The decline of the two-parent family, for instance, is almost certainly depressing life satisfaction for the women stuck raising kids alone. But this can’t be the only explanation, since the trend toward greater female discontent cuts across lines of class and race. A working-class Hispanic woman is far more likely to be a single mother than her white and wealthy counterpart, yet the male-female happiness gap holds in East Hampton and East L.A. alike.
Again, maybe the happiness numbers are being tipped downward by a mounting female workload — the famous “second shift,” in which women continue to do the lion’s share of household chores even as they’re handed more and more workplace responsibility. It’s certainly possible — but as Wolfers and Stevenson point out, recent surveys actually show similar workload patterns for men and women over all.
Or perhaps the problem is political — maybe women prefer egalitarian, low-risk societies, and the cowboy capitalism of the Reagan era had an anxiety-inducing effect on the American female. But even in the warm, nurturing, egalitarian European Union, female happiness has fallen relative to men’s across the last three decades.
All this ambiguity lends itself to broad-brush readings. A strict feminist and a stringent gender-role traditionalist alike will probably find vindication of their premises between the lines of Wolfers and Stevenson’s careful prose. The feminist will see evidence of a revolution interrupted, in which rising expectations are bumping against glass ceilings, breeding entirely justified resentments. The traditionalist will see evidence of a revolution gone awry, in which women have been pressured into lifestyles that run counter to their biological imperatives, and men have been liberated to embrace a piggish irresponsibility.
There’s evidence to fit each of these narratives. But there’s also room for both.
[snip]
They should also be able to agree that the steady advance of single motherhood threatens the interests and happiness of women. Here the public-policy options are limited; some kind of social stigma is a necessity. But a new-model stigma shouldn’t (and couldn’t) look like the old sexism. There’s no necessary reason why feminists and cultural conservatives can’t join forces — in the same way that they made common cause during the pornography wars of the 1980s — behind a social revolution that ostracizes serial baby-daddies and trophy-wife collectors as thoroughly as the “fallen women” of a more patriarchal age.
No reason, of course, save the fact that contemporary America doesn’t seem willing to accept sexual stigma, period. We simply don’t have the stomach for permanently ostracizing the sexually irresponsible — be they a pregnant starlet, a thrice-divorced tycoon, or even a prostitute-hiring politician.
Uh, yeah we do, Mr. Douchebag -- as long as said transgressor is a Republican. Newt Gingrich is going to be able to run for president and is already embraced with open arms by the media -- but John Edwards is going to be a pariah forever.
As for his contention about single motherhood, is that really true? I have known in my life at least five women who are single by virtue of having made bad choices in an attempt to avoid single motherhood -- and are now not only single mothers, but have the added burden of trying to chase down child support, navigate visitation and custody and take crap for eighteen years from the jerks they should never have married in the first place. Or is this their "punishment" for not being dutiful wives? I know one young woman in her thirties whose wedding is coming up soon. Her clock started ticking when she was twenty-five. She wants babies right away because of her age. Her fiancé wants to wait at least a year or two. She's planning to revisit the issue with him -- after the wedding. Want to bet how SHE ends up?
Sometimes single motherhood isn't about "sexual irresponsibility." Sometimes it's about getting out of a bad or abusive marriage. Sometimes it's an affirmative decision born (heh) out of dating a parade of jerks, perpetual adolescents and childophobes and not talking oneself into marrying someone for his sperm. Single mothers may be more logistically harried than married ones, but for the women I cited above, I'm not sure single motherhood is any worse than being married was for them.
But I sense something else is at work here, something that goes hand in hand with the rash of "Being unemployed is a GOOD thing! Here's a story of someone who turned lemons into lemonade by volunteering to change the life of a needy child" chirpy stories being covered by bubbly newsbots on local newscasts these days. It seems that the massive job losses we're currently seeing are largely affecting men:
Economists say this recession is reshaping the financial roles of millions of women whose husbands have lost jobs. Since the recession began in December 2007, about 5.7 million jobs have disappeared in the United States. About 4 out of 5 of those jobs were held by men. That's because the heaviest employment cuts have been concentrated in construction, manufacturing and financial services, where male workers predominate.
The uneven impact of the recession shows up in the unemployment data. On Friday, the Labor Department said the overall jobless rate in April was 8.9 percent. But for adult men, the rate was 9.4 percent; for adult women, it was just 7.1 percent.
[snip]
To help their families through the recession, more working women are taking second jobs, according to CareerBuilder's annual Mother's Day survey taken by among women who work full time and have children under 18. The job-search company found that 14 percent of working mothers have taken on second jobs in the last year to beef up household income
Uh...maybe that's why women are unhappy? Because they're working not one but TWO jobs to try to keep things together? Historically it's men who define themselves through their work and their roles as breadwinner, so when that rug is pulled out from under them, men will often go into a tailspin, which leaves their wives having to not only work two jobs, but still come home and cook and do all the housework because hubby is curled up in a fetal position under the covers. Two law professors are questioning the role of the stimulus' focus on job creation for men in terms of gender equity:
Since its enactment, the G.I. Bill has been lauded as the law that "made modern America," rewarding veterans, democratizing higher education, expanding home ownership and laying the foundation for the economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s. The bill relieved pressure on the labor market by sending former soldiers, mostly men, to college or vocational training, and by allowing them to start businesses. Moreover, by expanding home ownership, the bill fueled a boom in home construction, infrastructure spending and consumer purchases.
But the bill also had other, less positive effects: Women, most of whom were not veterans and who entered the labor market during the war to fill jobs vacated by mobilizing men, found their postwar prospects limited. By law, they had to relinquish their jobs to the returning veterans.
[snip]
But the bailouts and other stimulus measures aim to bolster the economy by bolstering men. This is perhaps unsurprising. Those most imperiled by the recent economic downturn have been men, who have lost their jobs as the markets plunged. The two flagging industries targeted for bailouts are ones in which men play an outsize role - the automotive and financial services industries. The slump in construction has directly affected men, who make up the bulk of workers in this sector.
Women, who tend to be employed in education and health care, have weathered the downturn better. Indeed, statistics show that, because of the crisis and its effects on men and "male" industries, women will likely surpass men in the workforce, becoming the majority of workers for the first time in our history. If these trends continue, there may be more women working (although they continue to earn less than men) and more families dependent on a female breadwinner.
And perhaps that's why Ross Douchebag wants you to think women are unhappy today -- so they'll get out of the workplace to make room for the men. It remains to be seen, however, just how willing the men will be to take jobs making beds in hotels, or balancing six plates of ham 'n' eggs and a pot of coffee at 6 AM, or changing bedpans in a nursing home for minimum wage after they've been making 25% more than their female counterparts for years.
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