Women's Happiness Isn't A Dead Deer on the Dining Room Table

"He comes back with dinner, and he has shot it! They are happy. American women don't have anyone hunting for them -- that's the real problem," wrote author Michael Silverstein in the October 26th issue of the New Yorker.

That's what he's got: Men hunting for dinner?

Well then.

Over the last month, men like Silverstein and author Marcus Buckingham have been grabbing headlines on highly trafficked blog sites and appearing on the pages of well regarded magazines talking about women's unhappiness in response to recent studies, including one published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, which show that women's happiness over the past couple of decades is declining. And however subtly done, the message is the same: Women, you, and your fight for equality, are responsible for your own unhappiness.

During this same time period, the women of the United States quietly became half of the entire paid labor force in our nation for the first time.

It's a Half-Lash: The backlash from women becoming half of the paid labor force.

In reality it's not such a mystery why so many women are reporting that they are unhappy.

Despite recent reporting trends, just because women are now half of the labor force doesn't mean that it's time to stop fighting for equal pay for equal work, and instead pop Prozac while waxing philosophical about possible roots of unhappiness as we await hunting hubbies to bring in venison.

It's time for the national media to interview some women. We know why we're unhappy. Let's break it down:

Economic inequality: Overall, women make 77 cents to every man's dollar. One study found that women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar, mothers make 73 cents, and single mothers make the least, at about 60 cents to a man's dollar -- stats that should keep you up at night given that 80% of American women become mothers by the time they are forty-four years old. Studies show that passing family-friendly policies -- like paid family leave and assessable childcare -- lower the wage gaps.

Political inequality: Women comprise only 17% of our national legislature, despite being 51% of the population. We now rank a low 70th of all nations in terms of women's representation in national legislatures.

Why are women unhappy? The fact that the feminist revolution is mid-course and some are calling it over just because women now number half of the labor force is a reason for unhappiness. The fact that we don't have family-friendly policies which most other nations take as a given is another reason for unhappiness.

We're not moving forward, we're falling behind. According to international gender equality ratings just released by the World Economic Forum, the United States fell four spots from last year. We now stand at 31st place, just behind Lithuania. Further, falling behind hurts us all: Right now there are only 15 women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, despite that more than 50% of college graduates are now women and despite, importantly, that recent studies show that Fortune 500 companies with women in leadership are actually doing better fiscally in this tough economic environment.

It's a Half-Lash all right. But this blowback from becoming half of the labor force shouldn't hinder women's fight for equal pay for equal work, and for, yes, happiness.

With 50% of the labor force, women have come a long way. But we haven't arrived yet. Overall, women are increasingly educated and employed, but still must fight to pass family-friendly policies like paid family leave, affordable childcare, fair pay laws, health care for all, flexible work options, and paid sick days, which also protect those recovering from domestic abuse and assault. Studies show such policies help everyone with both the fiscal and family bottom lines -- businesses, non-mothers, mothers, women, and men alike -- and passing family-friendly policies go a long ways toward taking the next step toward women's happiness: Breaking down the Maternal Wall that stands in the way of most women ever getting close to the glass ceiling.

The paychecks women bring in are increasingly needed to keep families financially afloat. It's time now to bring our workplace policies up to date to the realities of a changed labor force so women, and men, can be happier and, yes, more productive overall.

A long line of women in this nation have fought for equality. Just 89 years ago women got the right to vote. Yet we still need equal pay for equal work, proportional representation, fair treatment, and our own voices in the media.

A dead deer on the dining table isn't going to solve this rampant unhappiness, but fair pay and family-friendly policies will make a significant dent. Let's get moving.

 

Follow Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rowefinkbeiner

Comments

[women-make-news]

I agree with Rowe-Finkbeiner, let's find out why women are unhappy. Do they feel underpaid, overworked at home? What is stressing them out?

Weren't they unhappy before 1/2 of us were working? isn't that what Friedan found out?

It's very frustrating to seem to move forward in society and then realize there hasn't been much progress. I agree we need to work on equal pay, equal representation and egalitarian domestic relationships.

Also, as my mother says, happiness is not a state of being, it's a moment.

[yogandclimber]

"Survey: Americans happy at work — especially women, seniors

The survey found that women (64%) are among the happiest in the workplace, as are workers between 34-54 years of age (64%), those over 55 (70%) and those who are married (62%)."

http://oregonbusinessreport.com/2009/08/survey-americans-happy-at-work-especially-women-seniors/

[MaryfromIL]

Ugh, my friend's husband brings home venison all the time. You couldn't pay me to eat that stuff. Off the topic, but couldn't resist from the title.

[minerva117]

Now me, I'm recently widowed, and I have three men out hunting for venison for me. That's about the only thing I have going for me right now.
If the deer is young and corn-fed, it tastes like lean beef. It's much better for you, too. And the best part of all, it's processed in my clean kitchen by people with clean hands and clean tools.
As for the unhappiness thing, I'd say my reason is pretty clear.

[Troyxx]

Let's face it: most men are insecure little boys who only think with their phalluses, and anything that threatens their precious little joystick makes them very nervous and impotent. This insecurity can be seen on a much greater scale in Muslim countries. There, to avoid any threat to their little appendage, they bundle the women up from head to toe and treat them like cattle. Of course, in that perverted context, that kind of behavior acts as an aphrodisiac for, to the men, it would be tantamount to having sex with an animal or any creature that is directly under their control. Pretty sad! Sock it to them, girls.

[lisakaz2]

This column is correct and so are you. I've seen what threatening (as a perception or misperception really) does. The closer I got to a PhD the more the guy I was with pulled away. Within about a year he married a woman who never went to college. I taught a class that largely had women in it but there were 4 guys. They all sat together. One in particular talked a great deal and was openly confrontational when he or the others didn't like something or whatever I said didn't support their preconceived simplistic binary notions. Then all of 'em wrote final papers where they all claimed victimhood status like they had been persecuted (which was in their heads as a bunker mentality).

This is what is sooo funny about men condemning Muslim practices against women. You KNOW they secretly like such things because in their own ways (if more subtle) they do the same thing.

[seawolf77]

I had a freind who got divorced and his wife being the main breadwinner got the lion's share of the assets. He moved in with his sister in Atlanta, unemployed and broke, and began online dating. He said he got more action than he knew what to do with. As soon as he got a job paying almost $100,000 a year and moved to Greenville he could not BUY a date. What you describe is adrogynous. The big green monster is neuter.

[squiems]

funny, if a man said that muslim women prefer to be treated the way they are (in fact muslim women insist they enjoy not being sexually objectified), you would all scream that they are brainwashed. Yet here you are insisting that all men here would love to treat women the way they are treated in muslim countries. A (sexist) double standard if i've ever seen one.

[lakeharriet]

The men's rights movement seems to have triumphed in recent years. The internet is flooded with pornography that encourages violence against women and children. Women and children are impoverished in divorces while the former husband and father prospers. Men don't even have to carry out their own wars! Now they have young women doing the dirty work plus serving as comfort women. Our society is more phallocentric than ever.

[lisakaz2]

Yep. That's why women are unhappy. Call it a credibility gap. Women were fed a narrative about progress and individual equality and experiences do not match these claims. They didn't for me.

[BonnieNesbitt]

I think we all were fed a narrative- and the past 30 years there has been I win, you lose mentality in our country. We have lost our social contract with each other. Competition is trumping everything else. We force our kids on this insane k-12 competition, resulting in cheating, stress, and disfunctional behaviors (read Dr. Madeline Levines' work The Price of Privilege). The job market is tight, so everyone is working as many hours as necessary, thankful for a job. There is no job security, no loyalty, no pay equity. It's not man vs. woman, it's 95% of us vs. the top 1-5% with increasingly all of the money.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

Money equals happiness! I knew it!

Or is it just making as much money as men equals happiness???

I'm confused...

[MARY STACK]

HOW CAN WOMEN BE HAPPIER? DECIDE FOR YOURSELF AND STAY ON THE PATH THAT YOU FIND "more productive overall".

[mags weston]

Exactly! No BLANKET statements. My happiness can not be measured by nor compared to any other woman's level of happiness.

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

Nicely put. Nothing like a few facts.

[valkyrie607]

I wouldn't say no to some venison, but I'd trade it for guaranteed paid maternal/paternal leave for both sexes in a second. That would go a long way towards narrowing the pay gap. And it would make men happier and more involved in their families as well.

[yogandclimber]

Women are just getting to 50% of the workforce so that means they are less experienced and you're comparing it to men who have been working longer. Is there a statistic that compares woman worker's pay with men worker's pay with equal experience? That said, if women of same experience are getting less than men of the same experience then that's not fair.

[donitacurioso]

Do you know what year it is?

[yogandclimber]

It's 2010 and what is your point?

[been2there]

A large part of the problem is that society still does not respect "women's work." Men who enjoy home-making are not given the respect they deserve, and women who stay with children get hit both financially and emotionally. When people understand that raising children--which includes such things as room mothering (fothering), PTA, band parent, making scenery and costumens for theatre...­..--should earn as good a retirement as "men's work," then we will be approaching equality.

[RightWingMarine]

the jobs you list do not generate income. When it comes time to evaluate which parent has the more valuable time the one with the job wins because that is the parent that keeps the family in a home.
I'm not sure who you believe should pay the retirement of a housewife to achieve equality.

[mydwyf]

Oh but they do generate income.
If someone has to pay someone else to do them.
Let's see : nanny, maid, nurse, cook, chauffeur, preschool teacher, secretary,
bookeeper, etc. etc.
In my case, add construction laborer, and tractor and heavy equipment driver.

That's quite a bit of 'income'.

You fail to see that there would be no 'family to keep in the home' if all those tasks were
not undertaken by someone who is usually not paid to do them.

Oh, and I am never happier than when cutting up a moose quarter. It's so interesting
to take animals apart and end up with lots of nice neatly wrapped freezer packages.
Except I do it on the kitchen counter, not on the dining room table.

[harveyr2]

Why are women unhappy? Because they now realize, that regardless of remuneration ratios, working is a far less fulfilling activity than raising a family.

[mags weston]

Pretty much... bought into the trash G. Steinem sold years ago, trivializing the role of women.

[Catriona]

Rubbish! I can't imagine myself, or any women I know, spending years stuck at home with small children. I happily worked and raised my children.

[mags weston]

Good for you, Catriona, you sound really happy that you "weren't stuck" at home all those years. I took a break from work to raise my small children. I love it! And in a few years, I will be back working. And I'll love that too..... but working will never come at the expense of my family. My happiness lies in their happiness and quite frankly, the two words my husband never, EVER wants to hear from me are that I'm tired and/or unhappy.

[luciadulu]

Thank you for putting some real numbers and statistics to these issues! "Happy" is such a vague, subjective word, and I wish they hadn't used it in the study: it practically begs for the dismissive "women are just too emotional" reflexive response from lawmakers and (apparently) journalists.

Women AND men would be more satisfied if workplaces adopted the pro-family policies of other western nations. We talk big about family values, but we don't act like we value families at all.

[kapalabhati]

Someone posted on this site the other day that the reason women earn less than men is that they work less. I almost had a stroke.

Great post. Thank you.

[squiems]

If women really made 77 cents to every dollar men made, don't you think somebody, somewhere, would hire only women and save themselves a lot of money? The fact that that never happens suggests that the issue might be a little bit deeper than the self-victimizing feminist movement makes it, don't you tihnk?

[guard]

There are indeed a number of factors affecting differences in pay. One is the total amount of time spent on the job. Women may take maternity leave and may spend years out of the work force simply deciding they would like to raise a family. Meanwhile, a male advances.

[sombrero]

Women generally earn same or similar amount as men do in the same jobs (otherwise that would be flat-out discrimination) BUT male-dominated occupations are generally better paid than female-dominated ones, e.g. construction workers paid more than nurses, hence the difference.

[RightWingMarine]

that would make sense. Why pay a man more when a woman employee can do the same work for less?
The writer complains that there aren't as many female CEOs as there are male CEOs. Businesses typically only hire one at a time and I suspect that very few of them base their criteria on gender. I suggest that many women fall behind their male couter-parts because they chose to take time off for family reasons. They chose to have a child, they choose to have one parent stay with the child for so many months or years, they choose to have a parent stay with the child when they are ill or take them to the doctor. The business doesn't stop just because this employee has a family. When the time for promotions come up the company evaluates who has done what for the company and that is all that matters. The company doesn't care that you want a baby and took time off to have one and the stockholders care even less.

[ADP4]

This is a really helpful article-- thanks for doing the research with those links to more information. And amen to this: "The paychecks women bring in are increasingly needed to keep families financially afloat. It's time now to bring our workplace policies up to date to the realities of a changed labor force so women, and men, can be happier and, yes, more productive overall."

We've found this to be true for our family, especially since my spouse is a state worker and we've dealt with the furlough blows to the paycheck.

[WayneSmith]

Every democracy that has at least 30% women in its legislative assembly uses a proportional voting system. More info: http://www.fairvote.org