Blue Is the New Black (M Dowd - NYT)

[jeffbr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&em

Blue Is the New Black
By MAUREEN DOWD

Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl. “How can you tell?” he deadpanned. “It’s always been whine-whine-whine.”...

But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women? According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier...

Marcus Buckingham, a former Gallup researcher who has a new book out called “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently,” says that men and women passed each other midpoint on the graph of life. “Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy,” Buckingham writes in his new blog on The Huffington Post, pointing out that this darker view covers feelings about marriage, money and material goods. “Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older.”..

Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s...

Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on. There are more widows than widowers, and men have an easier time getting younger mates.

[sui generis]

1. racist!

(I actually had someone call me that HERE ON DU after using the phrase) :P

oh boy.

Yes, it takes a lot of energy to be bitter, twisted, and hating everything all the time. Something about conservatism just takes too much out of life, caring about what everyone else is doing all the time, being in a constant state of outrage about the existence of people different from one's self.

It's only natural that a higher standard of culture at a lower cost of energy would become more fashionable . . .

[unpossibles]

2. RE: women getting less happy as they age

would it be sexist of me to say that it's probably due to finding out time and time again that many people still sadly treat them as second-hand citizens, perhaps combined with other gender double standards on age, attitude, business, time-management, and beauty, combined with having to deal with stereotypical "guy behavior" all the time?

For the record, I am a male, but I will also admit that women put up with a LOT of bullshit from men, from society, and often from other women as well. I would think those reasons could help make women become less happy about life.