Why has feminism failed to make women happier?

Question

Research shows that women are less happy today than in 1975

http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf

Also I heard on the radio just now that new research finds women were also happier in the 1950s than today (I will post the source when I locate a link).

Why has feminism failed to make women happier?

Has 'liberation' made women unhappy?

Answer 1

I think it is because we are forced into feminism by today's society...I am a general well educated woman. When I chose to get out of the work force to be a stay at home mom to my daughter I was ask why I let my husband make me quit. It was my idea and decision to stay home. Why do woman have to be working moms. If that is what a woman wants great but we all don't want it. Those of us who choose to just be wives and mothers are looked at as uneducated and unable to care for ourselves. People should not experience backlash for personal and family decision the public has no right to judge working mothers, stay at home moms, or for that matter stay at home dads.

Answer 2

because its bulling guys maybe?

Answer 3

People who resented the emancipation of Black slaves in the U.S. frequently mentioned in their diaries that I read as a hobby, "Blacks are not as happy now that they are free as when they were slaves."  Even many Blacks themselves bemoaned the end of slavery and the harsh reality of no longer being clothed, housed and fed by a master who did all the thinking for them.  Oh, well.

Feminism did not fail to make women happy because making women happy is not typically a goal of political movements.  Making women happy is not ANYONE'S goal or responsibility.  There's far more research, by the way, that supports the better health, mental / physical, for women who call themselves feminist than for women who support "traditional" roles for women.  The epidemic of depression among "traditional" women such as Mormon women, women over 55 with no job skills, women with more than two children, fundamental Christians, etc. is disturbing.

Answer 4

Actualisation! You want to know why? Because even in today's society women are seen as nothing more than fun little things men can have, or say anything to with no consequence.

You don't think women want to be taken seriously and have the same respect a man has in his every day life? I would love that! Why am I not happy? Because we as a populace are digressing and women seem to be at the receiving end of all the scrutiny and injustice.

I want nothing more than to do my honest days work and take care of myself. But for some strange reason if I don't lap it up when some disgusting old man slaps me on the **** then I m not a woman! Well you know what I say to that; **** off. I want equality, I want to be taken seriously and I want respect given when I have spent 4 years in uni to run my business.

Answer 5

Feminism is about discontent, anger, and demands for what most women don't really want.  The ones that buy into it usually end up miserable and divorced.

Answer 6

Coz nowadays women think alot than last time. =]

Answer 7

I'm willing to bet that people in general are less happy than they were in 1975.  The economy is tanking.  Americans work harder than workers in any other country - we even work more than the Japanese.  Yet our wages and benefits are falling like a rock, we're dealing with inflation and the dollar is falling like a rock.  The government is slashing things like law enforcement, leading to more crime, and people are more afraid.

Answer 8

I think feminism in itself won't make staunch feminists happy, one needs to look deeper and find out why feminism first came to be. What caused some women to turn to feminism?

In the 1950's the war was over, the boys were home, the restrictions were lifted, and the economy was reviving. Women were given another purpose in life; to find a husband. The terrible loss of male lives during the war left a population disparity between the sexes that was all too real. Good Housekeeping (magazine) frantically warned women that 1 in 7 of them would be forced to live alone all her life. There was a flood of women's magazines that doled out advice on how good ol' Rosie could "reinvent" herself in order to attract a husband. They set impossibly high standards, with advertisements spotlighting the ironic combination of glamour in an everyday household setting.

The ultimate example of this newly found, and strongly forced, image of femininity is in the Mrs. America pageant. Mrs. America was intended to represent the pinnacle of domestic life and married bliss. The contest included activities such as mopping the floor and making a perfectly taut bed. All of this was done, of course, in a full New Look skirt atop stiletto heels. This was the decade of the fashionable, glamorous homemaker. Women began baking apple pies and vacuuming the house in heels, dress and fully made up faces.

Fortunately women woke up and realised that there is more to life than being the maid who sleeps with the boss (man of the house), so women evolved yet again into the strong and independent women you see today. Women are constantly evolving. God bless women!

Answer 9

Who said the goal was to make them happy?

It was to give a level playing field so that they can have choices

Any man know you can't make a woman happy, thats just plain silly

Answer 10

I read about ten pages of the study and on only the second page I encountered this sentence: "technological change in the form of new domestic appliances has freed women from domestic drudgery"

Now, anyone who doesn't live in a box in the desert knows this is a trick sentence. Sorting out the laundry, putting the laundry in the machine dragging it out and drying/ironing/folding it doesn't happen by magic. Neither does the vacuum cleaner and the duster, the cooking or the dozen other things still mostly performed by women in addition to a full-time job.

That's the source of unhappiness, gaining potential benefits yet still having to do all the drudgery as well. False emancipation.

Answer 11

That link is regarding women in the US - rather than women affected worldwide by feminism.  Women in the US have some of the least maternity pay / leave / employment rights in the developed world - is it any wonder they aren't happy?  :-)

Also interesting to note...

"Women today are far less likely to report low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, poor health or severe depression than in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s."

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/9011,opini...

Answer 12

because they themselves want to be equal with men..

and also because freakin men just dont think that they both can be equal..

Answer 13

there is this thing we call 'positionality' they maybe categorized women, but they differ from their social positions, women in the upper strata of society maybe happy because they can afford to have all the materials things they need, but unhappy becasue even if they can buy those that are non-material still the thought of them buying the not supposed to be bought ....... make them inducing happiness ..... on the contrary .... women who have less in life maybe unhappy because they cannot afford to buy .... manolo blanik or jimmy choo ..... but those who have less would not aspire for it since they dont have a feel of it .... so they would not have that feeling of unsatisfaction. thus .... they maybe more satisfied and happy.

Answer 14

Feminism was never out to make women happy but to make men suffer for their forefather's mistakes:

http://nzmera.orcon.net.nz/femqotes.html

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

Which makes a lot of sense. Your great-great-grandfather killed my great-great-grandmother, so I kill you. This is the kind of logic one can expect from active feminists.

Feminism got all laws that discriminate against men, but also forced women to work, taught them men were their enemies against whom they had to compete and beat, and said women could do anything men could. Otherwise, these women would be teased as 'not real women' or 'supporters of the patriarchy'.

Were women happy? No.

I mean, women have enough to do besides enter the corporate world and prove their worth. I've always asked women: "Why do you feel the need to prove your worth? Do you not think anybody thinks you're worth as much as them? Why do you become like men to prove a point?"

Then, I ask the leading question: "Do you have a low self-esteem? No offence meant, but you don't seem to think you're worth much if you don't try everything men do."

I'm yet to receive a sensible answer.

How can they answer me, when it is not their fault, but feminism's? Feminists have told women that men are their enemies for decades, and they must be beaten at their game. I'm sure women are realizing how fun it is to 'play our game'. There is a reason it is called 'work'.

Feminists have projected everything men did but women did not as 'fun only men could have'. Now women are getting drunk, are disorderly, and more violent.

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

Not to mention rising suicide rates among women as the stress of the workplace catches up. Having 'fun', aren't you?

Women are less happy than in the 70's in the west, because they've been brainwashed by feminists and told to do everything men did.

Answer 15

Because women have been encouraged to believe that they must 'have it all' in order to be happy.  They have been taught to despise the idea of staying at home and looking after the children.  The women of the 50s, who were glad to be able to escape the drudgery of the workplace and focus on their families, are derided.

On the other hand, the women of an earlier generation who believed that if a woman wanted to be succesful at a career, she stayed single and concentrated on that, are derided as well.  That's not good enough either.  In order for a woman to be considered a success, she must have a career, a husband and a family.  This is contrary to the philosophy of such determined careerist spinsters like Florence King, for instance, who wrote "He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for women."  In 'Reflections in a Jaundiced eye' she wrote:

'When feminism awoke from its long sleep in the sixties, i assumed it would be a movement for careerist spinsters who chose to renounce marriage and motherhood for a life of the mind lived with spartan simplicity and dedicated to professional achievement.  What else, after all, could "women's liberation" mean?

  I soon found out.  In no time, the movement split along two pseudo-feminist fault lines, the Lunatic Fringe and the Lunatic Wharp and Woof.  The former consisted of Ti-Grace Atkinson, L*****n seperatists and guerilla theatres like WITCH and SCUM.  The latter consisted of frustrated suburban housewives roused by the melancholy seal barks of Betty Friedan.

  To isolate the Lunatic Fringe and make feminism "nice" the Lunatic Warp and Woof took pains to tailor the movement to fit the needs of "mainstream" women - that is, married women.  They were losing their minds, said Friedan, because they weren't realizing their potential.  Thanks to the marvels of technology, housework was now so easy that it could be done in an hour or two, but married women were still stuck at home because our patriarchal Judaeo-Christian heritage denied them access to all the competitive, achieving, aggressive, assertive, dress-for-success fun.  To this end, when Friedan called a Women's Strike Day she devised a slogan that had housewife written all over it "Don't Iron While the Strike Is Hot."

  Wife-and-mother feminism encouraged women to Have It All.  As soon as they found out what this cavalier phrase meant, they started complaining like Victorian invalids.  The housework that Friedan claimed took only an hour or two was killing them, they were too tired to burgeon, too conflicted to nurture, too busy to bond, too guilty to affirm.  They wanted to be able to put their families first without being accused of neglecting their careers, and at the same time, to put their careers first without being accused of neglecting their families.

  Feminism's first duty is to give all women a good name, but pseudo-feminism has done the opposite.  Countless employers have now found that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the boat; most married women with small children are no use to anyone unless the stock exchange is hiring amok-runners.  The ceaseless demands of pseudo-feminists and their arrogant premise that the corporate world exists  to provide women with careers regardless of cost and upheavel have caused so much hostility and resentment that sexism and misogyny have been rejuvinated and the phrase "women n' children" is running together like "damnyankee." '

Answer 16

Feminism sold the idea that women have to act and think like men to be "complete."

The things that came naturally to a women and the things once cherished by women were labeled "traditional" and an automatic stigma followed.

Women have been deluded into thinking that a career will make them more successful and happy than having a family.

Some women are perfectly happy in their career without the family.

...But some women might just have been happier if they weren't misled into thinking that marriage and family were oppressive prisons to avoid.

Work isn't as glamorous as the feminists have insisted.

Men don't appreciate the disrespect that comes with feminist teachings and relationships suffer as a result.

Men are now scared to ask women out at work for fear of sexual harassment lawsuits. ...Men are avoiding marriage due to the laws that have slanted overwhelmingly in the woman's favor in the event of a divorce.

Feminist laws have damaged society.

Women found all that out the hard way.

EDIT:

Amorphop...

I have studied feminism for years.  I have read feminist books.  I have read non-feminist books.  I go to both feminist and non-feminist blogs and websites all the time.

This is a hobby of mine.

It fascinates me.

It's amazing to see how many people refuse to and are scared to analyze feminism as it stands today and based on the actions of feminists... not the claims of feminists.

"Formal" education on feminism?  You mean like women's studies?

Here's why I haven't even bothered with that:

http://www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lope...

http://www.iwf.org/news/show/19778.html

Would you listen to what "Republican Studies" had to say about politics and believe that you were given an unbiased and balanced study?

Exactly... that's why a one-sided approach to gender studies is also a bad idea.

Answer 17

Because if a man had any brains, he would steer well away from feminists - that is, the radically extremist, world-dominatory ones that compromise a large majority of the montrous women in G&WS.

Answer 18

Because the underlying agenda has nothing to do with making women happy.  It's a combination of man haters and money mongers being at the heart.  Of course, the slogan is meant to look like a happy and cheerful thing for women.  How else are you going to get so many on board?

Big business loves it because they can now employ twice as many people for about the same cost because the labor supply nearly doubled while the labor demand remained the same and even dropped in many areas.

Man haters also have a huge stake in it.  As they would do anything to, in their eyes, take power away from men.  And make them second class citizens.

The happiest women I've ever seen are the ones who don't have to work for money.  Heck, I know I'd be happier, too.

While, I'm sure there are some women who love their careers or whatever.  There are far more who now have no choice but to work because it now requires two incomes for one household in many situations.

----------

Sabrina and Love Canada bring up a good point.  You can't satisfy women.  http://www.wltc.org/Documents/HusbandSto...

But, their dissatisfaction has gotten greater since the onset of feminism.  That's the point here.

Answer 19

Because the increase of "choice" is an illusion.  I have recently experienced the discovery that there is now a right and wrong answer to the question:  "What do you do for fun?"

It's not okay to think that reading a book is more fun than flying down the road on a gas-guzzling, two-wheeled death machine.  It's not okay to think that a quiet conversation with a trusted friend is more fun than being surrounded by strangers in a place where the music is so loud that you can't hear anyone to even have a conversation.

There is no "liberation".  We're unhappy because we're being forced to deny our own nature.

Answer 20

That's making things too simple. Feminism has opened up many doors for women — never a bad thing. But this has led to women becoming more aware of what they're capable of, and therefore having higher expectations for their lives. This is always an occupational hazard of liberation.

Answer 21

well,as a female,maybe it's bacause human are never satisfied...we always strive for the better...

when we are good in something,we would aim for higher results.this causes us to feel sad as we can never be satisfied with what we have...