Split Thread Are post-feminism women happier?

[theprestige]

Well, none of us are in a position to upend society...

This is a cop out. Karl Marx wasn't in a position to upend society, but it didn't stop him from articulating a sweeping societal change, that he believed was both desirable and inevitable.

What's stopping you from articulating your own idea of what a desirable society would look like?

Your question presupposes the liberal world view where you create some version of Plato's Republic that you try to convince everybody of.

No it does not. It presupposes that you either share the liberal belief system, or you have some other belief system. Thus the question of which you believe in: the liberal one, or another one.

 

[shuttlt]

This is a cop out. Karl Marx wasn't in a position to upend society, but it didn't stop him from articulating a sweeping societal change, that he believed was both desirable and inevitable.

Sure, but he also believed that the world could be reformed to accord with rationalistic principles. I don't, so I can't propose a scheme for doing it.

What's stopping you from articulating your own idea of what a desirable society would look like?

Because the challenge isn't coming up with fantasy societies that are desirable in our heads. That is easy and any 5 year old can do it. The problem is that such ideal societies have the seeds of their own destruction within them, and frequently fail quickly and spectacularly. I do not believe in societies that are founded on ideals or to conform to ideals. They are incoherent, always stand in denial of the real world and are a sign a civilization is close to its end.

I explained in a recent post the things that, I think, evidence suggest actually make people happy in a society. The main one seems to be community. Therefore, I think it is likely that a better society would have more elements of localism and community. With all that inevitably comes less freedom in the modern sense.

No it does not. It presupposes that you either share the liberal belief system, or you have some other belief system. Thus the question of which you believe in: the liberal one, or another one.

No. I am saying that the seeds of the destruction are there and obvious. A very similar cycle occurred in the classical world as the religious belief that underpinned the society fell away. The myths that underpinned the society are no longer believed in and the society falls. I can no more recommend a solution than third century Romans could recommend a solution. It's the cycle of civilizations. Typically something more local, community orientated, hierarchical and conservative arises that has some unifying belief which is then stable for a long period of time. Eventually Socrates, or the Enlightenment turn up and the foundations that sustained society for centuries begin to totter.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just to be clear. That was a joke predicated on the fact that I was clearly talking to you and Rolfe and, while I haven't had independent verification, I believe both you both identify as women.

I missed the joke.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I just saw this post quoted, and, reading it, realized I had screwed up the negatives. What I meant was that very few women would support laws forbidding women to adopt certain professions. i.e. Almost every woman, including conservative women, opposes workplace discrimination based on sex today.

I assumed there was an extra negative in there somewhere. It didn't make sense as written

 

[Emily's Cat]

No, but the entire thread has been a repeated explanation of why asking women "does x make you happier" is no good. Again, the graph shows women in the US have been steadily getting unhappier since 1972. This is a well known phenomenon called "the paradox of declining female happiness". Feminism has changed society in immeasurable ways. We only live one life. Somebody saying "had I grown up in a different set of circumstances, I would have been less happy" is simply a belief that the cultural assumptions of one's culture are the correct ones. Again, data indicates women were happier than men in 1972 and are now less happy than men. Data that feminism has made women happier is of the same level as testimonials for homeopathy.

The argument in favour of feminism having made women happier is circular. It assumes what the things are that should make women happier, and then points to them having been delivered. Are they in fact happier? Emily's Cat was saying "no" earlier and raised some interesting questions that I'm still thinking about (I found a new book related to the topic).

Your graph also shows males becoming less happy.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if both males and females are less happy. I wouldn't even be surprised if females are relatively more unhappy than males. My dispute is that you assert that the cause of the drop in happiness is specifically due to feminism.

I would not be at all surprised, for example, to find that the self-reported level of happiness of both black and white people has reduced since the late sixties. I wouldn't be shocked to find that the relative increase in unhappiness is greater for black people than for white people. But I would certainly challenge an assertion that the *cause* of the unhappiness of black people is civil rights itself.

Your argument seems to be that females are unhappy because feminism hasn't delivered what it was expected to delivery. I could potentially agree with that, to some degree. But you seem to also be implicitly asserting that the objectives of feminism can never be attained and should never have been sought in the first place.

You've also broadened that premise to include not just feminism, but the entirety of enlightenment liberal philosophy. To be honest, part of me giggles at that premise... because without that enlightenment foundation, we wouldn't be able to have this debate in the first place. Chances are that neither you nor I would have even been allowed a robust enough education to even begin to discuss the merits and shortfalls of liberalism at all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Conservative women overwhelmingly believe in liberalism. We are using the words differently. Conservative women are less far along the process because they tend to exist in a world containing more traditional cultural structures. Inevitably those cultural structure will be eroded, and they will be drawn in the same direction as the progressive liberals, just somewhat more slowly.

I don't see why you think it is inevitable that liberalism would be the downfall of civilization (exaggeration intentional). I don't even see that all progressivism is necessarily inevitable. There are other parts of the planet where we have witnessed liberalism being clawed back to traditionalism. There are even policies within the US where we've seen approaches that would reasonably be considered progressive be halted and unwound. Nuclear energy comes to mind. By all rational thought, it should be a progressive objective to remove dependency on fossil fuels and to adopt significantly cleaner approaches, of which nuclear is certainly one.

From a perspective of principle, I think you err in conflating liberalism and progressivism. I also think you err in elevating the value of traditionalism in all things, but I think that may be beyond scope. I'm content to first try to establish that liberalism is not the same as progressivism.

 

[TomB]

Well, the survey's I've seen in Texas seem to indicate that quite a lot of women are in favour of more restrictions on abortion there. Most of this stuff is too late to fight anymore, even if one disagrees with it. The basic problem is that the whole of the West sees the world through liberal glasses that assume liberalism is a good thing that makes the world better, and views the negatives as unfortunate accidents caused by corrupt or incompetent implementation or something. It's like arguing against the cultural assumptions underpinned by ancestor worship in Athens in 1000BC.


The slippery slope is slippery. Everything flows in one direction.

I would point out that abortion, like many other discrete issues, is a bit more complicated than "liberal or conservative." Stances are often based on things other than women's rights. There is religion, for example. And differing opinions (not necessarily conservative or liberal) as to the point that a fetus becomes a person. I've seen other wise feminist women who were anti-abortion and conservative, non-feminist women who were pro-choice.

A lot of issues can be viewed on different scales than the ones you are using and are, therefore, more complicated.

 

[Meadmaker]

I assumed there was an extra negative in there somewhere. It didn't make sense as written

Yeah.

I just saw this post quoted, and, reading it, realized I had screwed up the negatives. What I meant was that very few women would support laws forbidding women to adopt certain professions. i.e. Almost every woman, including conservative women, opposes workplace discrimination based on sex today.

 

[shuttlt]

Your graph also shows males becoming less happy.

Yes, I have said that. Though they are now more happy than females, where before they had been less happy. It does seem strange that in the patriarchal world of the 1970s that was structured to favour men , and men had all these opportunities, while women were denied them, women were happier than men.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if both males and females are less happy.

No, I'm not particularly surprised.

I wouldn't even be surprised if females are relatively more unhappy than males. My dispute is that you assert that the cause of the drop in happiness is specifically due to feminism.

That really isn't my claim though. My claim is effectively the same as that articulated in the paradox of declining female happiness. It seems strange that, in the world that feminism sees as patriarchal and catering to the needs of men, women were in fact happier than men. Feminism has achieved huge social changes, and women are now less happy than men. I am suggesting that if we actually cared about female happiness, that graph might cause us to question our assumptions, maybe we don't.

I am not asserting that the "cause of the drop in happiness is specifically due to feminism." There are clearly many factors involved as I say over, and over, and over.... and almost certainly will again when inevitably that is ignored and I am told that I am asserting that the "cause of the drop in happiness is specifically due to feminism."

would not be at all surprised, for example, to find that the self-reported level of happiness of both black and white people has reduced since the late sixties.

Progress is a wonderful thing.

I wouldn't be shocked to find that the relative increase in unhappiness is greater for black people than for white people. But I would certainly challenge an assertion that the *cause* of the unhappiness of black people is civil rights itself.

There are always many variables involved. Is there any outcome that would lead you to question the assumptions of feminism or the civil rights movement? Are these just entirely unverifiable articles of faith?

Your argument seems to be that females are unhappy because feminism hasn't delivered what it was expected to delivery. I could potentially agree with that, to some degree. But you seem to also be implicitly asserting that the objectives of feminism can never be attained and should never have been sought in the first place.

They can't be obtained. Obviously, one can still convince everybody that if they are not obtained then their lives are intolerably oppressive, and indeed you have to do something like that to get political change. The intellectual left wrote about the need to make the groups that they thought were oppressed feel their oppression extensively from at least the 1920s. Leaning to see the sexism in the world is a process of taking on a perspective that makes you dissatisfied in order to advance activism.

Whether it should be sought in the first place is tricky. I think the problem is that to do activism you have to take on this perspective, but since you are never going to get to the point where that perspective tells you that the job is done, you will never get to the point where that perspective is going to show you a world that you don't find oppressive. None of this is specific to feminism, of course.

You've also broadened that premise to include not just feminism, but the entirety of enlightenment liberal philosophy. To be honest, part of me giggles at that premise... because without that enlightenment foundation, we wouldn't be able to have this debate in the first place. Chances are that neither you nor I would have even been allowed a robust enough education to even begin to discuss the merits and shortfalls of liberalism at all.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But then, for all that... has it made us happier? It's an inevitable part of the cycle of civilisation, but I think it's another thing that creates unhappiness. People are educated as if they were going to be public intellectuals, and then they have mundane, humble jobs. Expectations are set that can't be delivered on.

 

[shuttlt]

I would point out that abortion, like many other discrete issues, is a bit more complicated than "liberal or conservative." Stances are often based on things other than women's rights. There is religion, for example. And differing opinions (not necessarily conservative or liberal) as to the point that a fetus becomes a person. I've seen other wise feminist women who were anti-abortion and conservative, non-feminist women who were pro-choice.

A lot of issues can be viewed on different scales than the ones you are using and are, therefore, more complicated.

Again, conservatives and "liberals" are both types of liberal. All politics that isn't way out on the fringes in US politics is liberal politics in the more general sense of the term. There may be cultural, or religious reasons why somebody is against abortion.... but the trend in all those things is for them to be weakened with time. Liberalism dissolves traditional cultural and moral restraints on the freedom of the individual to act on their immediate desires, the state then continually expands to manage the problems that ensue from operating in that way.

 

[TomB]

Again, conservatives and "liberals" are both types of liberal. All politics that isn't way out on the fringes in US politics is liberal politics in the more general sense of the term. There may be cultural, or religious reasons why somebody is against abortion.... but the trend in all those things is for them to be weakened with time. Liberalism dissolves traditional cultural and moral restraints on the freedom of the individual to act on their immediate desires, the state then continually expands to manage the problems that ensue from operating in that way.

Define traditional.

Seriously, how far back do you have to go to encounter "traditional" values? How long does a value have to be accepted before it becomes the new "traditional?"

And are you sure what you define as "traditional" values are really traditional?

 

[theprestige]

Sure, but he also believed that the world could be reformed to accord with rationalistic principles. I don't, so I can't propose a scheme for doing it.

Another cop out. Nobody is asking you to propose a scheme for doing it. I'm just asking you what principles would give the world a form you desire.

 

[shuttlt]

Another cop out. Nobody is asking you to propose a scheme for doing it. I'm just asking you what principles would give the world a form you desire.

There isn't a specific form I desire. The idea of starting with principles is part of the problem. That is an unnatural way of building a society. It's an enlightenment project. Societies and the beliefs that underpin them must evolve over long periods of time. The sort of explicit principles based society is what you do when you already have a stable functioning society and leads to the death of the society.

What I am telling you is that there are constraints that reality imposes that are ignored by liberalism, and ignoring those constraints has consequences. I think the evidence shows that people were happier in the recent past, and there are some signs of the reasons for that. I think community is more important than the sort of individual liberty where social constraints have been stripped away that liberalism seeks. We can't go back though, and the communities that our grandparents grew up with are gone forever. I think liberalism striped away those communities and makes promises that can't be kept which leave people unhappy.

 

[shuttlt]

Define traditional.

In the context of the post you were responding to:

Liberalism dissolves traditional cultural and moral restraints on the freedom of the individual to act on their immediate desires, the state then continually expands to manage the problems that ensue from operating in that way.

All it means is whatever cultural artifacts were around before liberalism. The rational process of pushing them aside is a liberal process, so anything that depends on pre-liberal justifications is in that sense traditional. The family, and religiously binding men and women together within that go back to the beginnings of written records in our culture, so I would certainly count those things as traditional.

Maybe I should have just said "illiberal"? Traditionalism is important, but I think I am confusing the issue here.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I would point out that abortion, like many other discrete issues, is a bit more complicated than "liberal or conservative." Stances are often based on things other than women's rights. There is religion, for example. And differing opinions (not necessarily conservative or liberal) as to the point that a fetus becomes a person. I've seen other wise feminist women who were anti-abortion and conservative, non-feminist women who were pro-choice.

A lot of issues can be viewed on different scales than the ones you are using and are, therefore, more complicated.

I'm fairly liberal, though clearly not "progressive". I fall somewhere in between. I don't think abortion should be completely illegal... but I also think there's a point in there where a fetus really is a baby. I tend to land somewhere around "if it's capable of surviving with current standard medical care, then it's killing a baby and not aborting a fetus". But even then I allow some exceptions for medical reasons.

I've known people who've had abortions. I've yet to meet one who didn't find it heartbreaking and painful.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My claim is effectively the same as that articulated in the paradox of declining female happiness. It seems strange that, in the world that feminism sees as patriarchal and catering to the needs of men, women were in fact happier than men.

It also correlates with increased access to television, and escalates with the advent of the internet.

It seems strange that, in the world of easy access to constant information, females should be less happy than males, and both should be less happy than they were prior to such access?

Correlation is not causation. Additionally, this is not a fixed basket of goods. The basket of potential causes of happy today is not even remotely comparable to the basket of fifty years ago.

 

[Emily's Cat]

In the context of the post you were responding to:

All it means is whatever cultural artifacts were around before liberalism. The rational process of pushing them aside is a liberal process, so anything that depends on pre-liberal justifications is in that sense traditional. The family, and religiously binding men and women together within that go back to the beginnings of written records in our culture, so I would certainly count those things as traditional.

Maybe I should have just said "illiberal"? Traditionalism is important, but I think I am confusing the issue here.

Are you only looking at and considering western european, christian periods of time as "tradition"? You certainly don't seem to be considering pre-christian celtic traditions. And you don't appear to be considering middle eastern and indian traditions as "traditions".

So far as I can tell, you're working from a very nebulous concept of an Arthurian fiefdom sort of basis as "tradition" and assuming that any change from there is "liberalism". But in so doing, you seem to be hand-waving away all of the cultural changes that came before.

 

[gnome]

I think the evidence shows that people were happier in the recent past, and there are some signs of the reasons for that.

Can you indicate when the "recent past" was that you're referring to?

 

[shuttlt]

Can you indicate when the "recent past" was that you're referring to?

Just google "the paradox of declining female happiness". You'll find the paper.

 

[shuttlt]

It also correlates with increased access to television, and escalates with the advent of the internet.

It seems strange that, in the world of easy access to constant information, females should be less happy than males, and both should be less happy than they were prior to such access?

Correlation is not causation. Additionally, this is not a fixed basket of goods. The basket of potential causes of happy today is not even remotely comparable to the basket of fifty years ago.

I don't care about the "basket of happiness". I care about whether I feel happy, or whether you feel happy. What good is a basket of happiness if people feel less happy? That feels like some kind of tragic curse from the gods.