The recent study and paper by Stevenson and Wolfer, "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness"? Has been covered on a few men's rights blogs of late. Since I have started back to my 50+ hour work weeks I have had little time to do more than get home and take care of dinner and housework but I have kept up my reading as much as possible.
I came across this article on the paper at the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-buckingham/whats-happening-to-womens_b_289511.html
An interesting article. I found it more interesting as someone who follows Men's rights closely because I feel we men from these sites know the answer that Marcus Buckingham attempts to lead his female readers to kicking and screaming.
The answer? Well to put it in it's most basic form one has only to say feminism. Yet this answer which speaks volumes to the men who have been on the paying side of feminism has no meaning to the modern liberated woman.
In his article Mr. Buckingham brings forth some facts men have known for years yet never seem to get published or any attention in the main stream media. Namely: Women working less hours, women getting equal pay and finally even out-stripping men in wages, women dominating education, and women outnumbering men in middle and upper management and now the fact that more women have retained jobs than men.
I was seriously surprised to see these facts mentioned on anything published by Huffington Post.
But there is more.
All told, more than 1.3 million men and women have been surveyed over the last 40 years, both here in the U.S. and in developed countries around the world. Wherever researchers have been able to collect reliable data on happiness, the finding is always the same: greater educational, political, and employment opportunities have corresponded to decreases in life happiness for women, as compared to men.
The study clearly shows that young women start off much happier than men of the same age but by age 39 the scales cross and men become much happier than women.
These findings typically follow what I have noticed about women and the danger age of the mid to upper 30's I have spoken about before. It is as if as their happiness levels decrease anything can be used or done to try and stop this downward spiral. Anything that is, as long as it is self centered and hostile towards men, it seems.
The article also brings to light that women and men spend about the same amounts of time doing housework.
It falls because when it comes to the sharing of 'home' duties, the trend lines are all moving in the direction you would predict would lead to greater happiness and less stress for women: namely toward greater parity. For example, between 1975 and today women's housework hours declined from twenty-one per week to seventeen, while men's jumped from six to thirteen.
As Mr. Buckingham states there is no reason in fact for women's happiness to fall. They have it all. The article doesn't mention legal matters but we know we can add those to the mix as well.
In all aspects of modern Western life women hold all the cards, yet they are still unhappy as they age.
We men know why. As the 40's close in on these women even the sexiest woman starts to wear. No matter how much money is sunk into plastic or botox. No matter how many hours are spent on the treadmill or how many calories are counted the most a woman who hits 40 can do is give herself a few brief years of playing cougar before nothing works anymore.
By 40 most women today have destroyed the man they had the most history with. The companion that would have helped raise their children. She has wiped out his money, betrayed him. More than likely lied about him and made at least some form of false domestic violence claim during the divorce she initiated. She then lived well off the child support she justified as in the "best interest of the child" that is her new car and the biggest house she can afford with the money while the college fund is empty waiting for the Ex to shell out even more money.
Sure it is easy for women to find a new sexual partner again and again at least till the dreaded 40s arrive.
Yet in the end what has feminism done for these women?
It has left them totally alone and taken away the traditional wealth women had for centuries in the family and with a husband who had been with them through it all.
Feminism destroyed everything that gave an older woman meaning and importance so that now a woman past 40 is just alone.
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It is indeed interesting that the HuffPo is hosting this series, but I expect where Buckingham is going with his articles will be a message that at least women want to hear, at the end of the day: women are being shafted because they are expected to "do it all", and society should encourage women to choose one approach to their life and focus on it. In other words, I think he's going to explode the myth that women can "have it all" (which is a good myth to explode), but replace it with the idea that women should pick a sphere to focus on, and do that.
ReplyDeleteI expect that some women will take offense at this, because they want to have it all, but others will see in it another reason to blame social and structural issues for female unhappiness. I do think that women are unhappy because they are trying to do too many things at once, but I don't think that can be fixed by women deciding to focus on their jobs and so on. I think that for the vast majority of women, that will not make them happy. Family life and children are what tend to make women happiest, but not when they are juggling that with a demanding job, as many women do. That reality is I think what is behind this female unhappiness trend.
Anyway it's an interesting topic. I may expand on it later on my own blog.
Women wanted to have it all, so they GOT it-ha! It wasn't all it was cracked up to be, huh?
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend and I discussed this article at dinner last night. She being a professional woman in her upper 40's, no children and just lost her father and mother I think she sees it for what it is as well. She doesn;t even have nephews or nieces as her brother and sister also in their 40's have never married either with no prospects to do so.
ReplyDeleteMy GF loves my son and constantly mentions how divorce is lower now than in decades so I know what she is hinting at but I know she thinks she is a lucky one. She admits that before we started dating she was very depressed about the future of being alone.
Women do as they're socially programmed.
ReplyDeleteWhat's also ironic (and amusing to me in a detached, anthropological sense) is how a matriarchy leads to hedonism. Under patriarchy older women were, to some degree, held in respect and value (for their grace, dignity, and wisdom). There was an esteem and veneration that came with age.
In the matriarchy a premium is placed on young, taut, female flesh. The value of woman is measured by the interest and the intensity of the erections she can engender in men. Older women are discarded on the scrap heap. Often alone, bitter. With wreckage to pick through for families.
Feminism, the gift that keeps on giving.
I read all this and can't help but think that feminine unhappiness is what it is because the women are discovering, very late in the game, that what they want isn't what had been sold to them when they were younger. That career and consumption and therapeutic shopping and materialism are poor substitutes for family and a man to care for and be cared for by.
ReplyDeleteSo the "have it all" myth is being exploded, probably to be replaced by "have some of it" as Nova has mentioned, but in reality what these women want is "have something else entirely". And that something else can't be bought or litigated or provided by Big Sister government.
I suppose we should be happy that a half-a-loaf truth is coming out, in that the have-it-all is quickly being revealed as unattainable. Twenty or thirty years from now women will be forced to reckon that "have some of it" is fraudulent too.
Ya a good example is my GF's sister. She is a completely undisireable to be around. She bullies everyone she is connected with. She is over weight by more than a bit although would prolly do "a few extra pounds" on an on-line site lol. She is always rude and opinionated but convinced no man is good enough for her and would do zero duties that could be looked on as domestic EVER.
ReplyDeleteYou can just tell with every passing day and friends wedding she is seeing things for how they are going to be and although she would never crack a tear for her future you just know she is not happy about it.
So she just spends all her time caring for stray animals since there is no loss of feminist face doing things for them.