Are Women Happier Post-Sexual Revolution?
inlet13
Posts: 1,979
Interesting article by Mary Eberstadt on the subject in wsj today:
Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No
Spring came early to most of the 50 states this year—and with it, at least in the political fields, the usual crop of mixed truths, untruths, and wildly growing falsehoods. Let's yank up one of those weeds for a little
It's an ideological whopper that demands more scrutiny than it has so far gotten, because underneath it are solid rocks of myth concerning what are called the "social issues." Let's turn over a few of these to see what facts they hide.
Myth No. 1: The "war on women" consists of tyrannical men arrayed against oppressed but pluckily united women.
In the first place, womankind, bless her fickle heart, is not exactly united on…anything.
Public opinion polls show women to be roughly evenly divided on the question of abortion. This same diversity of opinion was also manifest in the arguments over the proposed new federal mandate forcing employers to pay for birth control, including abortifacients.
[ReviewcoverNO] © Charles Gatewood/The Image Works
It seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.
Over 20,000 women, from all walks of life, signed an open letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius objecting to the federal mandate. Co-written by lawyers Helen Alvare and Kim Daniels, that letter alone answered the taunting question of supporters of the measure, "Where are the women?" The answer: in impressive numbers on the opposite side of the dispute.
Other leaders hailing from the XX side of the chromosome gap also took public stands against the mandate, including politicians, pundits, professors, editors and authors who don't seem to have gotten the message that they are victims in all this. They considered the unexpected federal fiat a violation of religious liberty and individual conscience, but they didn't think these wrongs had anything to do with themselves qua women. Many men shared their view.
Myth No. 2: If it weren't for the Catholic Church, no one would be talking about contraception anyway.
It is not only a series of popes but also a number of prominent secular thinkers who believe that the birth-control pill has been one of the major milestones in human history—a diverse group that runs from public intellectuals of a previous generation like Walter Lippmann to such contemporary scholars as Francis Fukuyama and Robert Putnam. As many pundits had occasion to observe in 2010, the 50th anniversary of the pill, it is hard to think of anything else that has changed life so quickly and dramatically for so many.
In other words, this isn't just a Catholic thing. In severing sex from procreation, humankind set into motion forces that have by now shaped and reshaped almost every aspect of life in the Western world. Families are smaller, birthrates have dropped, divorce and out-of-wedlock births have soared. Demography has now even started to work against the modern welfare state, which has become harder to sustain as fewer children have been produced to replace aging parents.
The sexual revolution has transformed economics, culture and law. Witness this week's Supreme Court case, in which the question at hand is whether an individual's Social Security survivor benefits belong to children conceived with his sperm months after he died.
Even on the religious playing field, this isn't just a Catholic thing. Christian teaching against artificial contraception dates back to the earliest Church fathers confronting pagan Rome. Christians remained united on that teaching until relatively recently—1930, to be exact, which is the year that the Anglican Communion made its first, carefully circumscribed exceptions to the rule. Orthodox Jews, Mormons and some traditionalist Protestants have also pondered the issue and ended up proscribing or limiting contraception in different circumstances.
Which brings us to
Myth No. 3: The "social issues" are unwanted artifacts of a primitive religious past that will eventually just fade away.
To the contrary. What we know as the "social issues"—abortion, gay marriage and the rest—are here to stay, and we'll be dealing with them for generations to come. In fact, one might even predict that these vexing issues will outlast almost every other controversy burning today.
That's because they cannot be resolved until the legacy of the sexual revolution has been settled in the Western mind—and this certainly includes the question of whether it has been a good thing or a bad thing. Judging by the state of much current commentary, we've only just begun down that road.
This brings us to
Myth No. 4, which is perhaps the most interesting one of all: The sexual revolution has made women happier.
Granted, happiness is a personal, imponderable thing. But if the sexual revolution has really made women as happy as feminists say, a few elementary questions beg to be answered.
Why do the pages of our tonier magazines brim with mournful titles like "The Case for Settling" and "The End of Men"? Why do websites run by and for women focus so much on men who won't grow up, and ooze such despair about relations between the sexes?
Why do so many accomplished women simply give up these days and decide to have children on their own, sometimes using anonymous sperm donors, thus creating the world's first purposely fatherless children? What of the fact, widely reported earlier this week, that 26% of American women are on some kind of mental-health medication for anxiety and depression and related problems?
Or how about what is known in sociology as "the paradox of declining female happiness"? Using 35 years of data from the General Social Survey, two Wharton School economists, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, made the case in 2009 that women's happiness appeared to be declining over time despite their advances in the work force and education.
The authors noted that women (and men) showed declining happiness during the years studied. Though they were careful not to draw conclusions from their data, is it not reasonable to think that at least some of that discontent comes from the feeling that the grass is greener elsewhere—a feeling made plausible by the sexual revolution?
However one looks at the situation, it seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.
It is always hard to disentangle the weeds from the plants in such a large field. But if the sexual revolution has made women so happy, we can at least ask what it would look like for them to be unhappy. A broader inquiry might yield some results worth thinking about, in contrast to the shortsighted political theatrics over a supposed "war on women."
A version of this article appeared Mar. 24, 2012, on page C1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No.
Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No
Spring came early to most of the 50 states this year—and with it, at least in the political fields, the usual crop of mixed truths, untruths, and wildly growing falsehoods. Let's yank up one of those weeds for a little
It's an ideological whopper that demands more scrutiny than it has so far gotten, because underneath it are solid rocks of myth concerning what are called the "social issues." Let's turn over a few of these to see what facts they hide.
Myth No. 1: The "war on women" consists of tyrannical men arrayed against oppressed but pluckily united women.
In the first place, womankind, bless her fickle heart, is not exactly united on…anything.
Public opinion polls show women to be roughly evenly divided on the question of abortion. This same diversity of opinion was also manifest in the arguments over the proposed new federal mandate forcing employers to pay for birth control, including abortifacients.
[ReviewcoverNO] © Charles Gatewood/The Image Works
It seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.
Over 20,000 women, from all walks of life, signed an open letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius objecting to the federal mandate. Co-written by lawyers Helen Alvare and Kim Daniels, that letter alone answered the taunting question of supporters of the measure, "Where are the women?" The answer: in impressive numbers on the opposite side of the dispute.
Other leaders hailing from the XX side of the chromosome gap also took public stands against the mandate, including politicians, pundits, professors, editors and authors who don't seem to have gotten the message that they are victims in all this. They considered the unexpected federal fiat a violation of religious liberty and individual conscience, but they didn't think these wrongs had anything to do with themselves qua women. Many men shared their view.
Myth No. 2: If it weren't for the Catholic Church, no one would be talking about contraception anyway.
It is not only a series of popes but also a number of prominent secular thinkers who believe that the birth-control pill has been one of the major milestones in human history—a diverse group that runs from public intellectuals of a previous generation like Walter Lippmann to such contemporary scholars as Francis Fukuyama and Robert Putnam. As many pundits had occasion to observe in 2010, the 50th anniversary of the pill, it is hard to think of anything else that has changed life so quickly and dramatically for so many.
In other words, this isn't just a Catholic thing. In severing sex from procreation, humankind set into motion forces that have by now shaped and reshaped almost every aspect of life in the Western world. Families are smaller, birthrates have dropped, divorce and out-of-wedlock births have soared. Demography has now even started to work against the modern welfare state, which has become harder to sustain as fewer children have been produced to replace aging parents.
The sexual revolution has transformed economics, culture and law. Witness this week's Supreme Court case, in which the question at hand is whether an individual's Social Security survivor benefits belong to children conceived with his sperm months after he died.
Even on the religious playing field, this isn't just a Catholic thing. Christian teaching against artificial contraception dates back to the earliest Church fathers confronting pagan Rome. Christians remained united on that teaching until relatively recently—1930, to be exact, which is the year that the Anglican Communion made its first, carefully circumscribed exceptions to the rule. Orthodox Jews, Mormons and some traditionalist Protestants have also pondered the issue and ended up proscribing or limiting contraception in different circumstances.
Which brings us to
Myth No. 3: The "social issues" are unwanted artifacts of a primitive religious past that will eventually just fade away.
To the contrary. What we know as the "social issues"—abortion, gay marriage and the rest—are here to stay, and we'll be dealing with them for generations to come. In fact, one might even predict that these vexing issues will outlast almost every other controversy burning today.
That's because they cannot be resolved until the legacy of the sexual revolution has been settled in the Western mind—and this certainly includes the question of whether it has been a good thing or a bad thing. Judging by the state of much current commentary, we've only just begun down that road.
This brings us to
Myth No. 4, which is perhaps the most interesting one of all: The sexual revolution has made women happier.
Granted, happiness is a personal, imponderable thing. But if the sexual revolution has really made women as happy as feminists say, a few elementary questions beg to be answered.
Why do the pages of our tonier magazines brim with mournful titles like "The Case for Settling" and "The End of Men"? Why do websites run by and for women focus so much on men who won't grow up, and ooze such despair about relations between the sexes?
Why do so many accomplished women simply give up these days and decide to have children on their own, sometimes using anonymous sperm donors, thus creating the world's first purposely fatherless children? What of the fact, widely reported earlier this week, that 26% of American women are on some kind of mental-health medication for anxiety and depression and related problems?
Or how about what is known in sociology as "the paradox of declining female happiness"? Using 35 years of data from the General Social Survey, two Wharton School economists, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, made the case in 2009 that women's happiness appeared to be declining over time despite their advances in the work force and education.
The authors noted that women (and men) showed declining happiness during the years studied. Though they were careful not to draw conclusions from their data, is it not reasonable to think that at least some of that discontent comes from the feeling that the grass is greener elsewhere—a feeling made plausible by the sexual revolution?
However one looks at the situation, it seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.
It is always hard to disentangle the weeds from the plants in such a large field. But if the sexual revolution has made women so happy, we can at least ask what it would look like for them to be unhappy. A broader inquiry might yield some results worth thinking about, in contrast to the shortsighted political theatrics over a supposed "war on women."
A version of this article appeared Mar. 24, 2012, on page C1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No.
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From what she says I'm led to believe that maybe the term "post-sexual revolution" is not all that accurate- that changes are still needed.
I'd like to know what do other ladies here think about all this.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
As I see it, women have taken on more responsibility while men are taking less responsibility. Women do it all while the majority of men work (if they even work a steady job) and when work is over they are off for the day. A woman’s work is never done. There are men who will not date a woman if she cannot support herself, because they are not man enough to take care of there women and children. If men would step up or should I say Grow Up! (Before the age of 35) That would make women happier.
For women:
I've seen first hand examples of women who want to be home with their child, but simply can't afford to be. A lot figure out a way to do so, others hesitantly continue to work feeling enormous amounts of guilt (this is how it was expressed to me, not my thoughts).
For men:
The more men AND women in the workforce, the greater the supply of labor. The greater the supply of labor, holding all else equal, the lower the "REAL" wages (real = inflation adjusted). That's why this transition also effected men, and families.
Then, on top of this, those women that both work and are parents, tend to take on the majority of the child care once home (as aerial pointed out).
So in total,...
Real wages sank, forcing both men and women into the workforce. Single family incomes have been replaced in a lot of ways with dual family incomes. Making the push back to single family is very often extremely difficult.
It's simply my opinion, but I actually think things could be conceivably better for all parities (women, men and children) involved in families pre-sexual revolution.
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This shit makes me so angry.
In my house I take care of kids in the morning, give baths at night, put kids to bed, cook meals, and of course work full-time. All my friends who have kids are also very active fathers. No, NOT MOST MEN. You're just perpetuating lazy stereotypes.
Damn why did I open this silly thread based on a WSJ editorial (not even worth my reading)? :roll:
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maybe they just complain more and expect too much
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Growing up, my mom stayed at home until my sister and I were close to our teens, and my dad did just as much - if not more - around the house. The mentality of "woman's" or "men's" work wasn't something I saw my parents living their lives by, and thankfully so.
In our home now, I'm typically the one who does the marketing, dishes, meal preparation, etc. But he does a shitload as well - it's all give and take, sharing the lighter and heavier burdens of life.
So yeah...me, I'm basically happy
(ps...I know many men like Mr. Abruzzo here; generalizing on this issue is so unfair, and insulting to boot)
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE
Second, how is it always the women that have to give up their careers, discard their hard-earned education and are frowned upon if they work while their kids are small? My mum went back to work quite soon, my dad stayed home with me, which was outrageous in 1986 and still seems to be so for a lot of people nowadays. They still to the day split chores evenly, with each doing what he/she prefers and is better at. I plan to follow that example when living together with someone.
So yeah, I for one am happier. I like being able to have sex without immediately having to procreate with the guy. I like not being financially dependent on someone. I like being regarded as an equal. We're not fully there yet (e.g. wage differences), but a lot has been achieved.
And I'm not getting into gay marriage now, but any kind of religious group needs to separate between marriage as a civil union between two people, granting each other certain rights and benefits, and marriage as whatever religious sacrament they believe it to be. The former should not be affected in whatever believes you hold about the latter. And hooray for the Catholic Church - when I want an opinion on marriage and if I should have kids or not, a club of celibate old men is surely the first instance I'd turn to.
In general the sexual revolution brought sex and the going's-on of sex in into the open, open, public forums and discussion of things that had not been discussed. I think most people are happier in that they can pursue what they like and not feel like it's bad or not accepted. ( generally speaking)
maybe divorce is up because people don't have the "that's the way it is, suck it up, 'till death do we part". a movie I watched "a boy's life" made 20 yrs ago, deniro, barkin, decapri. a couple dated, no sex prior, when they got hitched and getting to the hibbity part, he rolls her over and some discussion ensues about the position of the act. "he says you can have it doggy style or on the side, but that's it! I don't like face-to-face." wow.
on the flipside, I think people maybe are too quick to split, to look outside of marriage instead of inward, for self-growth.
everytime there is movement or growth towards the future, a little bit of the past is lost. a bit of the tradition is lost, but in the end it should be for the greater growth of everyone.
I think most people are happier. I'm a woman and it's hard for me to imagine not talking about something that makes me feel a certain way. why women are having children without men? aren't there men out there, more commonly now, getting custody of the children? in past decades, it was uncommon for a father to have custody vs. the mother.
I know homosexual people are probably happier.
it opened the doors for all sexes to be more open about their feelings. way back when it was frowned upon for a man to show emotions. that's not healthy, just bottle them up and let them fester into a ulcer?
I think the sexual revolution had to happen for a balance to be re-established in our humanity. maybe it wasn't balanced when it first happened, but overall I think it was a good thing for humanity.
you asked, I'm a girl.
amy
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Anyway, I think the answer of having a "choice" is certainly best for women. No doubt. However, I think there's a flip-side too. Riotgrl pointed out the one side, which showed she enjoys her work and her children benefit from that arrangement. That's awesome. But, how about the women who HAVE to work (and hire day care), and the children are not only away more from their Mom but they lose in that situation because the Mom's also unhappy. I think the amount of women who do that is not as small as some may think. That's the flip-side. Real choice says - some women may prefer the option of being a stay at home Mom, which is harder today than it was back then. That's certainly a constraint on the ability to choose that scenario. In some cases, it's not possible. That's kinda my (and the author's) point... I believe.
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Cool. Thanks for your answer. By the way, is your avatar from the San Francisco show?
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I know that the author states that, but to have the title be what it is, suggests otherwise and is used to get a reader to read the article. I thought the article is pretty weak, it's an opinion piece, it pigeon holed women, and mentions a sociological study about women's happiness. Well, where do men fare? Because it is only focused on one gender, and from the way it was written, it isn't objective. Especially even suggesting that happiness has anything to do with a greater issue, when it is a personal and internal feeling, not external as the article suggests (except for that one small sentence). I just think it's a poor piece of writing, not to mention negative.
I didn't care for the article either.
In retrospect it's easier to see the fuller benefit of the sexual revolution for all sexes and sexual orientation. At the time, and I'm just estimating, it seemed like it was all about women. Because women were doing things not typically done, or enjoyed due to perceived standards of behavior.
I think happiness is internal.
amy
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I kind of thought so as well, Jeanwah. Is it just me or is it also a little odd to be reading an article on women's studies in the WSJ? By odd I mean a bit odd the way it would be to read about aircraft manufacturing in Vegetarian Times.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
It is an opinion piece. But, I don't see how one couldn't understand that from the article's title where she poses a question and answers it with a "no". Perhaps you confused the thread title with the article title?
Do you think it's poor writing just because you typically don't agree with the wsj's take?
As for your question on men - I think she'd say they fare worse. So, in a sense, both sexes could be considered worse off. But, that's my thoughts on what the author would say.
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Looks like the San Fran show I wen to when Ed got sick.
Happiness is internal, obviously. But, that doesn't mean one can't try to say X, Y or Z often increases happiness.
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Further, as an aside, my wife and I share household chores pretty evenly. I watch the baby on Monday, she gets him on Friday, over the weekend we share, I cook, she does dishes, she washes clothes, I take out garbage, we got all bourgie and got house cleaners to keep up where we can't. Oh, and we both work, and make just about the same amount depending on whether or not she works weekends vs. me teaching in the Winter and Summer. Both of us are very happy.
kids are resourceful.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Times were better before she could make her own decisions about birth control or getting a job. It was much easier when boys were asked "what do you want to be when you grow up" when girls were told to go play with her toy vacuum cleaner or she wouldn't grow up to be a "good mommy."
And back in the days when women would go to the police to complain about stalkers and told "well, maybe he likes you."
And back when teenage boys were given cars for graduation and girls were given a "hope chest."
Back when women got angry and were told "there there, dear" and given tranquilizers and alcohol so they could be good women... you know, like Betty Ford was.
Back when things were better (you know, for lazy men who don't want to work hard because their female boss is such a bitch). I'm sure you pine for days like that again.
I think you'd agree, that most (unlike us) don't have the luxury of teaching college or having malleable schedules. So, their schedules often conflict. In these situations, kids go in daycare even if that's not desired. My point is that "that", is difficult for some women (and some men!). I'm sure that problem did exist before the sexual revolution, but I do think the sexual revolution was one aspect that certainly made it worse. Why? Well, more women entered the labor force driving down real wages, and decades later married couples can't really exist as easily on one income as they did decades prior.
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What this REALLY is is the beginning of the new "real problem" narrative that huge corporations and the extremely rich of America wants to create...
At one time the real problem was "illegal immigrants taking all of our jobs" like picking cucumbers in 98° heat for below minimum wage. They blamed "minorities" for affirmative action taking away jobs. We've blamed the poor for actually wanting to be paid enough to live... wanting your health insurance company to provide the care they promised you when they took your money.
Now we're blaming WOMEN because they were so selfish as to not stay at home and make dinner, make babies and make the bed.
It's all just another ploy by mega corporations and the mega rich to take the blame off of themselves for giving themselves tax-free, consequence-free, risk-free and guilt-free money... your money. Remember, it's not the banks and CEOs and corporations that took your money and house and job, it was the Mexicans or the blacks and the women. And we need to send them back where they belong... Mexico, the fields and the home.
There.... that's better.
This is probably apropos to nothing but struck me as funny as I was posting the above -
Just earlier I was in our living room listening to Springsteen, with his usual earnestness (which I typically like, depending on the moment / my moment. At that / my moment, I liked. It fit.)
I come into the bedroom to post here, and he's listening to APC's cover of Let's Have a War.
Had to laugh. And I did.
I don't know if this is directed at me or not. But, this is just silly. We can have a civilized discussion without resorting to this sort of nonsense.
Anyway, as I've stated many times in this thread - my point of view is not to say there's a desire to go back in time at all. Instead, I am saying it's difficult these days to thrive on one income. In a lot of cases, couples can't really exist comfortably economically without using daycare (even if they don't want to). Society, these days, pushes keeping up with the Jonses. In order to do so, both in the relationship may need to work. I'm not saying this wasn't ever the case pre-sexual revolution, but I do think it was less so. Back more families survived comfortably on one income. That's the point.
Now-a-days, women (who are now empowered by the sexual revolution) can't necessarily stay home with their own children, even if they want to. Moreover, when they do get home from a hard days work, there's more work pushed towards them once they get home. That 9 to 5, plus staying up all night (in some cases) really worked out. This is why I find this thread so interesting. A lot of feminists don't even try to hear this or acknowledge that there were some negatives associated here.
<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/28998869"></param> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/28998869" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href=" - In the Fire (demo)</a> by <a href="
Gotta digest your latest rant up there.
No, we're asking a question: are women who go out and work really better off? In many cases, they now work full-time jobs just to come home to additional work. Is that really the empowerment they wanted?
This is not the simplistic discussion you want it to be. I, for one, am all for illegal immigrants being welcomed in and taking jobs. I'm also for women working. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the fact that pre-60s less women worked and more families survived comfortably on one income.... whereas, now it's more difficult to do so.
<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/28998869"></param> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/28998869" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href=" - In the Fire (demo)</a> by <a href="
And you love blaming women for that and not the mega-corporations that refuse to pay a decent living wage.
All this "are women really better off?" It's all a ploy to pretend we're just asking a question and trying to see "both sides" of a truly repulsive argument. Women are better off. Yes, many people take on too much and try to have it all... kids and a house and a car and a vacation and an iPad.
But blaming the "keeping up with the Joneses" on women and not American's need to one-up their neighbour is offensive and disgusting.
Yes. It is.
Women are able to make decisions about their lives. Some of them make bad decisions, maybe but it's their decision to make.
Don't pretend women were better off when they had fewer options or rights or protections and that it's their fault that there are fewer jobs or lower wages. Wages are lower because corporations are greedy and there are fewer jobs because they've been shipped to third-world nations and China.