Posted on 09/29/2009 6:41:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
According to the United States General Social Survey, women’s overall level of happiness has dropped since 1972. Two professors at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania released a paper exploring female happiness, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” this spring which garnered national press attention. One of the major findings in this study is that women’s happiness has declined both compared to 35 years ago and compared to men’s happiness.
This study has prompted me to ask once again—Is feminism good for women? Does feminism make women happier? What does feminism hold for me?
I began asking these questions five years ago. I had just returned for my third year of college at the University of Virginia (UVA) after an internship in Washington, D.C. During my time in D.C., I had enjoyed being surrounded by ambitious conservative women. I sought out a club for conservative women on campus. Much to my disappointment, nothing like this existed, so on September 29, 2004, I founded a book club for conservative women at UVA, the Network of enlightened Women (NeW).
NeW was started to fill a niche on one campus. It turns out there was a need for NeW elsewhere. Within a few months of starting NeW at UVA, women from other campuses contacted me to see if they could start chapters of NeW on their campuses. That began our national expansion. NeW grew steadily—one chapter at a time as more and more women heard about NeW. NeW continues to grow this way.
Today, we are celebrating NeW’s fifth anniversary. In these last five years, NeW has grown to over 15 campuses, held four national conferences in D.C., launched the NeW Blog and been covered by national press such as TIME, The AP and The Washington Post.
NeW’s rapid growth demonstrates on the grassroots level what this study found in surveys: Women are still trying to figure out how to manage our lives. Feminism does not hold all the answers. We want to talk about it.
NeW members regularly discuss the opportunities and challenges facing women today as well as feminism. One of the most popular books that the NeW book clubs read is What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden. Crittenden exposes how feminism has hurt women today, such as by selling the idea that the key to female happiness is independence. Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism by Carrie Lukas are two other popular books for NeW chapters. These books resonate with young women, much more so than a radical feminist agenda.
Many NeW chapters even hold campus-wide events to broaden the discussion. Among others, NeW chapters have hosted speakers, held careers panels and sponsored debates. Take Blayne Bennett, the President of the NeW chapter at Arizona State University, for example. She was frustrated by the negative attitude toward men that campus feminists promoted through The Vagina Monologues. In response, she organized a Gentlemen’s Showcase to encourage her peers to talk about chivalry, gentlemen and relations between the sexes. At the Gentlemen’s Showcase, the ladies of NeW honored the top ten most-nominated gentlemen at ASU to show their appreciation for those men who treated women with dignity and respect. This event sparked quite a discussion.
Five years ago, I did not anticipate NeW becoming a national movement. NeW’s success is a product of college women rebelling against the feminist message that dominates campus and trying proactively to find ways to increase their level of happiness. Young women are seeking a new message—one that embraces femininity, acknowledges that there are sex differences and values the role of women as mothers and in the workplace. NeW provides a place for women to explore this message and seeks to turn women in a NeW direction—one that will lead to an increase in women’s happiness.
Not long after I was born. Figures.
Women LIKE men who will provide for them, take care of them, and make the big decisions.
Feminism is robbing them of that.
that tends to happen when you spend enough time reading magazines and watching daytime talk shows that are all reinforcing the idea that your life sucks!
Whenever I heard a woman say; “I’ve never been happier”, it usually meant she isn’t.
Correlation or causation? ;-P
Way to go Ladies!
Female and male happiness, provided they are heterosexual, is dependent on finding a suitable member of opposite sex to fall in love with.
But if women are constantly being brainwashed to hate men or feel guilty about loving masculine men, then women are going to stay unhappy.
Women are the victims of their own runaway femininity and the oppression of masculinity.
Conspiracy, I believe :-)
The problem is they have made it worse for all the rest of it.
If the mommy isn’t happy - nobody is happy.
>Women are the victims of their own runaway femininity and the oppression of masculinity.
“Feminism is the mode of thought which hate everything feminine.” — GK Chesterton
I can only speak for myself, having said that, motherhood is what made me happiest. I waited until I was 32 yrs old to get married. I had a good job. I travelled all over the world. When I had a preemie, I decided to stay home with him. The first few months were very unrewarding (lots of diapers, barf, sleep deprivation, etc). As the baby grew older and I was able to find more and more rewards, I really began to grow into my role. I can’t imagine anything that is more rewarding than helping my children find their way in the world. The rewards seem endless...
American women are at low ebb right now, and it’s their own fault. With so many, selfishness runs amok, it’s all about them, never about anyone else. And that’s where they feel the conflict, because they aren’t built that way naturally. The MSM has been as negative for American women as the Democrat Party has been for American blacks.
If women would just be who they are and not try to be someone they are not they would be happy. Be yourself, strive for success, don’t bow to what is out there. Don’t listen to all the garbage that is spewed in advertising about all these products who say you will be young again. We age. We all age. It is the natural way of life. You can botox 7 days a week all year long but your INSIDES will still be the way they are due to the natural process of aging. Women need to be healthy and fit. That means eating food and junk too. Exercising to keep themselves fit and healthy but doing it for YOURSELF and NO ONE ELSE.
I think everyone should strive to look nice, be healthy and fit but if you are not like the mag covers and the make up ads and all that other nonesense...so what? I wonder what all those beauties look like before they have ten people doing their hair and makeup.
I wish women woul like themselves for who they are. Stop trying to please everyone else and stop trying to look like everyone else. Be yourself. Do your own thing and all the right things for yourself and then everything else will fall into place. You WILL be happy for all the right reasons. Stop letting others tell you how you should look, dress and behave. Behave like you know you should, dress the way you know you should and look confident. Don’t let anyone else run your life. It is YOUR life and it is here and gone before we know it. So, be yourself. You couldn’t ask to be anyone better than that. :) Be happy :)
Um, that's an old message. Tried and true.
Submission is the road to happyness.
My observation as one who is older: A lot of men of that generation (they mention 1972) were happy to step away from the roles of providing, taking care of, or being “men”. A lot of so-called feminists were/are women who stepped up and took on the role of supporting their families. I’m not convinced it was a choice in many cases.
Women have indulged this on themselves...thank God for men there are happy Asian women.
We could start a thread on the white man/Asian woman phenomomenon, which I first noticed as a lad visiting the west coast, but which has taken NYC by storm over the past five years or so.
There already is a big one.
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