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.

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.

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

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.

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.