More rights but less happiness: is now really the best time to be a woman? | Nelly Huszcza

The classic scene of the 21st century. An online conversation you’ve seen before: a blue-haired feminist shouting at the top of her keyboard, engaged in a long-winded diatribe on how society is oppressing women. Meanwhile, a more reasonable voice tries to explain how we live in a time when it’s never been better to be a woman in the western world. The former argues with emotions, the latter with observation and a few facts.

And like any other online debate, neither convinces the other of anything. The altercation will end up with both of them not changing their minds in the slightest.

Fair enough. On the face of it, we tend to agree with the latter. Women in the West are definitely not oppressed by society by any stretch of the imagination, nor by any metric available. Women are less likely to commit suicide or use drugs, less likely to end up in prison, and ten times less likely to die while doing their job. In Academia, women secure university places in far higher numbers and tend to enjoy longer, often healthier lives. An honest look at the infamous “gender wage gap”, so commonly brought up as the ultimate proof of gender inequality, typically ignores important factors, such as the number of hours worked and choice tendencies in job industries.

In terms of equality of rights and opportunities, Western women seem to be doing just fine. Great. Amazing. But they’re not. Why, then, are so many women still so unhappy? In fact, why are they more miserable now than they ever were? Why has women’s happiness been in seemingly paradoxical consistent decline since the 1970s (coincidentally when the ‘liberation’ movements made their largest strides)?

Indeed, if the women’s rights movement has been detrimental in shaping a more equal society, studies show it hasn’t made women more content with their lives. The cause of this paradox might be that the women’s movement was always more focused on a struggle for absolute equality rather than interested in what makes women typically happy, as women.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, best-seller of the 1960s and trigger of what is now called second-wave feminism, is an example of that phenomenon. The infamous opening chapter called “The problem that has no name” reads:

“It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered […] I want something more than my husband, and my children, and my home.” 

More shockingly, later in the book one can also read:

“women who 'adjust' as housewives, who grow up wanting to be 'just a housewife’, are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps.”

Friedan’s message was clear: women’s unhappiness lies in them being stuck at home baking cookies and doing the laundry, while their husbands enjoy all the excitements of the working life. For her, women would find true liberation only if this radically changed. She believed women would be happier if relying only on themselves, enjoying single, childfree lives, free from the bondage of the middle-class, suburban postcard. Her work transformed Feminism into a movement that aimed at promoting the “strong, independent woman” brand, while treating marriage and homemaking as misogynistic, outdated models used to oppress women.

Now, in 2020, Fridian’s dream has turned into a reality. It is just as normal and mainstream for women as it is for men to become careerists over homemakers. And for the last 70 years, marriage rates in the United Kingdom, as in the rest of the Western World, have drastically decreased. Divorces, on the other hand, have been on the rise. 

Was this the best route for women though? 

In a study called the “Paradox of Declining Women’s Happiness”, sociologists Stevenson and Wolfers gathered data of dozens of surveys that found that women’s subjective happiness in the US has been steadily decreasing since the 1970s, both absolutely and relatively to their male counterparts. They also analysed a survey carried out across several countries of the European Union and found that while both men and women’s happiness in Europe have been increasing since the 1970’s, women’s happiness has been at a much lower rate. 

While correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, married women have been proven to be generally happier than single women statistically. According to a report from the National Marriage Project, 47% of married women describe themselves as “highly satisfied”, as opposed to only 33% of single women. The same organisation also found that married couples enjoy better mental and physical health than singles. 

And finally, a British 2016 study carried out for the insurer Liverpool Victoria found that homemakers are up to 62% more likely to report being content with their job than working women.

Behind the glossy facade of the “strong, independent woman” brand, it seems that the high expectations of full-time work have taken a toll on women’s happiness. Indeed, use of antidepressants among women has been on a steady rise in the last 20 years, with women twice as likely as men to use them in the US. 

Dr Niall Campbell, consultant psychiatrist at the Priory’s hospital in London admits:

“Equality in the workplace has undoubtedly been a very good thing, but it has left women facing the more negative aspects of corporate life like high levels of alcohol consumption, stress, fewer hours to run a home and raise a family, and potentially an unhealthy diet.”

So is our time really the greatest time to be a woman? 

We’re far from being in a place where women are victims. We live in a time and place where women are free to make their own decisions, where women benefit from tremendous opportunities in academia and in the workplace. Though on a personal level, women still have individual struggles in the balancing act of motherhood and their working life, which will sooner or later have to be addressed frankly.

But in the name of equality, parents push their daughters to pursue long and emotionally taxing careers, while homemaking is typically looked down upon. It’s time we have a more honest think about what makes women happy, and if happiness is not the goal, at what makes their lives more meaningful.