Feminism has left middle-aged women like me single, childless and depressed

Apr 27, 2024 by Jill

by Petronella Wyatt, Telegraph:

We were taught to prioritise our careers over marriage – and now we are paying for it.

[…] Historically, of course, the feminist argument had valid points. In the old days, when members of my sex were bound first to their fathers and then to their husbands, they undoubtedly led disagreeable lives. If a woman had a good education, however, she could make a comfortable living and remain independent of male approval. When the desire for marriage and children overwhelmed her, she would almost certainly lose her job, and in consequence become tied to her house, compelled to perform a thousand trivial and demeaning tasks unworthy of her ability.

But the world has changed in a way the early feminist would find incomprehensible and grotesque – indeed, she would view today’s flag bearers as hollow and preposterous nothings. I sometimes think the West has outgrown the feminist philosophy entirely and should cast it off.

Where, for instance, does it leave women like me, when we have reached the age of 54, as I have, and find ourselves both single and childless? Hugging the collected works of Proust, or engaging in furtive sojourns to the pub that bring remembrances of things pissed? One in 10 British women in their 50s have never married and live alone, which is neither pleasant nor healthy.

Read here (£)