Much has been made of a study which claims that feminist women are less happy than non-feminist women, and that women of all ideologies are happier in more traditional relationships. I’ve been hesitant to write about this one, because so many of the reviews of it have been so simplistic and silly. But this Slate article is quite good:
What’s really going on here? The conservative explanation, of course, is that the findings suggest that women don’t know what they really want (as John Tierney implied in the New York Times, and Charlotte Allen suggested in the Los Angeles Times). Feminism, they argue, has only undermined the sturdy institution of marriage for everyone.
Which, of course, is bullshit — individual women want what they want. There isn’t a universal key to happiness (and if there is, I don’t think John Tierney will be the one to give it to us). No one ever asks, “What do men want?” because men, we recognize, are diverse individuals with differing values, desires, needs and goals. I’m sure if they did similar exhaustive studies on men, they would find that particular classes of men were less happy than others. Ok. But I doubt anyone would be using that as “evidence” that there’s a single way of life that is best for all men, or that a particular ideology has led them all astray.
What is left out of both lines of argument are the strange ways that rising expectations play into happiness. The sexual revolution tried to free women and men from set-in-stone roles. But the irony turns out to be that having a degree of certainty about what you want (and being in a peer group that feels the same way) is helpful in making people happy. Having more choices about what you want makes you less likely to be happy with whatever choice you end up settling on. Choosing among six brands of jam is easy. But consumers presented with 24 types often leave the supermarket without making a purchase. In much the same way, the more you scrutinize a relationship, the more likely you are to find fault with it. The study’s authors, W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, speculate that fault-finding on the part of wives makes it hard for men to do the emotional work that stabilizes marriages. Meanwhile, traditionalist women—a significant portion of whom are Christian—expect less emotional work from their husbands, Wilcox and Nock speculate, which makes it easier for them to shake off frustrations, and less likely to nag. Whether or not any of this is the case, we do know that traditional marriages have the advantage of offering clearly defined roles. And traditionalist wives have a peer group fundamentally in agreement about what it wants and expects from husbands, creating a built-in support system.
Word. It’s harder to be happier when your political ideology demands that you go through life examining your relationship and raising your expectations. If you believe that men are “naturally” less emotional, and their primary job is to bring home a paycheck, a husband who shows up and pays the bills will satisfy you. But if you believe that men are a whole lot more than that, you’re going to be dissatisfied when they don’t live up to your expectations.
Basically, getting a lobotomy could make your every-day existence “happier.” Reading the news, reading books, and being aware of everything that is so profoundly fucked-up in our culture and our society might make you less happy, particularly when it clicks that you are a member of a class that is routinely discriminated against, undervalued and shut out of power. Just call me Eve, but I’ll take knowledge over blissful ignorance.
Consider the evidence that evangelical women—who in general endorse traditional gender roles—are better at adjusting psychologically to situations they don’t find ideal than feminists are. Studies of evangelical wives who have to work for financial reasons show that, as rigid as gender roles are in their community, women are fairly adept at being what sociologist Sally Gallagher calls “pragmatically egalitarian.” That is, they continue to be happy with the division of labor, and to see their husbands as providers, even though they’d prefer to be at home. It’s a kind of utilitarian double-think, Gallagher and others argue—and it helps explain why traditionalist women who work might consider themselves happier than feminists who are still struggling to feel secure in their decisions.
Makes sense. Particularly when the communities that traditional women operate in reinforce their choices as the “best” ones. Progressive communities don’t do that, because we don’t believe that there is a single “best” one-size-fits-all choice.
the highbrow Examining the cultural elite.
Desperate Feminist Wives
Why wanting equality makes women unhappy.
By Meghan O’Rourke
Posted Monday, March 6, 2006, at 7:35 PM ET
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.
In The Feminine Mystique, the late Betty Friedan attributed the malaise of married women largely to traditionalist marriages in which wives ran the home and men did the bread-winning. Her book helped spark the sexual revolution of the 1970s and fueled the notion that egalitarian partnerships—where both partners have domestic responsibilities and pursue jobs—would make wives happier. Last week, two sociologists at the University of Virginia published an exhaustive study of marital happiness among women that challenges this assumption. Stay-at-home wives, according to the authors, are more content than their working counterparts. And happiness, they found, has less to do with division of labor than with the level of commitment and “emotional work” men contribute (or are perceived to contribute). But the most interesting data may be that the women who strongly identify as progressive—the 15 percent who agree most with feminist ideals—have a harder time being happy than their peers, according to an analysis that has been provided exclusively to Slate. Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women—who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for—are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed.
Of course, conclusions like these are never cut-and-dried. This study is based on surveys conducted between 1992 and 1994, and measuring marital happiness is a little like trying to quantify sex appeal. But the data are nonetheless worth pausing over, especially if, like me, you’ve long subscribed to the view that so-called companionate couples have the best chance at sustaining a happy partnership. Among all the married women surveyed, 52 percent of homemakers considered themselves very happy. Yet only 45 percent of the most progressive-minded homemakers considered themselves happy. This might not seem surprising—presumably, many progressive women prefer to work than stay at home. But the difference in happiness persists even among working wives. Forty-one percent of all the working wives surveyed said they were happy, compared with 38 percent of the progressive working wives. The same was the case when it came to earnings. Forty-two percent of wives who earned one-third or more of the couple’s income reported being happy, compared with 34 percent of progressive women in the same position. Perhaps the progressive women had hoped to earn more. But they were less happy than their peers about being a primary breadwinner—though you might expect the opposite. Across the board, progressive women are less likely to feel content, whether they are working or at home, and no matter how much they are making.
What’s really going on here? The conservative explanation, of course, is that the findings suggest that women don’t know what they really want (as John Tierney implied in the New York Times, and Charlotte Allen suggested in the Los Angeles Times). Feminism, they argue, has only undermined the sturdy institution of marriage for everyone. The feminist and liberal argument is that reality hasn’t yet caught up to women’s expectations. Women have entered the workforce, but men still haven’t picked up the domestic slack—working wives continue to do 70 percent or more of the housework, according to one study. If you work hard and come home and find you have to do much more than your husband does, it’s little wonder that you would be angry and frustrated.
Continue Article
Neither explanation seems quite right. (The authors found that equal division of labor seems not to correlate strongly with happiness, either.) What is left out of both lines of argument are the strange ways that rising expectations play into happiness. The sexual revolution tried to free women and men from set-in-stone roles. But the irony turns out to be that having a degree of certainty about what you want (and being in a peer group that feels the same way) is helpful in making people happy. Having more choices about what you want makes you less likely to be happy with whatever choice you end up settling on. Choosing among six brands of jam is easy. But consumers presented with 24 types often leave the supermarket without making a purchase. In much the same way, the more you scrutinize a relationship, the more likely you are to find fault with it. The study’s authors, W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, speculate that fault-finding on the part of wives makes it hard for men to do the emotional work that stabilizes marriages. Meanwhile, traditionalist women—a significant portion of whom are Christian—expect less emotional work from their husbands, Wilcox and Nock speculate, which makes it easier for them to shake off frustrations, and less likely to nag. Whether or not any of this is the case, we do know that traditional marriages have the advantage of offering clearly defined roles. And traditionalist wives have a peer group fundamentally in agreement about what it wants and expects from husbands, creating a built-in support system.
Consider the evidence that evangelical women—who in general endorse traditional gender roles—are better at adjusting psychologically to situations they don’t find ideal than feminists are. Studies of evangelical wives who have to work for financial reasons show that, as rigid as gender roles are in their community, women are fairly adept at being what sociologist Sally Gallagher calls “pragmatically egalitarian.” That is, they continue to be happy with the division of labor, and to see their husbands as providers, even though they’d prefer to be at home. It’s a kind of utilitarian double-think, Gallagher and others argue—and it helps explain why traditionalist women who work might consider themselves happier than feminists who are still struggling to feel secure in their decisions.
It may be, too, that traditional marriage today is happier than it was, thanks to feminism. Traditionalists have been able to maintain the pre-Freidan goals, but all the societal movement in the other direction has had a freeing effect on their marriages, too. (That is, Dad still works and Mom stays at home, but thanks to the general liberalizing of society, Dad can feel OK about helping more at home and Mom can feel OK about having a chance to work more, too.) In other words, their goal has stayed the same (that is, maintaining traditional marriage roles), but they can pursue it under much less draconian circumstances. No wonder they’re happier. They’re free-riders on the women’s movement (though they’d deny it), whereas feminists have descended into a tangle of second guesses and contradictions.
Yes, yes, yes. Anti-feminists love complaining about the aspects of the movement that don’t directly benefit them — but are quick to criticize other countries that institute the same anti-feminist policies that U.S. feminists fought to change here. Everyone’s lives are better because of feminism. End of story.
Would reverting to traditional gender roles make women happier? Hardly. This study doesn’t mean that the feminist genie should—or can—be put back in the kitchen. (For one thing, the study found that working at home made progressive women less happy than their traditionalist counterparts.) But it may be a bracing reminder that worrying endlessly over choices isn’t the path to greater freedom, equality, or happiness for women.
Absolutely. Of course, it’s harder to not worry when the culture you’re operating in criticizes any damn choice you make.
Read the whole article. It’s a good take on this study.