Why women are never happy

Here is an article published in an article a few days back regarding why repeated surveys of women are all showing the same thing.

According to Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University in New Jersey, women are far less contented with their lot than they were in the Sixties: meanwhile, men have learned how to relax more and work less.

Funny how the rise of Women’s Lib occurred in that time isn’t it?

This article is rather long, so I’ll condense it and comment on the most salient points.

We women have never had it so good. So why ARE we unhappy?
By BEL MOONEY

They’ve been bitten by the happiness virus – which guarantees a life of dissatisfaction. Because this “illness” isn’t simply about being happy. This bug eats away at the soul because it tells the victim that he or she has the right to be happy – and that happiness lies just over there, perpetually out of reach.

What’s more, it seems that women are affected in greater numbers than men by this affliction.

Two separate American studies have just concluded that women are unhappier than men. Meanwhile, here in Britain, research has established that women are ten times more likely to be severely depressed than they were 50 years ago – and twice as likely as men.

What is going on? With so much freedom and so many opportunities, and with women outperforming men throughout the education system, we ought to be the happiest generation in history – not to mention that life gets better all the time for our daughters.

Depends what, or who, defines what a better life for you is doesn’t it?

In one of the studies, by American economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, a young woman student shines a beam of light on this paradox.

She told them that her mother’s aims in life were relatively simple: she wanted a well-kept house with a beautiful garden, and well-adjusted children who did well at school.

The girl went on: “I sort of want all those things, too. But I also want to have a great career and have an impact on the broader world.”

We all know this story, today’s women want EVERYTHING. Having a great husband, happy kids and a nice home is just OPPRESSION. If she wants only that, she is so oppressed that she cannot see the light! Drag her out of the home and throw her into the shit pit of the working world with the men, then she shall be ‘free!’

That was actually the story that the Rockefeller-funded Women’s Liberation movement pitched to all those happily ‘oppressed’ women. The next quote sums it up.

The use of the adjective “well” (as in doing things well, or well-adjusted children) is no longer good enough. Today’s woman seeks perfection – and will expend all her heart, mind and soul in chasing it.

Any man with half a brain knows perfection is impossible. Men don’t try to be perfect. They are quite happy just constantly pushing themselves to the limit and improving themselves till they die. We all have aspirations of solving all of the worlds problems when we are children, but that’s because we were children.

The mentality of children is based in fantasy, in imagination. Adults tend to be based in reality and adjust to survive in it. So now, instead of trying to solve the worlds problems, I just want to try and bring awareness to the local issues in Britain, for example, feminism, communism and the like.

Although this author (accurately) mentions that women want it all. She doesn’t seem to address why these women would even believe they can have it all and what sort of mentality is required to live such a fantasy. She mentions the Miss World contestant’s though.

Such sentiments are not at all like the sugar plum Miss World candidate, blessed with great beauty, who tells the TV interviewer portentously that her aim in life is “world peace”.

And we know how well balanced those mannequins are don’t we. Moving on…

How can she expect to achieve it all? Yet, charged up by her own high standards – as well as those of the Western world and its insidious media propaganda that forever insists that impossibly slim, beautiful women can have it all – she certainly does expect to.

The problem is that this punishing quest for perfection will most likely fail, leaving her with the miserable feeling that she has fallen short.

Yes the media propaganda is insidious, but we all know that women lap it up like kittens lap up milk. And these are not ‘her’ standards, they are standards told to her by the corporations and government, who stand to benefit immensely from having women stressing their brains out chasing an impossibility.

She of course, in her infinite wisdom, makes a choice to follow the media and not her own dreams. How many women do you know in the workplace do not want to have kids and settle down? Plenty of research is showing that women want to go back to a homemaker role as their grandmothers had, realising that the rat race is not the elixir of happiness. Men have known this for centuries and men would waste no time in telling their females this, except the women don’t listen to men anymore, they listen to the corporations.

Here is another important point (my emphasis):

Mr Krueger said: “The most likely explanation for the happiness trends is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did, including helping their parents [who are living longer]. They can’t possibly get it all done.”

I’m afraid it’s obvious to me that the woman who regards taking care of her family and keeping an eye on her elderly parents as the sum total of her ambition is bound to be more contented than her sister who wants to “have it all”.

It is within that seductive, deceptive “all” that the problem lies.

According to Betsey Stevenson: “Thirty or 40 years ago, women were happier because they probably had narrower ambitions. They compared themselves with each other and not with men. Now women are more competitive and ambitious. But it seems it doesn’t make them any happier.”

That’s the other big difference. Women can never compete in a world built with the blood, sweat and tears of men. And they are not supposed to.

Industry was created by men, so it suits men the best, concepts and rules that men use to weed out of less competent and the less determined force all men to up their game, work hard and try and be the best.

It’s called competition. Real competition, not the silly ‘dial in and win a car’ competitions on daytime TV.

This suits men because we have always been competitive. Women haven’t been, at least not in the same way, so why would anyone be surprised at the conclusions of these studies?

More than 2,000 self-help books are published each year, all promising an increase in self-esteem if you follow this or that step-by-step programme. Get the happiness habit! Live the life you’ve dreamed of! Create your own destiny!

And while you’re at it, give the corporations another £15.99.

Today, 57 per cent of British women between the ages of 16 and 64 have a full-time job – some because they have to work, some because they want to, and some slaving away all the hours of the day and evening because of a mixture of both.

Almost everyone has to work these days, men and women. But that is because women entered the workforce in the sixties. This saturated the market with workers, which drives the wages down. So now two have to work for the same salary as the man used to make.

Same thing is happening now with rampant immigrant into Britain and the work climate, but that’s for another article, which will be on another site, The Resistance that I’ve just started.

I’m not even sure that the problem hinges on the old “working woman versus homebody” debate. The fact that woman have too many choices is more of an issue.

If, as the research suggests, men have learned to cut out the boring bits and relax, then why can’t we?

Because women are suckers for propaganda. Men aren’t. That’s why the majority of advertising targets women, usually by attacking men as idiots, which women seem to enjoy for some sick reason…

I accepted that there is always a shortfall in happiness. There is no more “right” to having happiness in our lives than there is any way of avoiding bereavement.

And, believe me, the moment you accept that you cannot be perfect, ease up on the striving, and expect less of yourself – that’s the moment when you may stumble upon happiness.

You may find it comes through bidding farewell to multi-tasking and making a clever costume for your son to wear in the school play instead.

There is, after all, whatever anyone may say, something quite magical about seeing a mother with her small children. It seems to be a moment in a woman’s life when she is happier than at any other time.

I wonder why?

If women have to realise that it’s straight-forwardly greedy to want it “all”, then all of us have to learn that happiness starts when our obsession with “self-help” books combined with an excessive interest in ourselves ends.

Since the beginning of time, wise and happy people have known that the key isn’t to be found in mere pleasure, money, achievements or possessions.

The common, angst-ridden question “What is the point of life?” needs to be re-phrased to: “What can I use my life FOR?” That would be a useful first step towards a happier life.

There you have it. Now if only women would pay attention and start with rationing their time with television, magazines and other corporate interests.

If you would like to know more about how the corporate world hijacked the public and turned them into mindless consumers, here is a four part documentary produced by the BBC. They are about a hour and a half long each, so grab a beer.