News brief:
Women's happiness declines over last 35 years.
Is the feminist culture harmful to women?
Is the Feminist Culture Harmful to Women?
A recent analysis find
s that happiness and the sense of well-being and satisfaction has declined among women, both in constant terms and also in comparison to men. The decline is found across various investigations, across various measures of subjective well-being and satisfaction with life, across various demographic groups, and within numerous industrialized countries.
The findings are from the General Social Survey
[i], which is the largest sociology project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and is considered highly authoritative. Aside from the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences.
How strong is the decline for women relative to men? In 1972, in the initial surveys, the average woman had a 3+ percentile happiness advantage relative to the average man, while in 2006, in the last samplings, she was 1+ percentile behind. The figures add up to a 4½ percentile decrease in happiness for women in comparison to men over the 35 year span of the study. The investigators note that a change of such magnitude should be considered quite substantial.
While various explanations are proposed, we look here at the feminist position that women are oppressed and always have but are a special class of humans who can accomplish wondrous things once the forces of oppression have been overthrown. In spite of widening workplace opportunities, women find that it is not easy to accomplish great things and still raise a family and have a free moment to oneself. It is a tough world out there, indifferent to our fantasies and barely responsive to our best efforts. Inflated expectations are a standard recipe for failure and despair.
What about the ideology that women are oppressed? "Women are oppressed" usually means "oppressed by men," so in the active voice the message is that "Men oppress women." Naturally, the more one believes that, the more resentful she will be toward men, and the less understanding she will be toward her alleged oppressors.
A recent survey found that 33% of women "often or very often" resent men, while only 14% of men are highly resentful of women. Public condemnation towards men has obviously increased over the last 40 years, and surely contributes to the pandemic of personal resentments toward men.
Angry women tend to feel empowered when they express their anger, but then returned to the blahs and emptiness once the anger is spent. "I have become increasingly angry," comments Gloria Steinem, "as the alternative is depression." Overall, anger is a quick fix followed by a lingering headache.
Psychotherapists who challenge anger and seek to reduce it are not as popular with their clients but have better outcomes, while therapists who support anger and encourage its expression are more popular but have worse outcomes. Anger reduction, reconciliation, and a heartfelt understanding and appreciation of family and friends is fundamental to healthy living. It is a mainstay in Christianity and in most other religious teachings.
The hardships and general meaninglessness of life are problems that we all confront and probably always will. Yet increasing animosities toward our opposites is hardly a viable solution and appears to broaden a general malaise among women and nudge possible solutions farther out of reach.
by drD
author of "
You Still Don't Understand" with Nancy Ann Davis, PhD.
See commentary at
Tikkun
[i] Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, "The paradox of declining female happiness." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2009, 1:2, 190–225.
http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/WomensHappiness.pdf
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