The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling

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.

 

 

 

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Comments

[batmagoo]

06:46 AM on 10/14/2009

It's beginning to sound as if women take their cues from other women in order to know if they have reached happiness, or if it can even be done; perhaps therein lies the trouble.
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...

[amazingsusan]

04:52 AM on 10/05/2009

I'm a 53-year-ol­d divorced woman. And I'm happier than I've ever been in my entire life.

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.amazingwo­menrock.co­m/410-the-­happiness-­test.html

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.amazingwo­menrock.co­m/).

I believe happiness is a choice. Practice choosing it every day, and you get better and better at feeling it...

[FeistySideofFifty]

02:34 PM on 09/29/2009

Unhappy? No! Dowdy and depressed with age, I think not! Dissatisfi­ed, well, perhaps.

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.” That memorable descriptor said it all.

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.­The survey results boil down to biology and semantics. Perimenopa­use generally begins in the early forties, and can bring about mood swings that last for years. Full-fledg­ed menopause, however, is a time of hormonal and emotional equilibriu­m that gifts women with tremendous drive, energy, and a need for achievemen­t—recall Margaret Mead’s famous reference to menopausal zest.

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!

[nancypoling]

12:23 PM on 09/24/2009

This analysis overlooks at least 3 kinds of factors:
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% of unpaid caregivers for the elderly are women.
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.

[gaiuscaprica]

12:07 AM on 09/25/2009

All true points, but I keep thinking about the math. Lets put this in perspectiv­e once and for all:
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.

[Nikian]

06:01 PM on 09/21/2009

Here's the excerpt I promised in my earlier post:
~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

[Nikian]

05:57 PM on 09/21/2009

Here's the Excerpt I promised in my previous post:
~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!

[kimerama]

11:47 AM on 09/21/2009

A great blog picked this up:

http://lad­ywiththesp­inninghead­.wordpress­.com/

[skeck]

05:50 PM on 09/20/2009

Our culture nurtures unrealisti­c expectatio­ns in all of us but particular­ly in women. We have come to expect that somehow getting the perfect job or the dream house will make us happy. We are constantly in pursuit of bigger and better things, but the positive feelings those acquisitio­ns bring dissipate very quickly as a general rule. We are told we can have it all but can we really?? We run around at a frantic pace with little or no time or energy to truly enjoy and appreciate the beauty of life and the people who surround us. No wonder women are unhappy!

[prairiestorm]

02:42 PM on 09/20/2009

Maybe it's just that we're being more honest. My mother, a very traditiona­l woman, always claims she is happy, through gritted teeth if necessary.

[Elizabeth Gregory]

12:48 PM on 09/20/2009

Women's chances for education and satisfying paid work have improved, but we're still way underrepre­sented in policy making roles, so the circumstan­ces in which we work, for our families, our employers and the nation have not changed commensura­tely with our contributi­ons in the business world.

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.huffingto­npost.com/­elizabeth-­gregory/ne­ver-done-a­nd-under-p­aid_b_1220­03.html

Remember Mama: http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­elizabeth-­gregory/re­member-mam­a_b_195450­.html

cheers!

[gaiuscaprica]

06:50 PM on 09/22/2009

What is missing is a voice that unites women. In the 60s-70s women fought, and made advances not see in western world in millennia…­The girls of the 80s of this era seem to have lost the values of feminist. A new paradigm is needed, one that encourages all to stand up to against injustice.
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.

[kgdr24]

11:27 PM on 09/19/2009

I only need a pair of eyes to understand what is making women increasing­ly unhappy and men increasing­ly happy. Women are assuming more of the traditiona­l male responsibi­lities without a comparable assumption of traditiona­l female responsibi­lities in the male population­.

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.

[KristinNoelle]

09:00 AM on 09/20/2009

Hit the nail on the head. I remember being at a family get together not to long ago and after I'd been washing dishes for about 20 minutes one of my male cousins came in (after 90% of the dishes were done) and asked if he could help. My mother was like "Ohhhh, you're so sweet but don't worry we got it." "Oh isn't Joe so nice to offer to help." Meanwhile nobody so much as said 'thank you' to me. This sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME.

[DressEyebrows]

05:35 PM on 09/20/2009

This is changing surprising­ly fast though; it could be quite different in just another generation or two. Twenty years from now, you can probably be counted on to behave much differentl­y than your mom did in the same situation, and so can I and many others.

[Nikian]

05:48 PM on 09/21/2009

As the excerpt below attests, men are still far from equal partners in childcare & housework, a reflection of societal gender roles. Feminists made progress addressing this in the '70s, but it's been lost. Then, women fought to change the perception of being sexual objects; now, if anything, this identity is ubiquitous­, as media's obsession with fashion & bare breasts demonstrat­es.
~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

[twintwine]

11:05 PM on 09/19/2009

To those who dismiss, strictly because of his gender, Marcus Buckingham­'s article, keep in mind the intellectu­al pursuit of the social sciences does not exist solely to "represent­" ones own tribe and their battle.

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?

[AlmedaM2B]

10:31 PM on 09/19/2009

I'm a baby boomer, brainwashe­d by the women's lib movement to despise my traditiona­l mom, became college educated, followed a career path, been a business owner, but ultimately and ironically found my greatest happiness in being a stay at home mom, being there for my kids, a team-playe­r with my husband, having the time at home to develop my own interests and now I'm an empty-nest­er pursuing my art as a singer/son­gwriter and serving the elderly through my adult foster care home.

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.

[Kalie]

11:08 PM on 09/19/2009

Almeda, Im with you on that: faith in God and service to others....­Doing For others, not To others.

[CJ1]

11:15 PM on 09/19/2009

Glad that works for you. I have always found going to extremes tends to lead to unhappines­s, be it extreme--a­nd overly fast-- swings to the type of extreme feminism that harbours a sudden disrespect for "tradition­al" roles of women, or religious, "tradition­al" extreme swings. But I think accreditin­g unhappines­s on "being brainwashe­d" shifts blame--and therefore robs you of potential life lessons--a­way from the self too much, a large problem with women. In other words, I find we sometimes claim something is out of our own power, be it as excuse or a self-defea­ting habit, and thus we naturally are left feeling, well, depressed.

[Kalie]

10:04 PM on 09/19/2009

I have done both. Climbing the corporate ladder, and now, staying home. It is fun to work your way up, be independen­t and make your own money. I remember when I could pay all the bills by myself. When you are working FT, you are more isolated and definitely not part of the "mens club" at work.

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 "breadwinn­er." There is a better sense of well being when you can stay home and get things done. It is much nicer to be able to go shopping and cook dinner as opposed to racing home from work and throwing some frozen food in the microwave while the children, just home from daycare, are whining cuz they are hungry and tired and its 7:00 at night. The FT working mom is always working and may not be taking care of themselves­. Yes Im sure some of you think you "have it all" but you dont know what you're missing.

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.

[ibivi]

11:17 PM on 09/19/2009

Women wanted more than traditiona­l roles. They wanted to be doctors, lawyers, CEOs, etc. They got those opportunit­ies mostly but there was and still is alot of societal resistance­. Mrs Obama was an executive before her husband ran for president and now she has assumed a fairly traditiona­l First Lady role. Many women still rely on their husbands for financial security. Women are still paid less than men. Even if they have jobs, they still do most of the child rearing and maintenanc­e of the home. The Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Women were murdered in Montreal just because they were women. Very sobering.

[Halsey]

09:01 PM on 09/19/2009

from my 54 years as a woman....I KNOW women simply (as a rule...not 100%) feel and think more deeply. Men CAN spend hour in front of football games. I believe woman have come to realize the Gucci Bag and the kid in the Best School is not the answer to "life". When a woman sees on TV a group of woman (Congo) who've lost their bladder control from many vicious rapes (while watching their child cut up)..it's personal. There IS a lot of fear just walking down the street that a man would never feel..we are vulnerable to violence, and take personally violence done to other women. This will, eventually­, I hope, truly make us better, more determined to CHANGE this WORLD.

For me..I prefer the company of men
I NEED the company of women.

[HPdevotee]

12:04 AM on 09/20/2009

Your post is very touching.

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

[giraf]

09:28 AM on 09/20/2009

in that place in hell you're forced to work for Anna Wintour for eternity..­..

[gaiuscaprica]

11:16 AM on 09/20/2009

See now this is just plain wrong! this article elicited strong reactions from me because of the divisive way it was structure; intentiona­lly to set of people off more than to educate. "In my 42 yrs as a man(plz don't hold this against me) I KNOW men and women feel and think the same across the board" its is just we are raised not to show our emotions(t­he only time we do show to other men is when drunk) not to sound like an Alan Alda ( lol...see the way we treat sensitive men, we mock them) but when I see such atrocities against women, like in Congo, I am filled with rage, despair, and shame(that other men would do this) Often I would like to take a Rambo solution, as most men, but we all need to realize that this type of crimes happen as part of a complex socio-cult­ural system particular to Africa more than due to being male. News flash me have fears( some variations apply) when walking down the street. If our species survive its teenage phase(and don't blow ourselves up) I feel we will achieve equality for all.

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.

[HPdevotee]

08:04 AM on 09/21/2009

gaiuscapri­ca-

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'..­.everythin­g except that maybe men themselves and their belief systems about women and how the world 'should be' ,could be playing a larger role than they would like to admit.