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Are Women Getting Sadder? Or Are We All Just Getting a Lot More Gullible?
Feminism made women miserable. This, anyway, seems to be the most popular takeaway from "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," a recent study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers which purports to show that women have become steadily unhappier since 1972. Maureen Dowd and Arianna Huffington greeted the news with somber perplexity, but the more common response has been a triumphant: I told you so.
On Slate's DoubleX website, a columnist concluded from the study that "the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s gave us a steady stream of women's complaints disguised as manifestos… and a brand of female sexual power so promiscuous that it celebrates everything from prostitution to nipple piercing as a feminist act -- in other words, whine, womyn, and thongs." Or as Phyllis Schlafly put it, more soberly: "[T]he feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy in which their true worth will never be recognized and any success is beyond their reach... [S]elf-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness."
But it's a little too soon to blame Gloria Steinem for our dependence on SSRIs. For all the high-level head-scratching induced by the Stevenson and Wolfers study, hardly anyone has pointed out (1) that there are some issues with happiness studies in general, (2) that there are some reasons to doubt this study in particular, or (3) that, even if you take this study at face value, it has nothing at all to say about the impact of feminism on anyone's mood.
For starters, happiness is an inherently slippery thing to measure or define. Philosophers have debated what it is for centuries, and even if we were to define it simply as a greater frequency of positive feelings than negative ones, when we ask people if they are happy, we are asking them to arrive at some sort of average over many moods and moments. Maybe I was upset earlier in the day after I opened the bills, but then was cheered up by a call from a friend, so what am I really?
In one well-known psychological experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire on life satisfaction, but only after they had performed the apparently irrelevant task of photocopying a sheet of paper for the experimenter. For a randomly chosen half of the subjects, a dime had been left for them to find on the copy machine. As two economists summarize the results: "Reported satisfaction with life was raised substantially by the discovery of the coin on the copy machine -- clearly not an income effect."
As for the particular happiness study under discussion, the red flags start popping up as soon as you look at the data. Not to be anti-intellectual about it, but the raw data on how men and women respond to the survey reveal no discernible trend to the naked eyeball. Only by performing an occult statistical manipulation called "ordered probit estimates," do the authors manage to tease out any trend at all, and it is a tiny one: "Women were one percentage point less likely than men to say they were not too happy at the beginning of the sample [1972]; by 2006 women were one percentage more likely to report being in this category." Differences of that magnitude would be stunning if you were measuring, for example, the speed of light under different physical circumstances, but when the subject is as elusive as happiness -- well, we are not talking about paradigm-shifting results.
Furthermore, the idea that women have been sliding toward despair is contradicted by the one objective measure of unhappiness the authors offer: suicide rates. Happiness is, of course, a subjective state, but suicide is a cold, hard fact, and the suicide rate has been the gold standard of misery since sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote the book on it in 1897. As Stevenson and Wolfers report -- somewhat sheepishly, we must imagine -- "contrary to the subjective well-being trends we document, female suicide rates have been falling, even as male suicide rates have remained roughly constant through most of our sample [1972-2006]." Women may get the blues; men are more likely to get a bullet through the temple.
Another distracting little data point that no one, including the authors, seems to have much to say about is that, while "women" have been getting marginally sadder, black women have been getting happier and happier. To quote the authors: "…happiness has trended quite strongly upward for both female and male African Americans… Indeed, the point estimates suggest that well-being may have risen more strongly for black women than for black men." The study should more accurately be titled "The Paradox of Declining White Female Happiness," only that might have suggested that the problem could be cured with melanin and Restylane.
But let's assume the study is sound and that (white) women have become less happy relative to men since 1972. Does that mean that feminism ruined their lives?
Not according to Stevenson and Wolfers, who find that "the relative decline in women's well-being... holds for both working and stay-at-home mothers, for those married and divorced, for the old and the young, and across the education distribution" -- as well as for both mothers and the childless. If feminism were the problem, you might expect divorced women to be less happy than married ones and employed women to be less happy than stay-at-homes. As for having children, the presumed premier source of female fulfillment: They actually make women less happy.
And if the women's movement was such a big downer, you'd expect the saddest women to be those who had some direct exposure to the noxious effects of second wave feminism. As the authors report, however, "there is no evidence that women who experienced the protests and enthusiasm in the 1970s have seen their happiness gap widen by more than for those women were just being born during that period."
What this study shows, if anything, is that neither marriage nor children make women happy. (The results are not in yet on nipple piercing.) Nor, for that matter, does there seem to be any problem with "too many choices," "work-life balance," or the "second shift." If you believe Stevenson and Wolfers, women's happiness is supremely indifferent to the actual conditions of their lives, including poverty and racial discrimination. Whatever "happiness" is...
So why all the sudden fuss about the Wharton study, which first leaked out two years ago anyway? Mostly because it's become a launching pad for a new book by the prolific management consultant Marcus Buckingham, best known for First, Break All the Rules and Now, Find Your Strengths. His new book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, is a cookie-cutter classic of the positive-thinking self-help genre: First, the heart-wrenching quotes from unhappy women identified only by their email names (Countess1, Luveyduvy, etc.), then the stories of "successful" women, followed by the obligatory self-administered test to discover "the role you were bound to play" (Creator, Caretaker, Influencer, etc.), all bookended with an ad for the many related products you can buy, including a "video introduction" from Buckingham, a "participant's guide" containing "exercises" to get you to happiness, and a handsome set of "Eight Strong Life Plans" to pick from. The Huffington Post has given Buckingham a column in which to continue his marketing campaign.
It's an old story: If you want to sell something, first find the terrible affliction that it cures. In the 1980s, as silicone implants were taking off, the doctors discovered "micromastia" -- the "disease" of small-breastedness. More recently, as big pharma searches furiously for a female Viagra, an amazingly high 43% of women have been found to suffer from "Female Sexual Dysfunction," or FSD. Now, it's unhappiness, and the range of potential "cures" is dazzling: Seagrams, Godiva, and Harlequin, take note.
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120 Comments so far
Show AllIt is with a wry smile I read an article by a feminist pulling apart a statistical study. Some of the shonkiest statistics and studies possible were thrown at us in the last 40 years to prove what rapists and bastards us men were and anyone who challenged the findings was labelled a misogynist.
Do you have any examples of these unreliable statistics and /or the vitriolic feminist reaction to male criticism of the same?
You seem to be painting irony with a rather broad brush.
q
Wry? Ha. Sometimes a misogynist IS just a misogynist.
Sioux Rose
KOALA: You sound like the rabid anti-abortion guy who's real beef is the woman who left him and would not have HIS child. Your personal issues with a woman or two are blurring your capacity to recognize what millions of women on this planet are up against. And even if you make the case that men suffer too, (which is valid), up until 50 years ago (or less) women were not present at ANY decision-making tables to tabulate the policies that have resulted in an abundance of misery, more than enough to go around.
Secondly, just as the Black child probably feels left out of many activities that focus on white history, etc. Girls feel that way (or should) in any patriarchal religious rituals since all homage is directed exclusively at GOD THE FATHER. The Catholic Church gives Mary some attention, but not much. Imagine being led to believe that because you were not born with a penis, you are less close to God?
The falacies that human beings have pushed down the centuries have resulted in inordinate violence, prejudice, and willful acts of wonton destruction. I have never had a man provide me with sexual favors when he was tired, because I was so hungry he couldn't let the incident pass. In fact, I have more vivid memories of JUST the opposite!
I hear both sides of this issue... And with all due respect for women and men struggling for equality for all, it is iimportant to keep perspective... What came before the Patriarchy...? Was it really such a utopic agricultural society...? According to ancient writings and archeological findings, most Goddess worshipping agricultural societies were practicing some form of slavery, and half of those societies castrated males (eunuchs), practiced ritual human sacrifice to fertility godesses, as well as incest and orgiastic rituals... With the transition into Agrarian societies, The Druids and High Preists eventually seized power away from the High Preistesses, only to abuse those powers themselves, and set themselves up as kings and lords... And thus began the constant warfare between kingdoms and the burning of babies to Molech and Baal... Some Patriarchs actually sought to put an end to these abominable and demonic acts by exterminating the inbred and barbaric neighbors and their "gods & goddesses" that they sacrificed their babies and virgins to... As city/states expanded into empires and the conquest of the spoils of war, many of these "pagan" societies were slaughtered and their groves burned and their shrines destroyed and the survivors were absorbed into the empires... The Roman Empire happened to embrace these pagan practices of slavery, pedophilia, and orgiastic rituals, until Constantine embraced Christianity in an attempt to salvage the empire, and the Catholic church became a sepulchured facade of Christianity while merely rebranding the pagan holidays, practices, and beliefs... The Industrial revolution was patriarchy on steroids, with technology allowing for mechanized wholesale slaughter of tens of millions of innocents for the global elite, who held on to their occult beliefs through the Babylonian mystery schools, secret societies, fraternal orders, and royal bloodlines... They practice the Hegelian Dialectic of "Problem, Reaction, Solution" to "Divide and Conquer" the people of all nations, creating division and derision between the sexes, ethnicities, generations, religions, and occupations... Manufacturing irreconciliable ideological differences among us to keep us fighting amongst ourselves, and doubting ourselves, and fearing each other...
Don't play their game... These ancient sorceries don't work on us once we wake up and recognize them for the mind control techniques that they are... Don't perpetuate their predesigned stereotypes that we use to pidgeonhole each other... We must free ourselves first before we can define the prison of another... Peace, Love, & Light
The attitudes you describe are not that common. The only one I can recollect who fits that profile is Andrea Dworkin. Most feminists emphasize their own competency and being allowed to use it.
Joe
I just found a one ruble coin on my desk.
===
I think that everybody's going unhappy, male, female, and neutral beings alike. Too much toxic stuff mixed in the air, water, and too many macabre ideas thrown at us by the media, for years and years and years.
Human beings are not able to cope with what a minority of them have made of the world during only the last 50 years.
tsk tsk....I agree. I remember the 70's (being an ex hippie) as a time of excitement over the possibilities for the world. The sudden ending of these hopes and possibilities, the realization that "love" was not the answer and "flowers" really had no power...was so disheartening that a part of me went in to permanent shut down. Of course, that was exactly the reaction the "Patriarchal" system planned for. Backlash is a bitch. We are still in it. In fact, every time a feminist raises her/his head up from the shrapnel...the effing buggers hit us again!
Sioux Rose
INANNA: How about the boasts that modern medicine would wipe out every disease, when in point of fact, something or someone keeps creating new ones?
When greed and the warrior spirit couple, the sins that mankind is capable of invoking upon itself are beyond what untainted imaginations can conjure.
ROCKY: You know, there's angst, and then there's ANGST! Global warming, a complete international fiscal melt-down, thousands being put to death in illusory bases for war, an insane proliferation in weapons of mass destruction... maybe I'd take musak instead of those threats!
Now jazz, that's an element tougher to live without! In fact, I think it's time for some Miles Davis.
There were all types of women in the womens' movement, with as many reasons for being there as there were women. Some were men-haters, with very good reason. That we "were taught," as Phyllis Schalafly puts it "... to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy..." is no different from the propaganda crap the radical christian conservatives are still spewing in an attempt to corral women and put them back in "their place." They've been blaming the feminist movement for everything that's wrong with our society since the beginning of the movement.
As for happiness, people have had so much of their brain power siphoned off over the past thirty decades, the majority no longer have the ability to even understand what real happiness is.
Sioux Rose
SHADRE: Astute analysis & observations. Right on!
Nothing like blaming radical feminists and "illegal aliens" for the shape of the U.S. economy. Quick! Get the camera off those bankers making way with laundry bags of YOUR tax dollars. Point it at... oh, yeah, those women with their uppity attitudes!" The power of deflection, time-tested tool of note to dark magicians and other lords of power seeking to direct others' wills.
I could kiss you for that! BIG KISS FOR SIOUX ROSE!
You are a wonderful person.
Thank you
"Nothing like blaming radical feminists and 'illegal aliens' for the shape of the U.S. economy. Quick! 'Get the camera off those bankers making way with laundry bags of YOUR tax dollars. Point it at... oh, yeah, those women with their uppity attitudes!' The power of deflection, time-tested tool of note to dark magicians and other lords of power seeking to direct others' wills."
LOL.
On one hand, if we all lived in Happy Valley, there'd be no blues, hip-hop, punk, or heavy metal. Great art can come from the disaffected. No worries, no reason to be angry about anything = muzak.
My favorite band would probably be Coldplay had I grown up in "Leave It To Beaver" kind of household instead of one akin to "Roseanne."
< As for happiness, people have had so much of their brain power siphoned off over the past thirty decades, the majority no longer have the ability to even understand what real happiness is.
This reminds me of something I read years ago. A man was telling of his experience in some sort of new-age group he'd just finished up, let's say a workshop: "How to get in touch with your inner child and connect to Joy in the Eternal NOW", or whatever. At any rate, as he prepared to leave (that would be by plane from some exotic island/jungle setting), he felt that he wanted to go into the jungle to find some sort of meaningful personal totem to bring back home. As he entered the jungle he noticed two women standing, doing nothing, in a field/meadow at the edge of the jungle. I don't remember what sort of memento he found in the jungle, but when he emerged the two women were still standing there. So puzzled, he asked them what were they doing? "We're feeling the wind", they said.
Sioux Rose
GANDY: That sense of BEING with nature is nearly lost to Caucasians; but I think its remnant is present on golf courses. All the good 'ole boys, apart from making their multi-million dollar deals and spreading tons of pesticide into the surrounding ecosystems, need an EXCUSE to be outside. What better one in a society focused on derivatives of phallic rule, then hitting balls across the green? I feel jaded today... this is a good place to vent!
Just a trivial personal observation, but it speaks to the discussion.
In 2005 I moved into a small house with a correspondingly small but pleasant back yard; this after 20+ years in an apartment "unit" overlooking a parking lot, a fence, and cinderblock walls of a transit authority depot beyond.
So, after noticing goldfinches at a feeder my sister keeps outside her house, I decided to get a bird feeder. I've never kept pets, for whatever reason, and have never been much of an "animal-lover".
The unpremeditated act of getting that birdfeeder drew me into Noticing critters besides the diverse birdies, e.g. 'umble squirrels, chipmunks, and cottontail bunnies according to season.
If I were a "goofy home videos" fan, I could record many animal antics that are just hilarious to watch. But even when critters aren't doing anything special, I found that I enjoyed just watching them when I had time to do so.
I never noticed before how birds, at least when they're left alone in a grassy yard, WALK around and graze, rather like chickens.
Once I watched a robin, perhaps looking for worms and insects, circle the entire yard in fits and starts. I was fascinated, even captivated-- and somehow feel edified or privileged to witness this.
And when a FOX passed through on a few occasions last autumn-- glowing red as a hot coal in the late afternoon sun, and mistaken by me for a dog until it looked up and I saw its face-- well, land o'Goshen, I like to have swooned!
One may express this kind of thing conversationally to simpatico recipients, usually professed animal-lovers; otherwise, it comes off like "fun for the feeble-minded". Odd how "feeding the pigeons" is associated with pathos, and taking pleasurable notice of everyday fauna deemed childish.
Alas! ours is not a culture in which one can enthusiastically brag about spending fifteen minutes absorbed in watching a robin circumnavigate one's back yard unless one enjoys hearing, "Get a life!". More's the pity.
Now, should anyone question what I was doing, standing at my back door "doing nothing", I may just say "feeling the wind".
PS: All THAT said, the Snappy Comeback artist that I am will not let me rest until I publish this: had those lovely ladies told me that they were "feeling the wind", I would've replied, "Oh, that's OK, then-- as long as you're not BREAKING it!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sioux Rose
O.S. I'm glad you got to "talk to the animals." Hey, it worked for Dr. Doolittle! I once attended a workshop offered by a shaman and he told us to be very aware of any animal that crossed our path, for it delivered a message. Years later I was driving in the Florida Keys and came upon a HUGE rattlesnake. I didn't even know there were any on that Key! To me it was an omen of death, and soon after I lost a relative. Animals appearing in dreams also deliver omens or messages.
A wonderful easy-to-devise oracle book by Jamie Sims (I can't find my copy at the moment to double-check the author's name) is entitled, "The Medicine Cards." Each card is the depiction of an animal with its message related. After a painful break up I chose the BAT card and it defined the need for a cave-like healing experience. So true. I had both my daughters pick their animal totems, and each fit to a T, as did mine, the Wolf/Teacher. When we work with these tools we realize that what most take for random chaos really only hides the fact that all things are miraculously connected, and to those looking for signs, all of nature speaks in decipherable codes.
AGG: Thank you for the kiss. And the compliment!
Sioux Rose, I would like to tell this animal story. It is deeply personal and not really related to the article, but never the less I feel that you and perhaps others will appreciate it.
When my two daughters were ten and eleven their dad and I were divorced. He was a severe alcoholic, and in the years that followed we all agreed that it had been the right decision. He continued to drink all of his life and frequently was hospitalized and expected to die. I have always seen alcoholism as a disease, and have told the girls that their father loved them and was as good a dad as he could be with such a serious illness. As you can imagine, both girls suffered a lot of heartache over the years--I had cut all contact with him when we divorced, but the girls tried to have some sort of relationship, which almost always brought disappointment and sorrow for them.
Then last January they (again) both got a call telling them that he was in intensive care and expected to die shortly. They both took a week off from work and flew to Minnesota to be there when he died. However, once again he bounced back and it seemed that they would again need to leave before he died. As a nurse I knew that understanding doctors will sometimes help one to cross over with "ample" pain medication and I urged to girls to speak to the physician that was caring for their dad. Anyway, he did finally pass on. Before he died one of the girls, Judy, asked their dad to come back to them as a deer to let them know that all was well on the other side.
After he died both girls went through a lot of grief and soul searching as often happens when one loses a loved one. Unfortunately, about six months after their dad's death and as they processed their feelings of both love and anger, a misunderstanding developed between the girls and many hurtful things were said by both of them. They both felt quite self-righteous in their own feelings, and deeply hurt by the things the other had said. And they both watched for the deer, but neither had seen a deer.
Then one morning, in the depths of despair over the hurt she was feeling about the relationship with her sister, the older daughter Jane went out on the porch sobbing her heart out. She looked up across the water and saw two deer. From here I will paste Jane's actual words from the email that she sent to her sister Judy to tell her about the deer.
continued in next post...
(continued from above)
This is very hard for me. I do not want to do this writing. I am in the midst of suffering that feels very real to me. But my Guides tell me I must move forward through this fear without any thought for the outcome. “In love there must be trust.” I must write this and give it to you even if I am afraid there may be bitterness between us always.
That is where I was this morning. I was thinking and feeling the concept of “nothing to do with you” and the extension that I wanted you to let go of your bitterness “score” before I would engage with you. As I thought about that, I broke down and wept horribly, because I didn’t see that happening. “What am I supposed to do then?” I cried. And I looked out over the water and out of the woods stepped two does. For a second, I just got excited that there were two deer over there. Then the dogs caught sight of them and started barking and they scampered—not frightened, they knew they had distance—along the beach before they went back into the woods. “Dad?” I thought. And there he was, his (younger) face shining and smiling. “Omg, I’m not ready for this” I thought and he laughed, he knew what I meant and how I meant it without my forming a complete thought. “Yes you are. You are ready,” he said in a voice of conviction, kindness, and also playfulness. What do I do? I sort of asked.. And this feminine form came into being next to him (I recognized her though I don’t know who she is). She said, “Love with your whole being as you have learned. You are a vessel, what pours in flows over and pours back out. You cannot stop it, hoping to direct the flow, do not form blocks in your heart, they serve no one. There is not time for pettiness. Once again, let go. Create a welcoming void within. A joy, a depression, a meanness, a momentary awareness, they are all visitors. Welcome all that comes, the sorrow, the delight, because each has been sent (or ordered?) as a guide. Remain in your inner truth, walk in beauty and virtue, like the deer.” I look at Dad’s face and he is beaming with an expression “did you hear that?” really playful. “I cannot do this.” I thought. And once again, Dad’s laughter. “Oh yes you can!” with laughter in his voice.. And then he got serious and said, slowly with an emphasis, “YOU GIRLS ARE NOT SMALL.” And a kind of flip of his hand, like it’s so simple and a puffing out of himself I think meaning or showing big or proud or something. This made me cry again, as it does now. And I had this feeling like “no all this crap is bigger than me.” And he said, “NO. It doesn’t belong to you. Listen to what she said.” I couldn’t tell for sure, it seemed like he might have meant it belonged to him? He had a serious, remorseful, apologetic?—really unnamable—look that I don’t know how to read. (or, “it doesn’t belong to you there is misunderstanding?”) This is where I wondered about you, but when I must have thought, “do I have to tell her (you) this?” Dad looked at me in a humorous, quizzical, yet serious way, “Did I give you one deer or two?” I asked if there is something, a “message” I should tell you. I caution you here, I don’t know how much I am a filter of some sort, like how much does my human experience influence what I am sensing. Frankly, I don’t know how this works and I didn’t ask for the sensing. He said, “Just because you saw the deer, doesn’t mean it’s just for you. You see it, so you are the messenger. She called for it you know.” (he smiles, like almost chuckles) “I am always this close for both of you girls.” …That’s all? I wondered. And Dad waved his hand, like “She says the big stuff” or something. I turned to her and she said, “We are the only ones who can heal ourselves—sometimes with assistance, sometimes without. Listen and feel, the earth will heal you with her timeless forces. (the image of the tides/ocean came into my mind) and prayer (meditation, mindfulness etc.) helps you to take power out of your mind and into the helping hands of your guides. Nurture your dreams (like experience them, create yourself in them), find what you have hidden in your heart, nurture your spirit (creativity?).” Dad is beaming. He flips his hand again, like “see, simple!”
And I am left with the image of the two deer scampering across the beach.
Sioux Rose
GANDY: What a beautiful, powerful post! And it was a gift to me. This is why. My X was also an alcoholic (so many are, at least in Florida!) and I am having similar issues with my daughters right now. It's so difficult to understand what another's karmic lesson is, and sometimes hard NOT to judge. I am going to print this email and try to take it to heart as guide for the circumstance I am facing with one of my daughters at this VERY time.
I was pretty upset last night and drove to Cedar Key. My little dog gets so excited by the farms we pass. Seeing the big animals (cows, horses), ones larger than himself, is the equivalent of taking a small child to the zoo. I realized last night that in taking the drive, it was just what my little dog needed, an act of love; and in giving that love, I felt better. Often we feel we need to GET love (or get something else) when the real answer comes from GIVING it. I agree about BEING the vessel as I have had that miraculous feeling of something beyond myself come through me on MANY occasions. Your daughters were really blessed by this magical experience, what a powerful gift to take along for the rest of life's journey.
There was this metaphysical teacher of Cuban background that I spent time with in Puerto Rico and he always tried to stress the difference between cause and effect as stemming from our own thought processes. On several occasions as soon as he tweaked my thought process, an IMMEDIATE shift appeared. Consciousness is a powerful thing, and when a lot of people focus together on something... be it "high" or "low," it generally will manifest. That's why the fear-driven US media with too many courting Armageddon in deluded concepts of a Divinely-intended "holy" war must be countered by enough who see a HIGHER vision, that perhaps of "Another World Is Possible." OF COURSE it is, it's the matter of getting the controls away from those that would destroy it all in homage to themselves, or their narrow belief in gods of destruction.
Thanks again for posting this. One of the GREATS (in my view) on this site that I often learn from!
By the way, in The Medicine Cards the DEER is about the innocence of the unguarded heart, or the path OF LOVE, which "is the greatest of these."
Good stuff.
I always thought Bird Watchers a little off the wall until i started really SEEING them myself.
My Old bachelor uncle used to live on his own in a little tiny house on the farm. I still remember the wild birds flying up to land on his shoulder and eat out of his hand. He had names for them and could tell them apart.
Sioux Rose
That sense of BEING with nature is nearly lost to Caucasians
Is it just me or is that a racist stereotype?
"That sense of BEING with nature is nearly lost to Caucasians"
That's not true of all Caucasians. True non-Caucasians especially when you look at the tribal folks resonate better with nature but let us give everyone a chance. There are different ways to connect with nature too. Some people do it some ways, others do it other ways.
Sioux Rose
JB: My use of the word BEING intends stillness, a state of peace and at-one-ment.
Lots of Caucasians play games outside, and they love to boat, usually speeding, even on the water, likely to drive creatures like manatees batty. They like to hunt, and if they go to a place like the campground at the state park near my home, they bring their loud TVS and radios and do NOT let the natural world alter them. No, they are not BEING with nature. They are merely "outside."
I consider the springs near my place a VERY sacred place. I make it a point to bike in close to closing time and PRAY there are no other people there. If there are, I generally suffer the fools smoking cigarettes in a zone where the air is about as clean as anything left on this fouled earth. They talk about BS and they're loud and don't regard the surroundings as the sacred zone it is.
Americans take overweight gas-guzzling vehicles into sacred places and foul the air. To be with nature is to be still, to take a break from one's general behaviors, to FAST... that is to BE still with nature, as opposed to imposing one's way on this other world. How many can act as observer and recognize what they are privileged to connect with or look upon constitutes a sacrament?
Before I got my new Shitzu, Chocolate, I bonded for 10 years with a very wise Chow named Billingsley, a patient Capricorn dog who was an incredible companion. Projecting onto her the role of ambassador between the world of people and that of animals, I penned a children's book, "Adventures of a Hawaiian Lion in Paradise." What I like about this unpublished work is that it provides "An Etiquette for Sacred Places," and introduces young readers to "10 Commandments on How to Treat the Natural World." The first is the recognition there are other kingdoms--like plant and mineral, for starters. And kingdoms ought be treated and regarded with due respect.
Coming from a Childhood where we would take naught but a blanket and spend summer nights sleeping on a haystack looking at the stars or go hiking to a lake with little more then a rod and reel and what we could carry, I am always struck by the amount of gear people seem to need to go out and "experience nature" with.
The extremes are of course those people who go into the wilderness with those massive motor homes with Satellite dishes and who spend the evenings sitting in the thing watching tv but even at that...
What gets me even more is the people who take cell phones and feel the need to yap on them every 20 minutes to friends as they are "experiencing the wilderness. Or those ipods so they can listen to their "music"
There something that just bothers me about that.
I RARELY leave the country when I take my vacations. The only reason I go TO another city is because my folks live there. I find Cities a place I would rather NOT vacation in.
I like out of the way spots , away from the tourists who stop for 15 minutes at each site before they jump in their vehicles to fit in the next site on their schedules.
There is holiness laying on the side of a grassy hill away from the crowds and just looking up at the clouds as a hawk flies overhead. All places are in fact holy where there is LIFE.
Wild nature is an abundance of life thus the wellspring of what I find as Holy.
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: Sensitive post. Nature IS my temple... that's why seeing Her trashed in so many ways upsets me deeply.
JB: Thanks for the head's up on what a Hawaiian Lion (LOL) could teach children in terms of honoring the natural world. I had a lot of fun writing that book, a tribute to my dog-companion who left this plane about a year later. It's Dr. Seuss-like, all rhyming verse. Eventually I may self-publish it, but I have begun to publish a backlog of 20 years of works... mainstream publishers in this country want books that either deal with the proverbial quick fix, or emulate another title that has a proven sales track record. It's all about the money, and zilch about vision. Hence my doing all the heavy lifting myself. Sometimes IT gets to me...
Ok, I see what you mean. That is an interesting perspective. Your second paragraph reminds me of another one of my weaknesses and makes me think that this is another reason why God moved me from the rurals to the city life. I think most of us Americans are just sooo restless that we would gleefully abandon the rurals, squeeze into the urban cities and surrounding suburbs, and make a complete mess of it.
On your third paragraph, I wouldn't mind meeting people even in the springs you describe but certainly not those kind of people. It is hard to know who to trust anymore out there. For my part, I have no access to such quiet open spaces but I make do with the best of a quiet spot at the right time when no one is likely to be around. A Chinese woman and and Indian man have given me ideas on meditating even in the loudest and harshest of environments. I have yet to be good at that and I'll bet it will take a lot of practice. If I ever get successful, I would love to tell how I got there and pursue a strategy that might work.
Speaking of gas guzzlers, the newer ones come with built in TVs to spoil the children. I once talked to a co-worker of mine who proudly boasts about owning such a vehicle. He told me "Gotta please the kids, can't have them shouting while I'm driving !" I told him that I would much rather let the kids shout it out and then train them to get over it and look outside their windows and learn a bit about nature. I also told him that I wouldn't be driving a big vehicle unless there really was a lot that had to be carried. I laughed him off after he grumbled that he hopes I never have kids ! I don't think I could ever get him to fast as he eats everyday like a slob.
Your last paragraph is fascinating. That would be an interesting path towards humanely installing the 10 commandments in people's minds rather than the way Roy Moore does it.
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: I probably should have said AMERICANS... it's that sense of entitlement, the long-indoctrination to the bankrupt ethos of Mars rules, and just a complete lack of regard for the natural world. I know there are exceptions, but I also know what I see and I travel a lot.
Sioux Rose,
Americans probably is better. Yeah, it's American mainstream culture that does not connect with the natural world--I have noticed few blacks and Hispanics--or whites, for that matter--outside enjoying the beauty of the natural world, so race is not exactly the right way to describe the phenomenon you are talking about.
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: It's the culture of "God gave man dominion over the earth" that acts like it OWNS life and then goes on to destroy it. When I lived in Puerto Rico people LOVED to be outside, but while they enjoyed the beach, they so often trashed it. Either no one cared to put out trash receptacles, or no one could be bothered to use them. Diapers and soda cans, ubiquitous cigarette butts litter the body of the Great Mother. THAT disgusts me, but the whole Americanized "convenience culture" ethos that has led LITERALLY to an island of plastic trash out in the Pacific says it all. If any higher spirit agencies are observing our planet, they must marvel at the gross stupidity and lack of vision on the part of TOO many.
Sioux Rose,
You know what is odd? I live near the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan. You can go to beaches even in the middle of summer and find them empty. People are in their houses, in their cars, talking on cells, shopping or doing whatever, but they do not care about experiencing nature. I know that is not exactly what you are talking about. You are saying that people don't care and show it by trashing a place. I am saying they not only don't care and but they don't even bother to experience and interact with beautiful places. I suppose it all comes out of the same bag: the narrow focus on MEism and superficial satisfaction.
Thank the goddess for Barbara Ehrenreich! Her research and writing on women and the working class for the past 40 years has been invaluable. Someone sorely needs to take apart all this pop psych
that flows so freely on Huff Po's living page. I look forward to reading her new book Bright-Sided which sees the social control encoded in this most American pseudo philosophy.
The last few years I have found former allies in feminism unwilling to discuss or look at issues anymore in the name of staying positive. So feminist analysis has gone out the window with the bluebird of happiness and feminist solidarity and friendship (true sources of wellbeing for me) have flown with it.
As for koalaburger half the continent of Africa is in a rape epidemic, our military hospitals report 41% of the women there have been raped by their 'comrades" and we hardly need a statistical study to see the prevalence of rape among men and the lack of will ( and thousands of rape kits sitting on shelves unexamined) to do anything about it. So typical to find a post like his after any article about women.
This is another good one that I read yesterday on Barbara Ehrenreich on the positive-thinking BS. It's another thing that I think affects and undermines women a great deal more than men. It's grossly overused and undermines empathy and compassion:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143187/barbara_ehrenreich%3A_the_relentless_promotion_of_positive_thinking_has_undermined_america
Sioux Rose
ARTEMIS: Excellent post!
The innumerable feedback loops operational in any large modern society are difficult to get a handle on, so large social movements often produce unexpected results. My guess would be that making progress in achieving equality rarely makes anyone unhappy but that living a life in anger often does.
There are an infinite number of ways to model the world, to group individuals, to group behaviors, or to identify trends. I would think if a model serves the individual poorly, particularly with regard to the individual's life quality, the individual would seek other models. But human beings are generally stubborn creatures.
"My guess would be that making progress in achieving equality rarely makes anyone unhappy but that living a life in anger often does."
I am starting to think that the more my new apartment partner and I communicate more often and share our experiences and ideas in life and try to be creative. There will always be disagreements but striving for equality at the base cannot hurt. I still cannot forget the day last month that I confessed that I was so angry at politics and just wished people would look at life's issues without the politics and discard the party and ideological labels.
"But human beings are generally stubborn creatures."
Yes, that's true but so too are certain other animals. The difference is with humans, ideas and methods are often tried in overcoming one stubbornness after another. Animals overcome their stubbornness too but it's not as complicated I guess. Perhaps, one could say I was very stubborn in life everytime I would vehemently deny that I was unhappy until someone nice to me would gently get me to confess and then I would be in tears not sure of what to do scared that I had finally let it out and that I would face humiliation. Maybe those animals lack all those fears and live at ease. I don't know. I'm not good at biology.
Thanks for your sincere and warm response. I believe that anger can sometimes motivate us to do something to improve our lives, but in the modern world it probably handicaps us more often than it helps us and may have serious quality of life repercussions. As we strive to achieve that optimal balance between finding motivation to change our world to better suit our needs and learning how to accept life as it is, it would seem ill-advised to rely too heavily on anger to motivate us to achieve whatever change we decide to make.
One study by a feminist American professor where she surmised a very high percentage of women are victims of rape was bandied about everywhere by the media and feminists for years. It later came out she had included women (students at her college who undertook the study) who had sex when they would have preferred not to as rapes. All men I know have had sex when they were too tired or uninterested because of give and take in relationships, but to call it rape is a big call. This is just one example of the shoddy statistics bandied about. The crazy thing is there are things that need correcting relating to women around the world but demonising all men to do it by exageration and lies does nobody any good. It is very sexist actually if you look at the definition of sexism.
Where did you discuss how tired but giving you are? Is there a place where all the men you know meet to share your thoughts about your relationship issues? Others might like to attend with you and all the men you know.
"One study by a feminist American professor where she surmised a very high percentage of women are victims of rape was bandied about everywhere by the media and feminists for years."
If it was indeed "bandied about everywhere" then you should have no trouble providing us with a link to substantiate this claim.
q
Feminists are almost by definition more aware of what's going on in the world than non-feminists are. Anyone with awareness who's *not* struggling with increasing gloom and sadness, given our current prospects as a species, would almost qualify for diagnosis.
You said it, Mairead.
But I would add to the feelings of "gloom" about what's inevitably coming if we continue on as we have in this country especially, and yes, to the "sadness" that borders on grief often as "the center will not hold," I would add intense frustration and anger that so few really get it at all.
I will always have the 8-year-old's memories of the day of the announcement that THE WAR [WWII] was over, and the dancing and singing and hugging and kissing and laughter and tears in the restaurant with the bar filled with local patrons and servicemen [not a woman in (combat) uniform then]. But in the next ten years, The Great Depression and The War became memories. Increasing Prosperity were the words for the present and for the unlimited future.
And then The Boomer TV generation and their children became robotized as CONSUMERS, and the rich got richer, and lucrative Wars and Warfare were and are part of that as always.
The grown-ups I knew as a child, many immigrants and many first-generation U.S. citizens, had struggled for a long time, and they had learned to make-do and were creative in those endeavors and sharing of those endeavors. Over-all they were hard-working, life-savvy, decent and kind people who knew how to enjoy themselves with simple pursuits--reading, conversations, playing cards, sewing, painting, singing, gardening, taking a walk, and so forth--either alone or with company [and this is certainly not to idealize everything back then].
Yes, most of us have gotten more sophisticated and more accepting and broad-minded,
but also more self-centered and shallow from the mantras of "taking care of #1," "I deserve it, and therefore I should have it," etcetera. And the feminist movement certainly unwittingly contributed to this mightily. "The hand that rocks the cradle ..." and all that has a very, very strong influence, and the influence, in general, has been more geared to consumerism and $-made and position[s] than anything else because of the life-time of television-ad programming/conditioning.
Because our Republic and our democratic process of government is just about dead, and we are in thrall to the richest among us in the financial worlds and the military [and all those private contracts that go with it] that sucks up 52 per cent of our national budget and returns death and destruction of others and our own, it is obvious that instead of an evolvement from that joyful day in the restaurant when I was eight, when never again would there be another war, when never again would we allow this to happen because we had learned at last, that business, not only has gone on as usual, but has escalated out of control.
Once BIG DOLLARS became a requirement in the political process to buy ads on television and all the paraphrenalia that goes with an individual's getting successfully elected [including voting machine rigging], and the corporate media became the Big Brother of 1984 in its ability to control what or whom are seen or heard, we, as a nation of so-called independent thinkers/voters became a relic from the past.
Interesting ride this. Likely it's all going to get a hellava' lot worse before it gets better ... and getting better for our planet may mean the elimination of a self-/other-destructive species that never was able to evolve high enough, and the hundreds to thousands of years required for the earth to heal and replenish itself.
In the meantime, those of us who are still breathing and have a certain level of awareness [and that varies] can keep on keepin' on to do what we can.
peace, cm
What makes me really happy is some guy who makes a million-plus dollars a year speaking at me from the idiot box and saying phrases like, "the high cost of sending your children to college." Yes, my children, not his.
Well, it seems that male and female newscasters are always happy, and from this statistic I may conclude that the entire country is happy. So, happiness is not subjective at all! Women and men couldn't possibly be unhappy! I can't find my smiley emoticon.
Hum. . .I do not think that women are sadder; I think most women, like most men, are worried about the world around them and all the violence and hatred in the world. I think women, like a lot of men, are sick and tired of all the gasbags on talk radio and TV shouting at anything not like them. I think women are worried about the economic and how to make ends meet while carrying for kids, a husband, elderly parents, friends and a home.
I think a lot of professional women, like myself, are sick and tired of all the subtle, but present, bias towards women in general in the workplace. I think a lot of us are just plain tired of trying to do 60 hours of work each week and only getting paid for 40. I, like so many others haven't seen a decent increase in salary in "years". In fact, with the yearly increases in medical insurance premiums, my raise is lost to insurance premiums.
I, like a lot of women, over 50 are worried about the ability to maybe, someday, retire, but do not have a pension, because companies reserve those only for the men at the top of the heap. Our 401K, IRA are not worth much thanks to the bankers and financiers and their game playing during Dubya's and Cheney's reign of incompetence.
For many, a lot of employers are using any excuse to not do matching funds for the 401K plans they offer as a "benefit"; some benefit!
Yes, women are sad, but so are our men. It has NOTHING to do with feminism, rather, it has to do with waking up and finding out that the previous eight years were worse than we had originally thought. It saddness due to seeing our political leaders on the right, be so bull-headed and nasty regarding fixing the medical system, the poltical system, etc. Now, now, thanks to some adept investigative reporting, we are learning just how bought and sold our "elected" representatives in Congress really are. The common good seems to have gone bye-bye.
I think we all need to support term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court; that way, we can get some fresh blood and some fresh perspective on a regular basis. Just maybe, if our political system worked for the common good, instead of the money shakers, we all might be a little happier.
How happy are men since 1972? The share of the nations income going to the top 1% has tripled in the last 30 years, while that going to the bottom 90% has fallen 20%. So, while worker productivity has increased dramatically in that time, wages are stagnant and even down. Now, supply-side economics led to an investment bubble that popped and the rich, through their bankers, are asking the public to chip in or they'll let the whole farce collapse. The public clamours for some relief on healthcare, and the 'system' is so tilted to favor corporations that the best 'our' representatives can do is FORCE us all to buy corporate health insurance. Talented women entered the workplace, and found they are as easily misused as their male counterparts had been for decades. Now the system virtually REQUIRES both partners to be working if they don't want to live in poverty. Clearly, womens 'lib' was a boon, for somebody...
Honestly. You'd have to be in significant denial to be happy with the way things have gone in the last 30 years.
ubrew12 says:
Now the system virtually REQUIRES both partners to be working if they don't want to live in poverty. Clearly, womens 'lib' was a boon, for somebody...
Interesting comment...put this together with the fact that housing prices escalated dramatically during the Reagan years...prior, housing was rather affordable on one income, but, at the same historical time that two incomes are becoming more common, housing prices rise to the point that two are virtually required...big finance gets a big win...same house, twice the dough...
Thank you
Sigh. Well if Earth does have the gender predominantly assigned by humans, SHE sure seems a bit under the weather....at least when you look at this problematic species she's hosting that seems intent on extracting her vital fluids,minerals and other species at an ever-increasing rate. Personally I think there are gender issues galore, from rape to Taliban violence against women to pay disparities to membership in the power elite. But they're really symptomatic of a species-wide ignorance and denial of our interconnectedness... what Thich Nhat Hanh would call our 'interbeing'. It's a whopper of a paradigm that's unravelling and whatever it morphes into, it seems, will be better served by the receptive qualities of our kinder nature than the dominance-on-steroids qualities we've lived with for so long. Like Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society".
Sioux Rose
MATAGANCITA: Excellent points.
These "happiness studies" are probably just fodder for selling more anti-depressants.
Anyone who really feels connected to others, and the living, natural world SHOULD feel depressed! There are agonizing things no sane society OUGHT tolerate happening as the everyday banalities of an evil so pervasive that adapting (as MATAGANCITA related) to this particularly sick societal model suggests its own malady.
The author did point out that such items as low pay, lousy hours, a support system broken by so many persons forced to work extra hours, added to a prejudicial "health care" system ALL contribute to everyday worries. I became incensed watching Dr. Phil read the riot act to society's "left behind." No mention was ever given by this brutal authoritarian to those social contracts that had factored into persons being in dire straights. Nope. To Dr. Phil, life is a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" set of lessons in personal accountability. No mercy need be extended.
It would be one thing if our society had fair taxes, good jobs, health care for all... and THEN some happiness quotient was extracted. But to pretend that all these very real problems that erode peace are not playing havoc with peoples' feelings is another great deception. Of course such items do help sell the "7 steps to happiness" style recipe books that have been the ones favored by agents I have come in contact with. In an instant-gratification culture based on the individualized pursuit of so-called happiness, it's quite inconvenient to factor in the very real calamities taking place in our midst and beyond. Anyone with empathy is going to tap into these horrors and that does place happiness at something of a risk. Therefore it could be stated that anyone who's really happy while our nation is busily bombing away, nature is dying, the US economy is sacked... is either on anti-depressants, not paying attention, possessed of a thick psychic skin, or a sociopath. Scams like this are psychology's version of "The Twilight Zone," or should be!
If I had the time right now, I would have said what Sioux Rose says here, pretty much. My thoughts exactly, SR. Dr. Phil is a pompous social control mechanism used by corporate media to keep people confused about the chaos and madness of living in this insane society, as are antidepressants. Take your Prozac or one its dozens of knock-offs, watch Dr. Phil, and ignore what's actually going on in the world. Vote for some corporate shill who spins impressive-sounding rhetoric about "change" and "hope," then STFU when nothing changes and there's even less hope, keep popping those pills and watching TV hucksters tell you it's all your own fault if you're depressed.
Sioux Rose & Ephraim: I completely agree with your assessment of Dr. Phil. I remember, years ago, watching a few of his shows, and thinking -- "And, this is helping people?" If I had more time, I'd describe more of the shock I absorbed while watching, but I have to leave soon. My advice, turn off the TV.
I have heard self-help, positive-thinking gurus (on TV and even on PBS) actually tell people to quit reading newspapers, etc. Then, there's the SECRET -- if you can see it, you can have it! That so many people subscibe to this theory demonstrates how desperate people are in their lives, but a fix only lasts for so long, and then the addict is revealed for what he or she is. As Tennessee Ernie Ford once sang, "Another day older, and deeper in debt."
According to my own observations, most so-called experts who use "tough love" or "positive thinking" as the solution to all problems, actually ignore reality, and blame the patient even if the problems are of the real world. For the most part, they offer NO solutions to real life dilemmas. Blame is easy! But, blame gets them off the hook, doesn't it?
Concerning the bootstrap theory, this seems to be another cop-out. How do you pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don't have any shoes?
If we don't feel depressed, or sad, when a friend or relative dies, or when we lose a job, or when we lose our home, etc. -- we would NOT be human beings, but machines. Granted, if the sadness, grief and/or depression don't dissipate after some time passes, and the amount of time necessary to recover can be different for each person, then, a person may need to seek some real accredited professional help.
As Barbara Ehrenreich points out -- from hour to hour, our happiness quotient can span the spectrum. And, blaming feminism -- get a grip!