"Being happy is not a feminist issue"

[HerBeX]

This caught my eye on another thread, but I didn't want to de-rail and I thought it was interesting in the context of marriages, relationships etc.

My immediate response was "isn't it"?

On one level, of course it isn't, it's an overall human issue (but that's true of lots of feminist issues too).

But then I thought, well, there's this whole hetero-normative monogamy propaganda out there, women are constantly being told that the way to gain happiness is to bag a man and live with him until one of you dies and yet nearly half of all marriages now end in divorce, usually instigated by women, because clearly that hasn't made them happy - or maybe it made them happy for a while but no longer does?

Mumsnet is full of threads with unhappy women asking why they are unhappy and so far as I can see, it's generally bcause their DP's have an enormous sense of entitlement which neither partner has analysed or realised is there and so therefore can never be effectively addressed. And because men and women appear to expect very different things from marriage and partnership. And surely feminism arose from the big enlightenment question of how can people be happy. Feminism arose because lots of women realised that many of the causes of women's unhappiness, were structural rather than just individual.

All of which are feminist issues and possibly interesting enough to kick a few thoughts around?

I haven't followed the holiday issue, but, personally, I think it does both mothers and children good to spend holidays apart quite often!

Despite your musings, the porn culture will never die

Truck -I bet most of those suicides are single men.

Married men are less lilkely to commit suicide.

qwepoi that's because we have this idea that working person = person who has no responsability at home.
It's actually true for men and women. Both should be prepared to look after a house. And imo, that's something that should be leanrt at home not in shool (To start up with, you can make it 'practical' at home).
So of course if you idea of being feminist is too behave like a men, with all the misconcieved ideas about the role of a men in a household, then you are setting yourself up for big difficulties.

When I think of happiness in the context of these types of conversations I think for me anyway it is more like contentment that is being sought.

Happiness is usually quite transient - something "makes" you happy, and then it stops and the feeling passes. Contentment is a much more level, ongoing state. True contentment is something that I would love. That feeling of being at peace with everything, everything is going well, ticking along nicely, no big dramas, that sort of thing.

And on the idea that women get satisfaction from caring for others - that's just nonsense surely? Some women do, some don't. Some men do, some don't. When it was all women were allowed to do, many of them drugged themselves to cope, and many still do (although now it's more usually dished out by the doctor).

I do think that a lot of people probably are happy (or content) but then the media / society makes them question if they are as happy as they should be? And then they start to feel disatisfied.

Mitch

Just making the point that, as far as I'm aware, the fact that marriage makes women less happy and that women are less happy than men seems to be unfounded myths

Ok, I think this is interesting, skip over if it's boring for you:

Wiki reckons 'happy' used to mean something else: 'Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics.'

I wonder if the fact that the word used to have a moral implication and doesn't any more is why people get uptight? As in, back in the day, being happy would imply having a social conscience and now people think of it more as a selfish emotional thing? I think actually being happy still is a positive thing for society - but our society doesn't really like to acknowledge that making women happy is socially worthwhile.

Truck I agree male unhappiness is a problem in that the patriarchal "be a man and suck it up" attitude has really hurt a lot of men. Despite the shocking rise in male suicide and men being diagnosed with MH issues, I try to see this as an encouraging sign that men's MH is now being taken seriously.

That aside, I firmly believe that the reason that fewer women commit suicide is that they have too many people relying on them. I've encountered several women who have told me that the only reason they haven't killed themselves is "because of the kids." Men don't have this burden of responsibility in the same numbers as women.

Also, in my own life I've had a lot of ups and down - lost nearly all my relatives (including both parents) within a few years, seen my beloved sister emigrate, changed career, got divorced (XP1) and yet despite all this, the only time I would say I've been unhappy is when I was with XP2 (the abusive one). Even though these other events were hard, my underlying core was still happy because my life and my perception of myself were generally in a good place. Only my XP2's treatment of me ever affected those.

I agree that the media (the constant advertising and exhortation to buy more stuff) contributes significantly to lowering contentment.

I love holidays in places where there are no shops or media.

I think that modern life has an awful lot of pressures that did not exist for more recent previous generations.

Also that society has loosened up so people are more able to talk about their unhappiness, things that have happened to them.

(Oh, and happy is a modern word, I just checked. It's only used to mean 'lucky' before c. 1520. But this, I am sure no-one else cares about! )

Sardine - absolutely agree with you ideas on 'contentment'.

I do think that modern eduction / society / media has conditioned lots of women out of feeling that they can gain contentment from family life when in previous generations thay could have.

I thinik a lot of women probably were happy serving others, because that ws the only happiness offered to them.

Human beings are incredibly good at wringing out happiness where they can. If the only happiness is to do x, then you'll get that happiness from x. If other vistas then open to you, then you realise that y is actually far more fun than x, so you do y as well. You only feel bad about doing y, if people are constantly telling you that actually, y makes you unhappy really and you ought to be doing x because that will make you happier.

With men accounting for 75% of the suicides in the UK and recent research finding that men are far less likely to ask for support for depression it is far from clear cut that women are less happy than men.

When it comes to reliable divorce statistics the figures quoted relate to the numbers of women initiating divorce proceedings rather than the numbers of women initiating divorce. It isn't possible to compare "apples with pears" - an unhappy husband might initiate the divorce by leaving the marriage but the wife initiates the proceedings by petitioning for divorce.

Poor children my arse. They're 15 years old! It's hardly going to scar them for life if their mum goes away for a few days, good lord.

(sorry, not trying to do a thread about a thread)

HerBeX the American constitution bit is interesting actually (and I'm American so maybe that explains a lot! )

I do think the pursuit of happiness is pretty hard wired into the American psyche, but not necessarily in a decadent, frivolous way, more in a 'no one is going to tell me what to do, this isn't Communist Russia' kind of way.

Bennifer I don't think women are less happy than men, or that it's a myth that they are. Most people don't assume men are happier than women do they? I wasn't aware of that.

I think married women are less happy than married men and single women are happier than single men. Surveys, depression rates, suicide rates etc., bear this out.

'Human beings are incredibly good at wringing out happiness where they can.'

That's a very good point.

I think men and suicide is a good point too - it's very sad.

I have heard it theorized that women are less likely to commit suicide because they feel they don't have the right to take their own lives ('[what about teh children?'), but I don't know how valid that is.

No, I think we are now able to admit if 'family life' - as in, dedicating yourself entirely to house and home - does not make us content.

I actually have a rather nice family life. I just don't want that to be the only thing on offer to me and to other women.

Surely the man and woman should know each other for a while first before getting married. Less mistakes to be made

Interesting study on Happiness, Housework and Gender Inequality

I like the reference to a "stalled gender revolution" in the West.

The suicide rates are interesting but possibly a bit of an emotive red herring? Out of a population the size of the UK, the suicide rates are quite small. Compared to say the number of people on ADs. this says 36 million prescriptions for ADs written in 2008 - now many of those will be repeat prescriptions but it still points to millions of people in the UK taking them. And that's just looking at people who are being treated - who aren't self-medicating - or on treatments other than anti-depressants.

Agree with everything Callisto said. I know far too many women who put up with shit husbands because 'that's what men are like'. Tis bollocks, or course. It's what arseholes are like. So maybe we need to work on raising womens expectations of what a good partner is. Some of my friends expect so bloody little from their husbands. If the man wipes a kitchen counter he is a god etc.