Let's talk about unhappiness. Specifically, how it's growing in one segment of our society. And no, it's not white congressmen from South Carolina, hip-hop artists who feel Beyoncé got slighted, or recipients of ill-timed foot-fault calls.
It's women. According to study after study, women are becoming more and more unhappy. This drop in happiness is found in women across the social and economic landscape. It doesn't matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk.
And it's not because of the multitude of crises we are facing. Women's happiness has been on a downward trend since the early 1970s, when the General Social Survey, a landmark study, began examining the social attitudes of women and men -- who, by the way, have gotten progressively happier over the years.
When you think about all that has happened over the last four decades -- with women securing greater opportunity, greater achievement, greater influence, and more money -- the decline in our collective state of mind seems to defy logic, and raises the vexing question: What in the world is going on?
It's a question we'll be exploring in depth on HuffPost in the coming weeks, in a series of blog posts by bestselling author and lecturer Marcus Buckingham. Drawing on his years as a senior researcher at Gallup, Marcus has developed a far-ranging expertise on what all of us -- but especially women -- can do to live richer, more purposeful, and, yes, happier lives.
Marcus kicks things off today with a look at "What's Happening to Women's Happiness?" a post in which he drills into the data on women and happiness, and looks at what is causing the downward drift. He also sets the table for the coming weeks during which he will lay out his prescriptions for bucking the unhappiness trend, the subject of his latest book Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently," which will be published on September 29th (just six days before our Books section launches!).
As part of this, he will introduce his new Strong Life Test, a tool to help women recognize precisely which parts of their lives are going to bring them the most joy, pleasure, energy, satisfaction, and, ultimately, greater happiness. According to Marcus, "It doesn't give you all the answers, but it tells you where to start."
Among the other topics Marcus will be blogging about: "The Myth of Multitasking," "The Myth of More Free Time," "The Myth of Kids Wanting More Time with Their Working Mothers," and one I am especially interested in, "The Myth of Striving for a Balanced Life" (he feels women need to imbalance their lives, putting more emphasis on those things that most fulfill them).
We are thrilled to have Marcus Buckingham join the HuffPost community of bloggers. He is a great addition to the mix. So go check out his first post, which is featured at the top of our Living page. What he has to say will surprise you.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Morra Aarons-Mele and Ellen Galinsky: Women, Men, and Happiness: We're All in Transition
The huge societal shift brought about by women's move into the workforce has only begun to play out, and its consequences are truly complex. So when telling this story, we should be careful not to isolate our focus to just women.
Kristen Houghton: Unhappiness and Women - Isn't It Subjective?
Marcus Buckingham and Dr. Phil give out excellent advice, they do. But their advice is male-oriented. Good, excellent, top of the line, but still coming from a man's perspective.
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The Hindus tell us that this world is delusion ( not just for men, ) and our favorite dude, Jesus, in many ways told us the same, but somehow, this is the part of the message none of us want to hear: That "perhaps this World offers no lasting happiness, and amounts to empty pursuits; a hollow shell..."
We may have mistakenly believed that spirituality, self-help, and growth meant "benign-therapy" not understanding that "liberation" does not deal with things of this World.
If so, then it is not, and has never been about defining feminine happiness against the background of masculine privileges.
Feminism is a concept - a structural thought pattern. It focuses reality down to a pin-point from which all evil is considered from the vagina-perspective: The Ego finds a definition and lashes-out.
Like any structure, Feminism needs to survive and will do so by endlessly casting the ball(s) farther down the horizon and identifying more problems to chase; nothing we can do is going to change the nature of Planet Earth. The real question lies in figuring out if we have the right idea about human life. Most people still look for agreeable ideas and philosophies in order to feel better and mask reality as it is...
I feel more positive, more powerful, more confident, more beautiful than I have ever felt before.
I have a multitude of things for which to be thankful, and the test results to prove it here:
http://www
That's not to say my life is a bowl of cherries. Certainly not. I face many challenges, including occasional bouts of loneliness, despair and sadness. I think that's normal.
Overall, however, I feel great. I have my own successful coaching consultancy, and a little over a year ago I launched a website to celebrate and inspire women (http://www
I believe happiness is a choice. Practice choosing it every day, and you get better and better at feeling it...
I represent the demographic for which Buckingham speaks. I graduated in 1970 and went in search of work. While my primary interview question was always regarding my typing speed, my male cohorts with BAs were swiftly enrolled in management training programs. Years later, the business world remained legally and patently unfair. After attending women’s consciousness raising groups, assertiveness training groups, or just plain needing money, women applicants who were lucky enough to land jobs were labeled “displaced homemakers
By claiming we’re growing unhappier as we age, Buckingham is once again placing us in the victim role (this time a victim to our own emotions), and it’s a place we are loath to find ourselves.
Rather than being unhappy, postmenopausal women may well become dissatisfied. Terminology is important because that’s a different feeling altogether. As our estrogen levels subside, the ratio of testosterone to estrogen in our bodies increases. This generally propels postmenopausal women into becoming more assertive (without the training) and wanting to improve their lives. But unhappy? No way!
1) economic ones. Women, especially older women, are more likely to live in poverty than men are and more likely to bear the costs of raising children. Women are also more likely to bear responsibility for aging parents.69
2) abuse issues. Every year 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. This can sure be a downer.
3) male denial. Men are less likely to express feelings, especially those of inadequacy and powerlessness.
Men and Women are just as f-up, happy, angry, and hopeful in just about the same numbers. It just happens that men will lie to save face, women do the same, I know a few that will claim to be unhappy just to show support to the unhappy ones.
Allow me to deviate a bit.
Most Americans (and I’m kind of tired of this brand of fuzzy logic) will agree that Asians and Hindus have more people in technology, sciences, and medicine. They often say Indians and Asians are smarter. WRONG- they just have more in those fields because they have a greater population. If you ignore that each of those nations (India, china) have over a billion inhabitants each V.S. a little over 330 Million (including immigrants legal and otherwise) subject them to a bell curve you will see the astonishing fact that Americans are in par with those nations. So what does this have to do with men/women happiness?
Ignore the tendencies we have, to lying (saving face, sympathy for others) subject the numbers to a bell curve and voilà! Men/women more or less are equal in the happiness issue- nobody is claiming the same for the boardroom.
~N.B. "housework" is defined in this research to include yardwork & repairs.~
"(For) couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs, '... the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16,' says Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo who studies the division of labor in families..
"... where Mom stays home and Dad goes to work, she spends 15 hours a week caring for children and he spends 2. In families in which both ... are wage earners, Mom’s average drops to 11 and Dad’s goes up to 3. Lest you think this is at least a significant improvement ...
'The most striking part,' Blair says, 'is that none of this is all that different, in terms of ratio, from 90 years ago.' ” Lisa Belkin, "Equal Parenting," NYT, 6/13/08
In other words: If we've come a long way, it's been mostly circular: a long, weary road for many of us. NL
~N.B. "housework" is defined in this research to include yardwork & repairs.~
"(For) couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs, '... the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16,' says Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo who studies the division of labor in families..
"... where Mom stays home and Dad goes to work, she spends 15 hours a week caring for children and he spends 2. In families in which both ... are wage earners, Mom’s average drops to 11 and Dad’s goes up to 3. Lest you think this is at least a significant improvement ...
'The most striking part,' Blair says, 'is that none of this is all that different, in terms of ratio, from 90 years ago.' ” Lisa Belkin, "Equal Parenting," NYT, 6/13/08
OR: We may have come a long way, but it's been mostly circular; a long, weary road for many of us!
http://lad
Raising the families without much help from the society that benefits from all that home work (our kids are not just our personal "choice" for our own delight--they're a service to the nation that needs workers, consumers and citizens) at the same time that we're bringing home a lot of the bacon means we're still overworked and underpaid.
Want to make us happy? Pay us fairly, provide good, affordable childcare and stop the national discourse that blames women for whatever they do -- including, implicitly as in Buckingham's article, for failing to be happy enough.
Here are two of my recent posts on the issues involved:
Never Done and Under Paid: http://www
Remember Mama: http://www
cheers!
Sad that the only role model (If this can be said) in a long time has been Sarah Palin (cherry picked by old guard Republican males, in what I see as a blatant slap in the face to women) To address your comments on 2nd and 3rd paragraphs:
Cold but not intended to be heartless. …Stop passively asking for change and fight for it! Believe me men of good will are going to stand next to you in support (as it needs to be. not as lectures of women deficiencies (like some here)
You along with the other women of The Huffington Post, can be a strong catalyst for change.
Men have less to worry about then ever. They are no longer the sole provider- so if they lose their job- it's stressful, but they are not the only source of income.
Women, on the other hand, are now equally responsible for the financial stability of the family, as well as being the primary caregiver and household caretaker. If the children need to be picked up from practice, if the laudry is piling up, if elderly parent needs a ride to a doctor visit, who is assumed to step in? Women. Even if men do step up and help... it is understood that such duties are not their primary obligation. So much of their worries are over, and ours are only increasing.
~Society ASSUMES women are primary, if not exclusive, caregivers. In the '80's, I knew men who shared parenting equally. Women still held few high level jobs, lacked equivalent pay, but expectations were changing.
~Now there are generations who think the need for Feminism is past. Even Arianna says that, given an increase in opportunities & pay, women's unhappiness "defies logic."
~This myth persists even though more women than ever work full time while parenting & still earn far less. Many must work 2 jobs while still expected to be Super Mom, who can "bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan."
You wonder if DADS don't mind being portrayed as dolts because they'd just as soon NOT be good at domestic stuff? One commercial showed a professional getting his kids ready for school; he broke the washing machine & sent his daughter out in a blizzard wearing her favorite sundress..
More serious than stereotypes is the constant of violence against women. Domestic abuse, murder, rape & sexual slavery form a backdrop of awareness of our bodies, even as we run & fall in the spike heels that
Well practiced science brings a great deal of information which we may gain a logistical awareness and deeper understanding of whatever problem is at hand. Science succeeds precisely BECAUSE the researcher was apt at transcending partisan representations.
If Buckingham is discredited because of gender, what other publications would also have to go? Would Susan Faludi's "Stiffed" have to go?
I've had a lot of unhappy things to deal with in life: tragically disfunctional family, drugs, divorce, abuse. But I have found the key to happiness is to love God and others as yourself. A life of faith in God and service to others and knowing there is an eternal purpose to existence gives peace and joy beyond understanding. And the older I get, the better it gets.
The stay at home mom is able to build a social network that beats a "work" network. They also build connections and networks for their children. I decided its a privilege to stay home, more than it is a sacrifice. You cant be a stay at home mom if you have no money or no "breadwinn
With fewer jobs, women worry about husbands losing their jobs and the impacts. Daily, I hear about another man losing his job and claiming bankruptcy. Im sick of constant political fighting and disrespect.
For me..I prefer the company of men
I NEED the company of women.
I agree that (in general) women seem to have a deeper more pronounced sense of empathy and it is this quality that can make the female more aware of the suffering of the vulnerable, especially of other women and girls. That's what makes this quote so appropriate to me....
"There is a special place in he// for women who do not help other women." ~Madeleine K. Albright
to HPdevotee, again not a deeper pronounced sense of empathy but rather what is socially acceptable to show. If you can find the rare man that is no afraid to tell his feelings ask him. I would point out that gay men show their feeling but we marginalize them as not being true males.
I do understand that there are some men who have an equal depth of empathy but I have not found that to be the norm as I have with women. Just look around our world today and the horrific violence women suffer at the hands of men. And yes, there are violent females as well, but here again, it is not the default setting.
As far as male violence being socio-cultural and not due to being male, I would point out that in the few women run societies in different parts of the world we don't see matriarchal subjugation of the male through violence if at all as we do in patriarchal ones.
And yes, I agree, gay men do seem more empathic than hetero men but this could also stem from being, as you said, marginalized by society as women are..they (gay males) are also subjected to more male violence perpetrated against them and so, have developed a depth of empathy not seen in other men.
Just take a look at some of the posts on this thread and the amount of vitriol against women and the delight some seem to take in their unhappiness. The blaming of the feminist movement, women's expectations, beauty standards, 'nature'..