Maybe it’s Not Women’s (Un)-Happiness (2)
by: Nancy Vedder-Shults on September 27th, 2009 | 7 Comments »
It’s been interesting to hear my readers’ theories about why women have experienced a decline in happiness in the last 40 years. (Go look at the responses to my first post on this topic). As I said, everyone seems to have their own hypothesis why this might be so. But even though I talked about my own conjectures two days ago, I felt that something was a little off. So I went back to the General Social Survey (GSS) study that everybody’s citing. Lo and behold, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, the authors of the study, make NO claims to know why women’s happiness in the last 40 years seems to be on the decline. And in fact, they suggest that we might want to doubt whether the numbers actually reflect a downswing in women’s personal satisfaction at all.
Stevenson and Wolfers refer to a long-recognized understanding in the social sciences that individuals tend to reply in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others (the so-called “social desirability bias”). Some researchers argue that as a result of the social desirability bias, people in good circumstances may require more to declare themselves content, even though they may actually be happier than people in worse circumstances. Stevenson and Wolfers speculate that women may now feel more comfortable being honest about their true happiness and, as a result, might reduce their previously inflated responses. Or that the increased opportunities available to women may have increased what women require to declare themselves happy. Either way, one indication that we should question the numbers, they say, is the decrease in women’s suicide rates over the last 40 years, while men’s suicide rates have stayed the same! That indicates that at least at the very bottom rung of happiness, women have become happier.
So that’s the first thing I learned: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics,” as Benjamin Disraeli supposedly said long ago. Beware numbers trying to bolster weak arguments, or maybe any arguments whatsoever.
But the other thing I learned is that the change in women’s satisfaction, if it has occured at all, is small. In the early 1970s, women’s purported happiness was somewhat higher than men’s. Specifically 5.1% more women said they were “very happy” than men, while the responses “pretty happy” and “not too happy” were very similar between the sexes. 40 years later, women’s supposed happiness is closer to men’s, but still 1.4% higher than their male counterparts (when answering “very happy” with the other answers again very similar to men’s). The reason this bothers me is the graphs used to show these differences. Marcus Buckingham (whose post started off these ruminations) reprints a graph that really misrepresents these disparities (not his fault — it was used in another analysis of the GSS by Anke Plagnol and Richard Easterlin):
Here’s what the data actually looked like:
Do those graphs look similar to you? They don’t to me. There has obviously been a slight downturn over the last 40 years in women who reported being “very happy.” But it’s not an ever-increasing downward slide (like soon we’ll all be down in the dumps!). The graph of the actual numbers jumps all over the place! And men’s responses sure look pretty flat to me. They’re not going up. So the data don’t support a statement that women have become increasingly unhappy over the last 40 years, as men have become happier. In fact, if we just believed the numbers, women today seem to be just slightly happier than men.
This graphic misrepresentation is just one of my bones to pick with Marcus Buckingham. He states that the trend toward women’s unhappiness is increasing; that men’s happiness is increasing (both of which we’ve seen are either untrue or exaggerations); and — worst of all — that women are to blame for their own unhappiness. Why? Because they tend to focus on their weaknesses more than men do! Here’s what he says:
What we do know for certain is that women are harder on themselves than men. When nationally representative polls of women and men are asked the question, “Which do you think will help you be most successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?” men split right down the middle, whereas 73% of women report they would focus on fixing their weaknesses….Since women, as a group, believe that success flows from drilling down into their weaknesses, and since, as has happened to women over the last 40 years, they’ve gradually acquired more and more domains in which they are supposed to succeed, a researcher would expect to see women characterizing themselves more and more by who they aren’t, becoming more and more self-critical, and more aware of their flaws and failings, all of which might well accelerate these dissatisfaction trend-lines.
If there really were a gender gap for happiness, Buckingham blames the victim for its existence. He’s not the only one (also Maureen Dowd and Ross Douthat). Maybe Buckingham’s book will make up for this little tempest in a teapot. He’s interviewed the happiest and most successful women he could find to discover their secrets. If he doesn’t massage the data too much, those women may have great things to tell us.
I just want to respond to the phrase – “Which do you think will help you be most successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?” men split right down the middle, whereas 73% of women report they would focus on fixing their weaknesses…” Buckingham seems suggest that women have the wrong idea. I have heard it said that America’s real gods are optimism and denial and that allegiance to these gods may be at least partly responsible for the destruction of the earth and other societal problems. It is not considered good to see the dark side and respond to the desire to correct our weaknesses. It is considered good and correct to see our strengths and move on, denying those places in which we are weak and in need of change. If these ways of seeing our lives and the world can be characterized as masculine or feminine, it seems to me that we need an infusion of the feminine. Maybe we need more unhappy people, certainly not those whose despair leads to suicide, but more who want to work on our weaknesses and not deny that we have them.
Excuse me for not having read every word in this discussion. Work does interfere with enjoyment, sometimes. An overview brings to mind that we might, first and always, look to the orientation–perspective–of the person making the observation–including any “misinterpretation” of those damn statistics.
Somewhere, DNA (?) the bio-chemical “X” vs. “Y” discernment, something may be working its subtle massage. Females who accept the patriarchal POV and/or have a predisposition to different attitudes, may, unknowingly, misinterpret “facts.”
I remember early comments by Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, that she and other female archaeologists began their contribution to the field by reinterpreting (seeing again) artifacts that male colleagues had ignored or interpreted differently. Is the cat half alive, half dead, dead or alive? All is interpretation.
Thanks, Deb and Gwendoline, for your comments.
Deb, I like the idea that America’s real gods are optimism and denial. I know that denial runs our lives here. In fact, I began to write a book about how it operates in seven different areas of American life. But the idea that optimism is another of our gods certainly corresponds with a strong use of denial. If we repress what we consider negative (that’s denial), what we’re left with is optimism. Thanks for that observation!
Gwendoline, Your comments about point of view, and how it makes all the difference, reminds me of how I bawdlerize the parable of the blind men and the elephant. I believe that life is so complicated that we need everyone’s point of view to figure it out. The one blind man may understand the elephant’s leg, another the trunk, etc., and together we can put it all together to construct a more complete understanding of our lives. P.S. I think you mean Marija Gimbutas, the archaeologist. Riane Eisler popularized Gimbutas’ work.
Is the Feminist Culture Harmful to Women?
A recent analysis finds that happiness and the sense of well-being and satisfaction has declined among women, both in constant terms and also in comparison to men. The decline is found across various investigations, across various measures of subjective well-being and satisfaction with life, across various demographic groups, and within numerous industrialized countries.
The findings are from the General Social Survey [i], which is the largest sociology project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and is considered highly authoritative. Aside from the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences.
How strong is the decline for women relative to men? In 1972, in the initial surveys, the average woman had a 3+ percentile happiness advantage relative to the average man, while in 2006, in the last samplings, she was 1+ percentile behind. The figures add up to a 4½ percentile decrease in happiness for women in comparison to men over the 35 year span of the study. The investigators note that a change of such magnitude should be considered quite substantial.
While various explanations are proposed, we look here at the feminist position that women are oppressed and always have but are a special class of humans who can accomplish wondrous things once the forces of oppression have been overthrown. In spite of widening workplace opportunities, women find that it is not easy to accomplish great things and still raise a family and have a free moment to oneself. It is a tough world out there, indifferent to our fantasies and barely responsive to our best efforts. Inflated expectations are a standard recipe for failure and despair.
What about the ideology that women are oppressed? “Women are oppressed” usually means “oppressed by men,” so in the active voice the message is that “Men oppress women.” Naturally, the more one believes that, the more resentful she will be toward men, and the less understanding she will be toward her alleged oppressors.
A recent survey found that 33% of women “often or very often” resent men, while only 14% of men are highly resentful of women. Public condemnation towards men has obviously increased over the last 40 years, and surely contributes to the pandemic of personal resentments toward men.
Angry women tend to feel empowered when they express their anger, but then returned to the blahs and emptiness once the anger is spent. “I have become increasingly angry,” comments Gloria Steinem, “as the alternative is depression.” Overall, anger is a quick fix followed by a lingering headache.
Psychotherapists who challenge anger and seek to reduce it are not as popular with their clients but have better outcomes, while therapists who support anger and encourage its expression are more popular but have worse outcomes. Anger reduction, reconciliation, and a heartfelt understanding and appreciation of family and friends is fundamentals to healthy living. It is a mainstay in Christianity and in most other religious teachings.
The hardships and general meaninglessness of life are problems that we all confront and probably always will. Yet increasing animosities toward our opposites is hardly a viable solution and appears to broaden a general malaise among women and nudge possible solutions farther out of reach.
by Richard Driscoll, PhD.
Author of Opposites as Equals, with Nancy Ann Davis, PhD.
[i] Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, “The paradox of declining female happiness.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2009, 1:2, 190-225.
http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/WomensHappiness.pdf
Richard,
Thanks for your comments. I can see that you have thought long and hard about these issues, but have a very different perspective from mine. I think we part company when you redefine “women are oppressed” to mean “men oppress women.” It may be true that in particular cases, men oppress women, but that’s not the point. Instead what is meant by this phrase is that it’s the institutions that have been created by men for men in a culture created by men that oppress women. This can, and very often does, mean that no individual man is involved in the oppression. Its the social structures, institutions, customs, etc. that (I believe) have outlived their usefulness that oppress women.
I think this would be clearer if I translated it into racial rather than gender terms. When we say that “African Americans are oppressed,” we don’t mean that individual white people are oppressing blacks (although that may be true in some cases). What we’re saying is that as a result of the history of slavery and reconstruction and the lack of educational and employment opportunities (until recently), blacks end up economically, socially, even medically one-down.
In the case of women’s oppression, you actually speak about some of the issues that continue to oppress us: the assumption that women will raise the children and do the homework, giving them less free time than men. That certainly might lead to resentment. in fact, since the 1960s, men have gradually stopped participating in pursuits they find unpleasant, while women are working just as hard, then as now, on things they don’t like. There’s been a shift in which activities those include – more paid work and less housework – but the bottom line is that women spend 90 minutes a day more than men doing what they would rather not do. In 1969 it was only 40 minutes, i.e. today women are still losing out – by almost an hour a day MORE than 40 years ago. That makes me unhappy just to think about it.
While I agree with you that anger is not going to get women what they want — instead what we need is to organize and educate so that we are not expected to do more than our male counterparts, either at home or at work — I also know that many women have reasons to be angry. This will change as the culture shifts towards greater equality when it comes to domestic work.
The impression of unfairness leads to resentment and unhappiness.
Nancy,
Many thanks for your comments back. I see that you too have given some of these issues a great deal of consideration.
In spite of opposing positions, it seems that we may have one major point of agreement: I wonder if we can agree that it is the impression of unfairness that makes individuals angry and unhappy, as much as it is actual fairness.
You mention that women have less free time than men, and that that makes you unhappy, which sounds reasonable. Yet I have read over a half dozen surveys suggesting that men and women work about the same number of hours overall, and have about the same amount of free time. (earlier surveys referenced below).
Might you be pleased that multiple surveys suggest a more equitable balance of labor? As surveys suggesting women do more work make you angry and unhappy, might surveys that indicate equal workloads make you slower to anger and more appreciative of men?
So far as feminists absorb and profess whatever says “unfair” but ignore or reject the more benign information, then we might expect that resentment will continue to increase among women and that happiness will continue to decline.
Dr. D
Richard Driscoll
Information is from Opposites as Equals, by Driscoll and Nancy Ann Davis, PhD
References:
[i] An early University of Maryland study tracked over 5,000 Americans and found that we have about equal free time: Men had 41 hours of free time a week and women had 40 hours.
[ii] A early University of Michigan study, looking at jobs, commuting, childcare, housework and yard work, found that the average husband works 61 hours per week while wives average 56 hours.
[iii] Another Michigan group found that around the world, men averaged 16 hours of housework while women averaged 24 hours. Men also average 37 hours of paid work outside the home, while women average 24. If anyone is keeping score, that means that men total 53 combined hours of work, while women total 51 hours.
[i] J. Robinson, University of Maryland, 1985. See Marsha Mercer, “Americans May Have More Free Time Than They Realize.” Scripps-Howard News Service, Aug. 7, 1991.
[ii] F.T. aJuster and F. Stafford, “The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement.” Journal of Economic Literature, 29, June 1991, 477; see Farrell, 1994.
[iii] Dirk Johnson, “Until Dust Do Us Part,” Newsweek, March 25, 2002, 41.
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