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Technorati"The woman's movement wasn't about happiness." That judgment, attributed to feminist Susan Faludi, seems to be the blunt assessment shared by many other women. As numerous recent studies now indicate, a remarkably large percentage of women describe themselves as increasingly unhappy.
This issue came to light last month in a fascinating essay by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. Dowd, whose columns often reveal the nation's Zeitgeist, cited the fact that a number of major studies indicate that "women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier." She asked: "Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?"
A very similar set of questions arises from TIME magazine's current cover story and special report, "The State of the American Woman." As the cover of the magazine explains, "A new poll shows why they are more powerful - but less happy."
Reporter Nancy Gibbs traces the vast changes brought about by the feminist revolution. "It's funny how things change slowly, until the day we realize they've changed completely," she observes. As she documents, these changes are easily visible in contemporary America:
In 1972 only 7% of students playing high school sports were girls; now the number is six times as high. The female dropout rate has fallen in half. College campuses used to be almost 60-40 male; now the ratio has reversed, and close to half of law and medical degrees go to women, up from fewer than 10% in 1970. Half the Ivy League presidents are women, and two of the three network anchors soon will be; three of the four most recent Secretaries of State have been women.
Along the way, Gibbs also traces more fundamental changes. With remarkable understatement she simply notes "the detachment of marriage and motherhood" among other transformations. "Women no longer view matrimony as a necessary station on the road to financial security or parenthood," she explains.
Nevertheless, "Among the most confounding changes of all is the evidence, tracked by numerous surveys, that as women have gained more freedom, more education and more economic power, they have become less happy."
Gibbs cites a growing body of research that documents this trend toward unhappiness. In "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," [pdf file] published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers explain that women in the 1970s "reported higher subjective well-being than did men." Now, the opposite is the case.
The big question raised by these studies is this: Has feminism produced unhappiness among women? That question is inescapable when seen in light of the historical context. The great transformation of society by feminism took shape only after the 1970s. As a political and social movement, feminism has been stunningly successful. In the span of a single generation, the society has been overwhelmingly transformed. But, over the same period, women report themselves less happy, especially as compared to men.
As Gail Collins notes in her new book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, the pace of this transformation has been absolutely stunning. "The cherished convictions about women and what they could do were smashed in the lifetime of many of the women living today," she observes. "It happened so fast that the revolution seemed to be over before either side could really find its way to the barricades." Continue »
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