Women, it seems, are bummed out these days.
A study released last month from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the University of Pennsylvania showed that even though men's and women's happiness levels have both gone down over the last few decades, women's "subjective well-being" has declined "both absolutely and relatively to men." The data came from a cross-section of ethnic and socioeconomic groups in several industrialized countries, and appeared to be big news primarily for one reason: When the same research was conducted in the 1970s, women reported higher levels of happiness than they do today.
Is that because feminism turned out to be a total dud? Or were women in the '70s hypnotized into serenity by those yellow smiley faces? No one seems quite sure.
The research paper, which was presented by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers and will appear in a forthcoming issue of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, is rife with hypotheses but resists drawing conclusions. But that doesn't mean the commentariat didn't immediately weigh in. People went a little nuts over this study, most notably New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who offered up a handful of theories as to why women weren't as cheery as they'd apparently been in the days of avocado-green appliances.
"The achievements of the feminist era may have delivered women to greater unhappiness," Douthat wrote. He also pointed out that the steady advance and de-stigmatization of single motherhood "threatens the interests and happiness of women." Furthermore, in a display of rhetorical showmanship that I appreciated for its boldness if not its conclusion, he wondered if women, who "prefer egalitarian, low-risk societies," were made anxious by "the cowboy capitalism of the Reagan era."
In fairness, Douthat allowed that "all this ambiguity lends itself to broad-brush readings." He wasn't saying the study proved any of his musings. He was just, you know, saying.
And shortly thereafter, a lot of other people joined the chorus: other columnists, bloggers and, presumably, the women at book club meetings who would much rather discuss this sort of thing than discuss the book they're reading. Many of them took umbrage at Douthat's column, but more seemed intent on finding the source of this newly discovered malcontent. Was it over-scheduling? Over-parenting? A cultural obsession with physical appearance? Perhaps only Betty Friedan could know for sure.
