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Down Among the Women
Follow Wanda, the tough 1930s radical, her daughter Scarlet, unmarried, pregnant and frightened, and Scarlet's friends -- born victims, snobs, obsessive lovers -- in their absurd, nightmarish, often hilariously awful liaisons.
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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537 people want to read
About the author
Fay Weldon
159 books398 followersFay Weldon CBE was an English author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrayed contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchal structure of British society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
October 12, 2007
This tale of four women coming of age in post WWII Britain is well written, insightful, a page-turner and a complete, f**king downer.
September 14, 2017
This is one of her earlier books, and you can see a lot of her own life in it. This book, or any of her books, may not be agreeable to the palate of younger women, but for my generation who slogged through feminism in the 60's and 70's with little progress in some areas (equal pay for equal work for example) and have seen much of what we fought for overturned these days: the frustration with the male species and their need to dominate will ring true.
"A well-dressed woman passes. I don’t know her. She is middle-aged and hatched-faced. She is talking to herself, mutter, mutter, mutter. She is angry. She wears a flowered hat. I think I know what she wants. She wants to hang, flog, behead, draw, quarter, stone, shave, guillotine. She wants her revenge. It she came across the flasher she would have him publicly castrated and wield the knife herself.
I am sure her house is clean. I am sure there is not a speck of dust anywhere. The cleaner the house, the angrier the lady. We are the cleaners. We empty the ashtrays which tomorrow will be filled again. We seep the floors which tomorrow will be dusty. We cook the food and clean the lavatory pans. We pick up the dirty clothes and wash and iron them. We make the world go round. Someone’s got to do it. When she dies it will be said of her, she was a wonderful wife and mother. She cooked a hundred thousand meals, swept a million floors, washed a billion dishes, went through the cupboards and searched for missing buttons. She muttered, but we will miss her.
Down among the women, we don’t like chaos. We will crawl from our sickbeds to tidy and define. We live at floor level, washing and wiping. If we look upward, it’s not toward the stars or the ineffable, it’s to dust the tops of the windows. We have only ourselves to blame.
‘Yes, God,’ we say, ‘here’s your slippers and your nice hot dinner. In the meantime, just feed us, keep us, fetch the coal and say something nice while you’re about it.’"
"A well-dressed woman passes. I don’t know her. She is middle-aged and hatched-faced. She is talking to herself, mutter, mutter, mutter. She is angry. She wears a flowered hat. I think I know what she wants. She wants to hang, flog, behead, draw, quarter, stone, shave, guillotine. She wants her revenge. It she came across the flasher she would have him publicly castrated and wield the knife herself.
I am sure her house is clean. I am sure there is not a speck of dust anywhere. The cleaner the house, the angrier the lady. We are the cleaners. We empty the ashtrays which tomorrow will be filled again. We seep the floors which tomorrow will be dusty. We cook the food and clean the lavatory pans. We pick up the dirty clothes and wash and iron them. We make the world go round. Someone’s got to do it. When she dies it will be said of her, she was a wonderful wife and mother. She cooked a hundred thousand meals, swept a million floors, washed a billion dishes, went through the cupboards and searched for missing buttons. She muttered, but we will miss her.
Down among the women, we don’t like chaos. We will crawl from our sickbeds to tidy and define. We live at floor level, washing and wiping. If we look upward, it’s not toward the stars or the ineffable, it’s to dust the tops of the windows. We have only ourselves to blame.
‘Yes, God,’ we say, ‘here’s your slippers and your nice hot dinner. In the meantime, just feed us, keep us, fetch the coal and say something nice while you’re about it.’"
September 18, 2008
This book was dark and oddly captivating to me. It followed a group of women from the 1950s to the 1970s. All of them tried to follow some sort of feminine ideal and great unhappiness resulted from squelching their own desires. The part that was the most interesting to me was how cruel the women could be (especially to each other) when they were unhappy and bitter because of it.
February 27, 2019
"Down among the women. What a place to be! Yet here we all are by accident of birth, sprouted breasts and bellies, as cyclical of nature as our timekeeper the moon - and down here among the women we have no option but to stay. So says Scarlet's mother Wanda, aged sixty-four, gritting her teeth."
June 18, 2009
This was published in 1971, so the feminist themes are a little dated--although maybe not as outdated as one may think. In any case, Weldon is so wonderfully arch, I find her books worth a read.
October 24, 2015
This is one of those books which at first seems doubly dated: the story is set in the 1950s, but it was published in the early 1970s, and in many ways it wears openly more signs of those later times than it does the former. Not being familiar with this author’s work, I had little idea of what to expect, and all through the opening pages I was expecting a kind of social comedy with a political edge. And in some senses that is pretty much what I got: thematically this is not an especially complex book, and certainly there is little withheld from the attentive reader. But what I was not expecting was that the story would be quite so dark, and quite so sad.
To begin with we are introduced to Scarlet, a young woman who is living with her mother Wanda. Scarlet is pregnant, and has become something of an object of scorn to Wanda, who is resentful of the position she occupies in the life of her ex-husband, Kim, and his new (much younger, also pregnant) wife Susan. The tension between mother and daughter is political as well as generational; the former is a tough pragmatist, worn hard by the work of the Second World War, with a bleak and cynical outlook of gender relations. Scarlet, on the other hand, simply wants to have a nice time in life -- hence her adoption of a constant stream of casual male partners -- but she’s starved for true affection at home.
Already we have a fairly complex picture emerging, but this is before we have even introduced the other characters in this multi-faceted book. We’re introduced to this circle of other women in an initial meeting at Scarlet’s bedside, and we follow them over the course of many years as they have affairs, marry, divorce, and sometimes die. There’s Helen, who begins as a model working with artists known only as X and Y; an affair with X soon turns into a far more complicated sort of menage a trois. There’s Audrey, a working-class girl who changes her name and takes up a new life with a man dedicated to a middle-class parody of destitution on a bleak (but wholly organic) farm in the countryside. Gradually the plot moves away from Scarlet and through these lives and others, spiralling outwards until certain parallels emerge between all these lives: the sense of male-female relationships as a series of inevitable and painful compromises, both romantic and financial, and the ever-present twin threats of violence and poverty which keep women in their place.
It’s a wry, smart, darkly funny book, and there are occasional glimpses of an early 70s hipsterism in the style that I sometimes found grating. I have little patience for self-consciously ‘quippy’ dialogue at the best of times, and this book is a great example of a text where I kept wishing the author would silence her characters now and again and put more of the onus on the narrator’s voice, which is both a stronger and more subtle instrument.
After a while things settle down and the book begins to unleash its true sadness. The gaudy cover of this particular edition doesn’t do the contents justice in this regard: the pink crepe background and the cheeky snapshots of 50s cliches seem rather lightweight in comparison to the scenes of destruction that lie within. By the end I felt quite hopeless for the characters in this world. But, perhaps because of my congenital pessimism, I enjoyed the book very much.
To begin with we are introduced to Scarlet, a young woman who is living with her mother Wanda. Scarlet is pregnant, and has become something of an object of scorn to Wanda, who is resentful of the position she occupies in the life of her ex-husband, Kim, and his new (much younger, also pregnant) wife Susan. The tension between mother and daughter is political as well as generational; the former is a tough pragmatist, worn hard by the work of the Second World War, with a bleak and cynical outlook of gender relations. Scarlet, on the other hand, simply wants to have a nice time in life -- hence her adoption of a constant stream of casual male partners -- but she’s starved for true affection at home.
Already we have a fairly complex picture emerging, but this is before we have even introduced the other characters in this multi-faceted book. We’re introduced to this circle of other women in an initial meeting at Scarlet’s bedside, and we follow them over the course of many years as they have affairs, marry, divorce, and sometimes die. There’s Helen, who begins as a model working with artists known only as X and Y; an affair with X soon turns into a far more complicated sort of menage a trois. There’s Audrey, a working-class girl who changes her name and takes up a new life with a man dedicated to a middle-class parody of destitution on a bleak (but wholly organic) farm in the countryside. Gradually the plot moves away from Scarlet and through these lives and others, spiralling outwards until certain parallels emerge between all these lives: the sense of male-female relationships as a series of inevitable and painful compromises, both romantic and financial, and the ever-present twin threats of violence and poverty which keep women in their place.
It’s a wry, smart, darkly funny book, and there are occasional glimpses of an early 70s hipsterism in the style that I sometimes found grating. I have little patience for self-consciously ‘quippy’ dialogue at the best of times, and this book is a great example of a text where I kept wishing the author would silence her characters now and again and put more of the onus on the narrator’s voice, which is both a stronger and more subtle instrument.
After a while things settle down and the book begins to unleash its true sadness. The gaudy cover of this particular edition doesn’t do the contents justice in this regard: the pink crepe background and the cheeky snapshots of 50s cliches seem rather lightweight in comparison to the scenes of destruction that lie within. By the end I felt quite hopeless for the characters in this world. But, perhaps because of my congenital pessimism, I enjoyed the book very much.
January 15, 2025
[4.5 stars]. i said it was like the group and it really is just far less sanitised and a lot more shocking and somewhat plath-ified. it’s incredibly witty, a really great read.
i have to say it’s refreshing to witness feminism in its early stages, in all it’s grit before it got wrapped in cling film. characters are flawed and almost offensive at times but deeply human and deeply female.
obviously the moral of the story is that marriage causes madness, and in every marriage is unmarriage. you get a real sense of the stagnation of life for women in the 50s/60s/70s with some seriously depressing outcomes, weldon certainly makes a point, but i didn’t find it completely dismal by the end, i’m not sure how to properly word it but ultimately the women in the story achieve a total state of being, whatever form it takes and you get a glimmer of hope in the knowledge that the younger generation will be born into the movement in its full swing.
i have to say it’s refreshing to witness feminism in its early stages, in all it’s grit before it got wrapped in cling film. characters are flawed and almost offensive at times but deeply human and deeply female.
obviously the moral of the story is that marriage causes madness, and in every marriage is unmarriage. you get a real sense of the stagnation of life for women in the 50s/60s/70s with some seriously depressing outcomes, weldon certainly makes a point, but i didn’t find it completely dismal by the end, i’m not sure how to properly word it but ultimately the women in the story achieve a total state of being, whatever form it takes and you get a glimmer of hope in the knowledge that the younger generation will be born into the movement in its full swing.
October 12, 2017
Scathing!
December 12, 2024
3.5 stars
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
December 6, 2023
Dull, the way this book is written does not get you invested in the characters. I had no motivation to pick it up and find out what happened, nearly DNF, the ending picked up a little bit but overall was a chore to read.
March 6, 2018
Scathing, callous, real and with a dark streak of humour, a surprisingly enjoyable read, considering. The novel follows a group of 'friends' as they grow into women, amidst the patriarchal structure of post-war British society. Scarlet, starts as a sort of protagonist but the story, and the characters, soon become multi-faceted and Scarlet is the least of all concerns. Weldon paints a truer and harsher image of friendship, womanhood and the flaws of the feminine ideal in this novel than what we expect from novels depicting this period (at least I did). All of these women, in whatever their own circumstances, are unhappy and bitter and although there are moments of relief and redemption, each of them are more than willing to throw one another under the (metaphorical) bus when suits.
This is the first Fay Weldon I have read and am currently online looking for more novels!
This is the first Fay Weldon I have read and am currently online looking for more novels!
February 20, 2019
Biting, witty, deprecating, sarcastic, gloriously class-obsessed English storytelling. If I’d ever read Nell Dunn I would probably liken the two authors.
As it is, my best simile is that it’s like a foul-mouthed lower-middle-class A.S. Byatt-cum-Hyacinth Bucket, equal parts intelligent, desperate, self-satisfied, and unapologetic. As long as you don’t mind misery this book is an absolute riot.
As it is, my best simile is that it’s like a foul-mouthed lower-middle-class A.S. Byatt-cum-Hyacinth Bucket, equal parts intelligent, desperate, self-satisfied, and unapologetic. As long as you don’t mind misery this book is an absolute riot.
May 4, 2010
It is a while since I read this. It made my jaw drop with it's accuracy and wicked black humour, and I became utterly addicted to Fay Weldon's books. I managed to wean myself off in time, but how I miss that high ...
October 2, 2008
Readers either love or hate this book. If you don't like Down Among the Women it's probably because something hit too close to home. simply outstanding
January 24, 2023
"Fancy seeing success in terms of men. How trivial, with the world in the state it's in."
December 16, 2020
"Giù, tra le donne, se stai molto, molto attenta e chiudi gli occhi e ti tappi gli orecchi e tieni ben strette le ginocchia tranne in rare occasioni, puoi davvero vivere felice."
𝓕𝓪𝔂 𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓭𝓸𝓷, 𝓖𝓲ù 𝓽𝓻𝓪 𝓵𝓮 𝓭𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓮
Questo romanzo ha segnato l'inizio di quella che so che sarà una lunga conoscenza tra me e Fay Weldon, la sua autrice. Una volta iniziato, ero già a metà libro; poi, d'un tratto, ho sentito il bisogno di rallentare e assorbire le vicende delle giovani donne protagoniste. Questo perché il romanzo si presenta come un ritratto ironico della società inglese degli anni '50 del secolo scorso, con focus sul genere femminile; ti inganna, facendoti approdare a cuor leggero alle tragedie che attendono queste donne che (quando lo realizzi, è straziante) non sono neanche per un attimo le reali proprietarie delle loro vite. Queste sono cedute da uomo in uomo, da padre a marito, da figlio ad amante. Ribellarsi allo 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘰 che dona loro il ruolo non tanto di sesso debole, quanto di sesso accessorio, funzionale a quello maschile, sembra loro inevitabile, nel corso della vicenda; eppure, non per tutte vi è un lieto fine a seguito di ciò. La rottura di catene come quelle imposte dalla disparità di genere è un processo lungo più di una vita. A queste donne non resta che cercare di sopravvivere; e poi guardare con speranza alle nuove generazioni, cresciute diversamente da come le madri avevano cresciuto loro, destinate a rompere con molti degli schemi che le avevano soffocate, una volta approdate nei tumultuosi anni '60.
𝓕𝓪𝔂 𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓭𝓸𝓷, 𝓖𝓲ù 𝓽𝓻𝓪 𝓵𝓮 𝓭𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓮
Questo romanzo ha segnato l'inizio di quella che so che sarà una lunga conoscenza tra me e Fay Weldon, la sua autrice. Una volta iniziato, ero già a metà libro; poi, d'un tratto, ho sentito il bisogno di rallentare e assorbire le vicende delle giovani donne protagoniste. Questo perché il romanzo si presenta come un ritratto ironico della società inglese degli anni '50 del secolo scorso, con focus sul genere femminile; ti inganna, facendoti approdare a cuor leggero alle tragedie che attendono queste donne che (quando lo realizzi, è straziante) non sono neanche per un attimo le reali proprietarie delle loro vite. Queste sono cedute da uomo in uomo, da padre a marito, da figlio ad amante. Ribellarsi allo 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘰 che dona loro il ruolo non tanto di sesso debole, quanto di sesso accessorio, funzionale a quello maschile, sembra loro inevitabile, nel corso della vicenda; eppure, non per tutte vi è un lieto fine a seguito di ciò. La rottura di catene come quelle imposte dalla disparità di genere è un processo lungo più di una vita. A queste donne non resta che cercare di sopravvivere; e poi guardare con speranza alle nuove generazioni, cresciute diversamente da come le madri avevano cresciuto loro, destinate a rompere con molti degli schemi che le avevano soffocate, una volta approdate nei tumultuosi anni '60.
December 16, 2020
"Down among the women, if you are very very careful, shut your eyes and ears, and
keep your knees together nearly always, you can live quite happily."
𝓕𝓪𝔂 𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓭𝓸𝓷, 𝓓𝓸𝔀𝓷 𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷
This novel marked the beginning of what I know will be a long acquaintance between me and Fay Weldon, its author. Once I started it, I was already halfway through the book; then, all of a sudden, I felt the need to slow down and absorb the events of the young female protagonists. That because the novel presents itself as an ironic portrait of English society in the 1950s, with a focus on the women; it deceives you, making you land lightly at the tragedies that await these women who (when you realise it, it's heartbreaking) are not even for a moment the real owners of their lives. In fact, these are given from man to man, from father to husband, from son to lover. Rebelling against the 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘰 that gives them the role not so much of the 'weaker sex', as of the 'accessory sex', functional to the male one, seems inevitable in the course of the story- yet, not all of them have a happy ending after trying. Breaking shackles such as those imposed by gender inequality is a process longer than a lifetime. These women can only try to survive; and then, look with hope at the new generations, raised differently from how their mothers had raised them, destined to break with many of the patterns that had stifled them - once they all land in the tumultuous 1960s.
keep your knees together nearly always, you can live quite happily."
𝓕𝓪𝔂 𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓭𝓸𝓷, 𝓓𝓸𝔀𝓷 𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷
This novel marked the beginning of what I know will be a long acquaintance between me and Fay Weldon, its author. Once I started it, I was already halfway through the book; then, all of a sudden, I felt the need to slow down and absorb the events of the young female protagonists. That because the novel presents itself as an ironic portrait of English society in the 1950s, with a focus on the women; it deceives you, making you land lightly at the tragedies that await these women who (when you realise it, it's heartbreaking) are not even for a moment the real owners of their lives. In fact, these are given from man to man, from father to husband, from son to lover. Rebelling against the 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘰 that gives them the role not so much of the 'weaker sex', as of the 'accessory sex', functional to the male one, seems inevitable in the course of the story- yet, not all of them have a happy ending after trying. Breaking shackles such as those imposed by gender inequality is a process longer than a lifetime. These women can only try to survive; and then, look with hope at the new generations, raised differently from how their mothers had raised them, destined to break with many of the patterns that had stifled them - once they all land in the tumultuous 1960s.
November 30, 2021
I bought this book at an exceedingly cheap price in a library sale.
It’s a long time since I’ve read any of Fay Weldon’s books. I used to love them, but now I’m reading this one, it seems like a parody, since she has such a characteristic, flippant style.
The first people (women) we are introduced to are Wanda, aged sixty-four, and her daughter, Scarlet.
There is an “I” personage, but I never found out who this is.
Wanda is no longer together with her husband, Kim, Scarlet’s father. Kim is now married to Susan, who is much younger than he is.
There are many women in the book, too many to remember, One of them, Audrey, has another name too so she’s sometimes called Emma-Audrey. (This is because one of her lovers wants to change her name to Emma.)
Scarlet is pregnant with Byzantia, and Kim’s second wife, Susan, is pregnant with Simeon.
Byzantia is born; she is “dark, grubby and bright”. She is beautiful and at the age of 12 months walks well. Simeon, about the same age, is “a withdrawn and stodgy child” who still only crawls. Byzantia can say a few words, but Simeon has no desire to converse with anyone.
One couple are called X and Y but I could never remember which was the man and which the woman, Then Y who turns out to be female gases herself, and then I could remember that X was a man.
X and Y are somehow involved with Helen, who lives with Emma-Audrey. X and Y are artists, and Helen paints too.
Most of the women are married but have lovers, and these lovers are also married and some have other lovers, as far as I recall. It’s all very complicated, but realistic, I’m sure.
Scarlet eventually marries a boring, elderly man called Edwin; he is very controlling, and Scarlet leaves him. Edwin wants to have custody of Byzantia and to change her name; he doesn’t want any name in particular, he just hates the name Byzantia.
Scarlet prostitutes herself for two pairs of nylons.
“Scarlet feels that she is at last a whore. She need no longer resist Edwin’s accusations. She can accept them gracefully and have some peace.”
To sum up, I found this to be an entertaining, very readable book in Waldon’s usual facetious style; I couldn’t remember who everybody was, but it didn’t matter.
It’s a long time since I’ve read any of Fay Weldon’s books. I used to love them, but now I’m reading this one, it seems like a parody, since she has such a characteristic, flippant style.
The first people (women) we are introduced to are Wanda, aged sixty-four, and her daughter, Scarlet.
There is an “I” personage, but I never found out who this is.
Wanda is no longer together with her husband, Kim, Scarlet’s father. Kim is now married to Susan, who is much younger than he is.
There are many women in the book, too many to remember, One of them, Audrey, has another name too so she’s sometimes called Emma-Audrey. (This is because one of her lovers wants to change her name to Emma.)
Scarlet is pregnant with Byzantia, and Kim’s second wife, Susan, is pregnant with Simeon.
Byzantia is born; she is “dark, grubby and bright”. She is beautiful and at the age of 12 months walks well. Simeon, about the same age, is “a withdrawn and stodgy child” who still only crawls. Byzantia can say a few words, but Simeon has no desire to converse with anyone.
One couple are called X and Y but I could never remember which was the man and which the woman, Then Y who turns out to be female gases herself, and then I could remember that X was a man.
X and Y are somehow involved with Helen, who lives with Emma-Audrey. X and Y are artists, and Helen paints too.
Most of the women are married but have lovers, and these lovers are also married and some have other lovers, as far as I recall. It’s all very complicated, but realistic, I’m sure.
Scarlet eventually marries a boring, elderly man called Edwin; he is very controlling, and Scarlet leaves him. Edwin wants to have custody of Byzantia and to change her name; he doesn’t want any name in particular, he just hates the name Byzantia.
Scarlet prostitutes herself for two pairs of nylons.
“Scarlet feels that she is at last a whore. She need no longer resist Edwin’s accusations. She can accept them gracefully and have some peace.”
To sum up, I found this to be an entertaining, very readable book in Waldon’s usual facetious style; I couldn’t remember who everybody was, but it didn’t matter.
February 8, 2024
I didn’t enjoy the majority of this book. But I think that’s because I didn’t understand it until the last page. I felt frustrated and felt like Fay Weldon was not writing about women “properly”
The women in this book try to follow feminine ideals and fail, they don’t seem to like each other, their stories occasionally touch down with one another but on the whole, the women don’t work together. They don’t find success and when they do, it is very hard won. They are defined by the men they fuck and marry.
I think my 21st century mind wanted a story about girl power and women carving out their own stories and finding success.
But I guess what I envisaged for this book, and the reality of what life was like for women in the 50s, are two very different things.
These women are, for the most part, downtrodden, frustrated and very flawed. And the story of these women are just as important as stories of girl power and success.
As the last line of the book states “we are the last of the women”. I think this book makes me appreciate how far feminism has come since the 50s and how female success is no longer defined by the men she is surrounded by.
The women in this book try to follow feminine ideals and fail, they don’t seem to like each other, their stories occasionally touch down with one another but on the whole, the women don’t work together. They don’t find success and when they do, it is very hard won. They are defined by the men they fuck and marry.
I think my 21st century mind wanted a story about girl power and women carving out their own stories and finding success.
But I guess what I envisaged for this book, and the reality of what life was like for women in the 50s, are two very different things.
These women are, for the most part, downtrodden, frustrated and very flawed. And the story of these women are just as important as stories of girl power and success.
As the last line of the book states “we are the last of the women”. I think this book makes me appreciate how far feminism has come since the 50s and how female success is no longer defined by the men she is surrounded by.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2022
What a pleasant surprise this book turned out to be considering I bought it on a whim at a charity shop in the midst of my big ‘BBB’ (book buying ban). I’m glad I broke my self imposed rules. I adore depressing stories but evermore so, ones that seem to teach so much through this misery. They seem to be such a wonderful tool for understanding. I was also a little apprehensive because of how many new characters were being introduced in the beginning, partly because my memory is that of a goldfish and also because if I am not glued to a book, I will grow frustrated at having to remember so many names. Fortunately that wasn’t the case because I couldn’t keep my grubby little fingers away from this book. Fay Weldon has such a way with words. Can’t explain it any better than by saying that this book really was a page turner …
July 17, 2025
4.25
honestly really loved this! so interesting to see feminism in its earlier stages (both in the 50s and 70s) and to read about the tangible differences between the generations (handkerchiefs vs kleenex, the difference in toilet paper).
the voice was so witty and very funny at times. i really loved following all of the characters and i liked how you knew what would happen to all of them from the first page. normally i have problems following so many named characters, but i was invested in these ones and did not have an issue.
will definitely pick up some more fay weldon at some point and hopefully will read some more books from the 70s!
honestly really loved this! so interesting to see feminism in its earlier stages (both in the 50s and 70s) and to read about the tangible differences between the generations (handkerchiefs vs kleenex, the difference in toilet paper).
the voice was so witty and very funny at times. i really loved following all of the characters and i liked how you knew what would happen to all of them from the first page. normally i have problems following so many named characters, but i was invested in these ones and did not have an issue.
will definitely pick up some more fay weldon at some point and hopefully will read some more books from the 70s!
August 10, 2022
How much changes, how much stays the same. Weldon examines women’s choices (or lack of) as the cast of characters moves from the 50s to the 70s, recording her astute observations that are at once comical and caustically heartbreaking.
A little clumsy in places (does the down among the women chorus work?) with heavy handed metaphor on every page Weldon also begins to develop her unique turn of phrase and is bitter, pessimistic, true.
A little clumsy in places (does the down among the women chorus work?) with heavy handed metaphor on every page Weldon also begins to develop her unique turn of phrase and is bitter, pessimistic, true.
August 30, 2021
The men are abominable and the women are not particularly likeable. It was a miserable read, but I still enjoyed the experience. I think perhaps because at this time of my life, this sentence completely resonated: "There is nothing more glorious than to be a young girl, and there is nothing worse than to have been one."
December 31, 2022
Boken följer ett antal kvinnor under 50-talet fram till 70-talet. Jag hade förväntat mig mer humor, men istället är det en ganska sorglig historia om kvinnoöden som berättas. Ingen av kvinnorna som vi får följa är lyckliga, de är alla olyckliga men på olika vis. Samtliga påverkade av ett samhälle där kvinnans roll var starkt begränsad och förväntningarna var tydliga.
January 25, 2025
I was really excited about reading this book after reading a brief description of it. I must say, it was not exactly what I was hoping for, but I can't say that I did not like it, I just can't say that I did. I will say that it had places that I laughed at, places that I almost cried about, and places that made me think, but it also had areas that I had to force myself to keep reading.
June 23, 2025
Once again en klassisk Fay weldon. Der er som med store kvinder lige lovlig mange karakterer til at jeg kan følge med nogle gange, men synes faktisk det var nemmere i denne. Jeg kan godt lide, at det næsten kommer til at føles som et digt af en art, idet hun bliver ved med at gentage temaet "nede mellem kvinderne".
November 29, 2025
4.5* -
I just listened to this after seeing it was part of The Mermaid Collection.
It's quite a 'spiky' book, the author doesn't soften the edges of the characters which makes it an interesting listen. I loved how it was multi POV, set over a longer period of time, and sometimes went back and forth slightly in the timeline. The narration was also really good.
I just listened to this after seeing it was part of The Mermaid Collection.
It's quite a 'spiky' book, the author doesn't soften the edges of the characters which makes it an interesting listen. I loved how it was multi POV, set over a longer period of time, and sometimes went back and forth slightly in the timeline. The narration was also really good.
January 18, 2018
My first Fay Weldon novel and I actually liked it. The novel is by now a bit dated, but I think that it stands out as a testament to the way women where perceived and perceived themselves in that era. Hi dry sarcasm and humor works for me.
January 7, 2025
Down Among the Women is an honest, raw and powerful look at the lives of women in 1950’s UK. I alternately wondered why I was reading it but couldn’t stop reading it. It shines light on the way women and men have been forced into relationships out of need.
August 18, 2025
En ret morsom selvironisk roman, med fokus på kvinders rolle i hjemmet, til manden, for barnet og alt hvad der ellers forlanges i 50/60’ernes England.
Ret spændende personer og forhold mellem mor og datter, veninder og mænd. Dog lidt langtrukken og ikke så handlingsfuld.
Ret spændende personer og forhold mellem mor og datter, veninder og mænd. Dog lidt langtrukken og ikke så handlingsfuld.
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