My View: Feminists changed the world - but every revolution has its costs

As one of the footsoldiers of the feminist revolution I should be cheering. I remember the bad old days when building societies point blank refused mortgages to single women in steady jobs. So three cheers for equal opportunities legislation. But my cheers are mitigated because, like all other revolutions, the rise of feminism had unforeseen consequences. The worst casualties are those in low-paid jobs. As heavy industry vanishes, employers prize the very qualities which helped women cope with the mind-numbing drudgery of household chores and childcare – multitasking, patience, and cooperation. So women are leapfrogging men in the queue for low-skilled jobs, and that breeds resentment and social unrest.

One of our biggest mistakes was to brush housework aside as an irrelevance. Back in the brave new world of the '60s, we feminists assumed that when we went out into the world to help bring home the bacon, men would voluntarily step forward to do their fair share of the chores. Hah! In my own family, I endured a united front of muttering from husband and son, "The dragon's on the warpath," as I endeavoured to chivvy the recalcitrant duo into action. Personally, I reckon the soaring divorce rate results as much from unequal domestic arrangements as from women's economic independence.

We viewed housework as slavery. We never envisaged inflicting worse slavery on the women who work 30 hours on the minimum wage, in a fog of exhaustion, juggling school timetables with shift work in call centres and supermarkets. Female politicians, high enough up the ladder to afford nannies and cleaners, still ignore this inconvenient truth.

We left children out of the equation, for the simple reason that we spoilt, educated brats who forced feminism into the public arena had rarely handled a small child. The negative result is that children suffer as women are pressured to go back to work.

Liberation has become libertinage as financial independence enables young women to postpone marriage and families in favour of unbridled hedonism. Empowerment means paying for your own boob job. Multitasking means flashing your knickers while spewing into the gutter. The ideal of a soulmate for life lies broken and obliterated under the juggernaut of ladettes pulling a different guy each week.

But I wouldn't go back to the dark days of entrenched discrimination. We all have to devise our own imperfect compromises, but at least we have the law behind us now.

As one of the footsoldiers of the feminist revolution I should be cheering. I remember the bad old days when building societies point blank refused mortgages to single women in steady jobs. So three cheers for equal opportunities legislation. But my cheers are mitigated because, like all other revolutions, the rise of feminism had unforeseen consequences. The worst casualties are those in low-paid jobs. As heavy industry vanishes, employers prize the very qualities which helped women cope with the mind-numbing drudgery of household chores and childcare – multitasking, patience, and cooperation. So women are leapfrogging men in the queue for low-skilled jobs, and that breeds resentment and social unrest.

One of our biggest mistakes was to brush housework aside as an irrelevance. Back in the brave new world of the '60s, we feminists assumed that when we went out into the world to help bring home the bacon, men would voluntarily step forward to do their fair share of the chores. Hah! In my own family, I endured a united front of muttering from husband and son, "The dragon's on the warpath," as I endeavoured to chivvy the recalcitrant duo into action. Personally, I reckon the soaring divorce rate results as much from unequal domestic arrangements as from women's economic independence.

We viewed housework as slavery. We never envisaged inflicting worse slavery on the women who work 30 hours on the minimum wage, in a fog of exhaustion, juggling school timetables with shift work in call centres and supermarkets. Female politicians, high enough up the ladder to afford nannies and cleaners, still ignore this inconvenient truth.

We left children out of the equation, for the simple reason that we spoilt, educated brats who forced feminism into the public arena had rarely handled a small child. The negative result is that children suffer as women are pressured to go back to work.

Liberation has become libertinage as financial independence enables young women to postpone marriage and families in favour of unbridled hedonism. Empowerment means paying for your own boob job. Multitasking means flashing your knickers while spewing into the gutter. The ideal of a soulmate for life lies broken and obliterated under the juggernaut of ladettes pulling a different guy each week.

But I wouldn't go back to the dark days of entrenched discrimination. We all have to devise our own imperfect compromises, but at least we have the law behind us now.