{"id":2005,"date":"2009-09-24T22:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T22:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/owenstrachan.com\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2009-09-24T22:00:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T22:00:21","slug":"nyt-modern-women-are-unhappy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2009\/09\/nyt-modern-women-are-unhappy\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT: Modern Women are Unhappy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"modernwoman\"I have blogged about this before\u2013mainly because it keeps coming up\u2013but I\u2019ve just read a fascinating piece called \u201cBlue Is the New Black\u201d<\/a> by NYT<\/em> op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd in which she briefly explores her thesis that modern women are unhappy. (Photo: Adam Polselli<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a synopsis of her argument:<\/p>\n

[T]he more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?<\/p>\n

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans\u2019 mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dowd outlines what modern women must juggle in their quest to be happy today:<\/p>\n

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands \u2014 and stress \u2014 on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties \u2014 and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cChoice is inherently stressful,\u201d Buckingham said in an interview. \u201cAnd women are being driven to distraction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, Dowd suggests that one major complicating factor is children:<\/p>\n

One area of extreme distraction is kids. \u201cAcross the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,\u201d said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called \u201cThe Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s true whether you\u2019re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn\u2019t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*******************<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if you care about this piece.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a hum-dinger.\u00a0 Maureen Dowd is a very influential cultural voice.\u00a0 She is a feminist.\u00a0 She is highly successful and driven, as evidenced by her weekly column for the Times.<\/em> She is admitting, in public, that modern women are unhappy.\u00a0 This is essentially an admission\u2013hold your breath here, deep breath\u2013that feminism is not working.\u00a0 Coming from a feminist, that\u2019s astonishing.<\/p>\n

Dowd\u2019s words about children are so telling.\u00a0 Women must work very hard to raise children well.\u00a0 This endeavor entails considerable sacrifice and hardship, especially relative to the kind of libertarian, narcissistic, no-commitment happiness that our culture so chases after.\u00a0 But the problem is this: raising kids is hard work, and unlike many men, they have a hard time leaving responsibility behind (evidence: \u201cdeadbeat dads\u201d).<\/p>\n

Modern women would hugely benefit from returning to traditional roles.\u00a0 Their current state of unhappiness, as Dowd characterizes it, is a direct result of the influence of feminism.\u00a0 God did not give us roles as a kind of sexual prison; He gave them to us for our good and flourishing.\u00a0 If we reject this plan, coded into both our design and the Word of God, then we will surely suffer.<\/p>\n

Modern women are unhappy.\u00a0 Feminism is not working.\u00a0 It is the call of the church of Jesus Christ to image the kind of happy (though by no means easy) life of the biblical home.\u00a0 We do so not merely as a means of witness, in these strange days, but as a means of rescue.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have blogged about this before\u2013mainly because it keeps coming up\u2013but I\u2019ve just read a fascinating piece called \u201cBlue Is the New Black\u201d by NYT op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd in which she briefly explores her thesis that modern women are unhappy. (Photo: Adam Polselli) Here\u2019s a synopsis of her argument: [T]he more women have achieved, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353],"tags":[648,13143,13202,2069,13217],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-womanhood","tag-blue-is-the-new-black","tag-feminism","tag-maureen-dowd","tag-modern-women","tag-new-york-times"],"yoast_head":"\nNYT: Modern Women are Unhappy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have blogged about this before--mainly because it keeps coming up--but I've just read a fascinating piece called "Blue Is the New Black" by NYT op-ed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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