, it makes me laugh when some of the fems go on about women being oppressed for 10,000 years, I bet women in the middle ages were as tough as h**l.

Answer 10

I think tough times just makes it more obvious to others that women can be tough and independent. In my study of history I find that when men go off to war, women work extremely hard and produced higher yielding crops than when the men were the ones farming. That took tough and brilliant women.

I like both of your Grandmothers by the way! Nice description.

Answer 11

Personally, it did. Sink or swim. I also like what another poster mentioned about not losing your compassion. I agree inner toughness does not have to equate to being cold or brittle. I think resilient is a good definition of "tough". My fore-mothers were resilient, too.

Answer 12

Not necessarily, but it's certainly a plus. Some people become independent because they are tired of being sheltered and having everything go for them.