Feminism makes women unhappy.
Here’s the article on CBMW: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/NYT-Modern-Women-are-Unhappy
responding to this op-ed piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1
This was suggested by Joy.
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I’m sure that a good number of “happy,” “feminist” women could come forth to argue against this claim. I’d also be willing to dispute how much of “modern” unhappiness can be proven to be the result of “feminist” beliefs (especially those relating to work while trying to raise children, the main point emphasized in the linked post).
I asked in feedback if women in Islamic countries who live in complete patriarchy are happier, but haven’t gotten a response. The Dowd article might suggest women are not so happy now, but it’s not compared to anything nor quantitatively nor qualitatively defined.
Thanks Joy & Don. The CBWM piece concludes with strange, non-sequitur logic:
“Modern women would hugely benefit from returning to traditional roles. Their current state of unhappiness, as Dowd characterizes it, is a direct result of the influence of feminism. God did not give us roles as a kind of sexual prison; He gave them to us for our good and flourishing. If we reject this plan, coded into both our design and the Word of God, then we will surely suffer.”
Would the Bible’s Mary, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba have benefited more from CBWM’s “traditional roles” or from Maureen Dowd’s feminism? These are the mothers of Jesus highlighted in one of the gospels. Some might say the pregnant teenager Mary, the raped Tamar, the fortunate opportunist Ruth, and the widowed Bathesheba of a politician king’s affair all eventually found themselves in the traditional roles of submission to their husbands, and were therefore consequently and necessarily happy. But Rahab was a mercenary boy-toy who goes into the Hebrews 11 hall of faith, but was did she 1) ever champion the traditional roles or 2) ever lead the charge for women by a public feminism? When a woman only has 2 choices, then what’s she to do?
Yeah, Stevenson might be getting close when she says happiness is beside the point. I get a wee bit annoyed when groups take research like this and try to use it as ammunition to make their case as if happiness is a barometer to tell us if we are behaving as we should be. Would these groups abandon their principles if the research showed that women in traditional roles were unhappier? The assumption that women should occupy traditional roles because that makes them happier seems to be an odd argument coming from groups who purport to base principles of living on the Bible. Are they really saying, “If it makes you happy, do it.”? And if they are not going that far, if they are only saying happiness is a by-product of doing the right thing, do they think the Apostle Paul was happy when he was being stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, etc. for the cause of Christ?
to J. K. Gayle,
Just a little nitpicking, if I may. To characterize Mary as a pregnant teenager plays on a modern connotation of irresponsibility. Sure she was at one point unmarried and pregnant, but I believe she was a virgin at that point – unique in the history of mankind. Also the Tamar in the geneology of Christ was not the raped Tamar. The Tamar who was raped was Absalom’s sister, King David’s daughter. The Tamar who was in the geneology of Christ disguised herself as a prostitute in order to become pregnant by her father-in-law (who was Judah, son of Jacob). But before we go off on a tangent there, the Old Testament Law mandated that she be given a brother of her late husband to marry and have children by, which her father-in-law failed to do after the second time Tamar was widowed. I can’t really think of parallels to that in current American society. (As an aside, I always thought Tamar was pretty shrewd to anticipate Judah’s double standard regarding men versus women who have sex outside marriage. And I guess I’m a little appalled at the certainty she had that he would be willing to visit a prostitute just because he was a widower away from home.)
Now (in spite of my nitpicking), if you are saying that Biblical women were more multidimensional than either the feminists or CBMW folks would admit, I would agree.
great points, Bonnie G! and “Biblical women were more multidimensional than either the feminists or CBMW folks would admit”
The 1972 General Social Survey asks this question:
Taken all together, how would you say things are these days–would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too-happy?
1 Very happy
2 Pretty happy
3 Not too happy
The 2008 questionnaire has the same question plus a question about happiness in marriage.
One thing I took away fom a course in quantitative research methods is that, well, surveys are subjective – especially in the case of this question. How do you define happy? I’d love to see the demographic breakdown.
The NY Times Op-Ed piece suggests many reasons women may be less happy, mostly related to modern culture, but the CBMW article keys in on just one idea: non-traditional roles make women unhappy. Strachan also says that this famous feminist has openly acknowledged that feminism doesn’t work. That’s not quitewhat she says!
Anyway, I think Bonnie makes a good point. And I think comps agree: being happy doesn’t tell us what’s right.
Have a look at this site which says,
What may be the most widely-discussed statistical over-interpretation in history is coming around for the third time.
And, the empirical basis for all this fuss is so thin as to be practically non-existent.
The site gives aggregated figures for 1972/3/4 and 2004/6/8 as follows:
1972/3/4 Very happy or pretty happy
Men 84.9%
Women 86.4%
2004/6/8 Very happy or pretty happy
Men 85.9%
Women 86.1%
1972/3/4 Very happy
Men 31.9%
Women 37%
2004/6/8 Very happy
Men 29.8%
Women 31.2%
Looks like being very happy is in decline for both sexes but women are still more very happy than are men.
Thanks for the stats, Janice. There’s a lot of power in interpreting statistics for the masses. It’s analogous to interpreting Scripture for the masses, no?
Whoever suggested that the female fight for equality had anything to do with happiness?
Whoever suggested that equality was closer now than it was (just look at the difference in the average wage for men compared to women)?
Whoever suggested that happiness could be found outside of Christ?
I was confused by the NYT article, it suggested that choice was stressful, but then also said women were happy to have more stress. I think for any human with a brain, choice is a great thing! It does not always bring “happiness”, but it is great to have.
I think that in the not so distant past people were more likely to hide their unhappiness. In the 21st century people are being more open about the fact that they are not happy.
In 1972 people were definitely not willing to admit to unhappiness as they are today.
Whether you are happy or not is not dependent on the role you take in life. And it is not dependent on just one or two things.
In 1972 the war in Vietnam was winding down, and coverups concerning the war were beginning to come out. People were beginning to realize that a lot of young American men and many more Southeast Asians had died needlessly. This really affected the country’s happiness.
I have a hard believing Americans would have rated themselves “very happy” during the years of 1972/3/4 because the war.
Note that the 1st response was in a hold file as it was from a new poster. I just posted it.
I quite agree. It’s usually people who hold some sort of bias that want to blame life’s ills on certain groups of people. That’s really an illogical viewpoint at best.
It’s usually people who hold some sort of bias that want to blame life’s ills on certain groups of people.
True enough, so far as it goes, but who doesn’t hold some sort of bias?
Well holding some form of bias is a bit different to blaming all of life’s ills on a whole group of people. Even when there was slavery and people thought that black skinned people were born to slavery, they did not turn around and blame those black skinned people for public, curtural, marital, etc. problems. Yet, we definitely have that type of bias when gender hierarchalists try to say that women voting, women having personal choices, women working, women being educated, women owning property, etc. are the cause of all men’s marital and social problems.
How come these same people never talk about the destructive use of pornography by men? Women and children are being destroyed by it but these guys never talk about it. Why?
JLP!
That is the question of the day!
Thinking about this some more.
Has anyone at CBMW ever written an article about how pornography makes women feel?
Maybe they have. But honestly, I get so tired of hearing about how women are less the image of God than men and how their lack of submission makes men abusive. I simply don’t care to wade through the darkness they try to pass off as light in order to find any decent articles like ones they might have against porn.
Has there ever been a study?
Does anyone know of any?
To my knowledge, they have never written on or rather studied the issue specifically. CBMW has mentioned abuse problems in the midst of other topics though.
“Whoever suggested that the female fight for equality had anything to do with happiness?”
BINGO!
Here is one example: Women could not withdraw money from a bank account when her husband died. The account was frozen until his will was read unless he had gone to special legal trouble to make sure she had access before he did.
Did this change make her ‘happy’? I submit the answer is no. But I also say the change was necessary and gave her relief and justice.
“Whoever suggested that happiness could be found outside of Christ?”
AMEN!
One more thing, when discussing this issue people tend to think of the Victorian middle and upper class. Many women have always worked in factories and in fields. Many women had babies on the frontier in covered wagons. Many women worked in small shops.
To pretend that working outside the home is some modern cultural thing is silly.