Summary: I have two grown boys. The most frequent comment I get from parents who have daughters: you are so lucky; teenage girls are so difficult. The out-of-control, angry, hyper-emotional teen girl has become a common type in American society, even a trope in films and TV. Yet I see no mention of this as a normal phenomenon before the 1970s. What is happening?
Girls on top of boys
The decades-long push to change the lives of girls has succeeded. By 2007, two-thirds of students in the National Honor Society were girls. Girls outperform on every measure of academic performance. A June 2009 paper in PNAS found that girls “had reached parity with boys in mathematics performance in the U.S., even in high school where a gap existed in earlier decades.” It is often said that 70% of high school valedictorians are girls.
Girls are heavily involved in sports programs, even beginning to participate in formerly all-male programs – such as football. Girls Scouts of America has taken the STEM pledge; getting more girls into STEM is its new raison d’etre. Enrichment and other special programs for girls are everywhere. Everywhere I look, girls are a large majority of leaders in high schools and coed youth organizations.
Toxic masculinity is being removed from schools. In 2015-16 the percentage of public school teachers who are women reached a century-long record high of 77%; 54% of principals are women (source).
Liberation has many dimensions. At many high schools, most boys and girls have unisex clothing. In much of the nation, teenage girls have moderately easy access to contraceptives and abortion. Gay lifestyles are widely accepted. Even transgender behavior is becoming normalized.
Side note – Expect a wave of suicides in a few years following this breakthrough. Female to male adolescents reported the highest rate of attempted suicide (51%), followed by adolescents who identified as not exclusively male or female (42%). Source.
These things seemed utopian to most feminists 40 or 50 years ago. This is a five-star success by Leftists, one of the biggest social reform programs in history. But why do so many girls seem unhappy? Data from surveys are consistent with parents’ concerns about their daughters. The largest global survey of this type is the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). See this excerpt from volume III of their 2015 report.
“29% of girls but 39% of boys reported that they are very satisfied with their life …9% of boys but 14% of girls reported a level of life satisfaction equal to 4 or lower on a scale of 0 to 10.” {Note about those numbers: that is a 34% difference in those “very satisfied” and 55% difference number with low life satisfaction.
Unhappy girls become unhappy women. Since 1972 the General Social Survey has asked women about their happiness: today women report lower levels of happiness than they did in the early 1970s (see Table 6 on pp 9-10).
The mental stability of girls appears to have shifted towards the disturbed and unhappy end of the spectrum. That becomes even clearer when looking at the extreme end of the curve.
Girls’ mental health is breaking down
A stunning study in the 21 October 2017 issue of The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) provided a new level of detail about mental health problems in Britain’s teenagers – and the differences in their incidence between boys and girls (also see The Guardian’s article about this).
- By mid-adolescence, girls are twice as likely to develop mood disorders as boys.
- Studies show that roughly a third of teenage girls are diagnosed with some form of depression vs. a quarter of teenage boys. Two-thirds of teenagers taking antidepressants are girls.
- Girls comprise over 90% of hospitalizations related to eating disorders.
- Girls are 3x more likely to self-harm than boys. Hospital admissions for self-harm are up by two-thirds among girls vs. a small rise for boys.
- The most common method (84%) of self-harm is poisoning (e.g., drugs) and cutting. Self-poisoning victims are five times as likely to be girls, and the number doing so has risen by half during the past five years. Twelve percent cut themselves. The number of girls hospitalized for cutting themselves has quadrupled over a decade, while the number of boys doing so has doubled (the ratio has gone from roughly 3:1 to 5:1).
Per the CDIC, the suicide rate in the US for boys 15-19 is almost 3x that of girls (guys use guns, and so are more often successful). But the rate for boys has varied within a range while the rate for girls in 2015 was at a record high (since 1975).
A good starting point for information about this is the Textbook of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, produced by the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions’ (IACAPAP). This excerpt from “The History of Child Psychology” (in Chapter J) gives a summary of the problem. Red emphasis added. We lack long-term data, but much of what we know is disturbing.
“Child psychiatric epidemiological research is a very recent endeavour. Lapouse and Monk (1958) are credited with having conducted the first epidemiological study in child psychiatry: the prevalence of parent-reported problems in a representative sample of 482 children aged 6-12. …
“Long-term, longitudinal studies of general population cohorts or selected clinical samples allow hypothesis testing and have offered many insights into clinical problems – for example showing that most psychiatric disorders have their onset during childhood or adolescence …An example of this type of research is the Christchurch Health and Development Study, which has followed the health, education and life progress through infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood of a group of 1,265 children born in Christchurch (New Zealand) in 1977 (Fergusson & Horwood, 2001). …
“Behavioural paediatrics as a paediatric subspecialty began to develop in the US in the 1970s in the context of a variety of circumstances, some of them already alluded to, {including} the perceived increase of behavioural and psychosocial problems in children and adolescents coupled with a decrease in the incidence of traditional medical illnesses ….
“Yet, while societies are becoming healthier (in terms of life expectancy) and wealthier, psychosocial problems in children and adolescents appear to have been increasing in the last 50 years: depression, selfharm, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, eating disorders, etc. Perhaps the most important challenge that we face is to understand why. The impact on children of significant social changes (such as high divorce rates, increasing number of single parent and blended families, same-sex marriages …) are still not well understood.”
There are results today. What will similar surveys show in ten more years?
Conclusions
This might be one of the most important subjects of our time, as the Left rewrites our society’s operating “software” – without experimentation, based only on ideology. Our youth are their lab rats. Although still in its early stages, this project has already reshaped the lives of our youth in many ways. We have made little effort to weigh the benefits vs. the costs.
The War Against Boys
Next time you watch an old film or TV show, note how the girls are so radically different than those of our time. Certainly, the research cited above should spark intensive research to discover what is happening to our youth. Perhaps some of the changes made to our society have not worked out well for them.
As for lessons learned, we should not allow ideologues to use our children as lab rats in their experiments. They will not stop doing so until we force them to stop.
Trust me. I can build a better society for America!
Important research about this, much of which is kept out of the news …
For your own good, of course.
“An Epidemiologic Study of Behavior Characteristics in Children” by Rema Lapouse and Mary A. Monk in the American Journal of Public Health, September 1958. The first epidemiological study in child psychiatry.
“Maternal smoking during pregnancy and psychiatric adjustment in late adolescence” by David M. Fergusson et al. in the Archives of General Psychiatry, August 1998 – “Smoking during pregnancy …was significantly associated with an increased rate of conduct disorder symptoms in late adolescence (P<.001). This effect was more pronounced for male than female adolescents.” US tobacco use peaked in 1961 – 1963. Fergusson was lauded for this important finding. But not for similar research about the effects of abortion (below).
“The Christchurch Health and Development Study: Review of Findings on Child and Adolescent Mental Health” by David M. Fergusson and L. John Horwood in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, June 2001. One of the first big studies of a group over time.
Surprising & important: “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” by Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers (both profs at Wharton) in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2009 – “By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men.”
Transgressive research: “Does abortion reduce the mental health risks of unwanted or unintended pregnancy?” by David M. Fergusson in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, September 2013 – “There is suggestive evidence that abortion may be associated with small to moderate increases in risks of some mental health problems.” This violates the narrative. Even a distinguished scientist had difficulty getting it published.
The best data about happiness: Final Report of the General Social Survey on “Trends in Psychological Well-Being, 1972-2014” – Table 6 on pp 9 – 10 shows that women’s happiness has decreased from the levels in the early 1970s.
A warning about the next wave of suicides: “Sexual orientation and mental health over the life course in a birth cohort” by Janet Spittlehouse et al. in Psychological Medicine, June 2019 – “Over the life course, membership of a sexual minority group is clearly associated with mental health problems of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.”
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about social engineering, and especially these …
- Women dominating the ranks of college graduates – What’s the effect on America?
- Women on Top, chapter 10: the growing gender gap in education.
- Victims no more: the revolution puts women on top of men.
- Raising boys to live in the coming matriarchy.
- Mao goes to high schools: a new front in the war on boys.
- A major victory in the war on boys!
- A morality tale of a 13-year-old boy joining the alt-right! – A boy reacts to a false accusation of harassment.
Books about the war on boys
I could not find any books about the conditions afflicting girls that are discussed here, which shows that we are in the “problem recognition” phase – the first and often most difficult of the steps to solutions.
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men
by Christina Hoff Sommers (2000).
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
by Warren Farrell and John Gray (2018).
Blame cell phones!
This is a typical example of the slow realization that something is going wrong with young girls: “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” by Jean M. Twenge in the September 2017 issue of The Atlantic – “More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.”
There are two ways of looking at this, both showing it is largely bogus.
First, ill effects on the young are often blamed on the latest tech: autos, record players, TV, video games – all were accused of polluting the bodily fluids of the young (in the words of the immortal General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove).
Second, these trends predated the explosion of cellphone use. The weird phenomena associated with girls’ cell phone use probably are symptoms, not underlying causes.
As girls’ problems become increasingly obvious, too big to ignore or blame on patriarchy, expect desperate attempts to find other scapegoats. Anything to avoid looking at the ill effects of social “reforms” made during the past 4 decades.
More about the “blame cell phones for girls’ problems” theory.
As I expected, additional research would debunk the usual belief that new tech causes the problems with our young. See “Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction” by Amy Orben et al. in PNAS, 21 May 2019.
The Guardian describes this paper in “We’re told that too much screen time hurts our kids. Where’s the evidence?” by Andrew Przybylski and Amy Orben — “The authors of a landmark study argue that social media use has only minor effects on wellbeing. But an entire industry says otherwise.”
Society has given women everything they wanted and they are more unhappy now than ever.
Sven,
“and they are more unhappy now than ever.”
That’s an important point made by a large body of research – but too disturbing to be acknowledged. See the papers cited in this post – the General Social Survey, and the broader analysis by Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers (2009).
The problem is not (professionally) successful girls, regardless of whether these girls are miserable, broken, happy, or whatever. The problem is that they elevated girls at boy’s expense.
More precisely, they did not elevate girls; they simply held back boys. To the left, life is a zero-sum game: someone has to be held back so others can be elevated; someone has to lose so someone else can win. They cannot improve everyone; they have to hold some back so others can rise.
This is not by accident or happenstance; it is social engineering designed from the top of our “elite institutions”. It is well documented in many books (written by women, nonetheless) from Dr. Helen to the “Save The Males” author to the radical leftist HuffPo acknowledge this reality in “Why Boys Are Failing in an Educational System Stacked Against Them”. Heck, even the quasi-Marxist left UK’s The Guardian admits to this reality in a piece by Suze Gage called “If men are ‘failing’ we need to look to the future, not at lazy stereotypes”. This information is everywhere now.
The fact is simple: Western, most notably, American public schools are purposely withholding things like building blocks, for instance, from young boys with the stated purpose of hindering the boys’ developmental abilities to become engineers, programmers, or architects, for instance. The goal is to purposely “remove the advantage” that boys have over girls in things like engineering, architectural, and other quantitative educational fields. This is not even a secret in academia anymore; it is standard curriculum procedure. Question this practice and you are a misogynist who just do not want to see girls reach their full potential. Or worse, you may be called a racist. Scary!
From grade schools to universities, the public school systems have created programs that discourage boy’s learning abilities and favor girls’ learning skills. For example, classes and chosen textbooks are focused on girls’ interests, which make boys restless and discouraged, so they disconnect and fail. This starts in grade schools, sometimes even in kindergarten. The curriculum hurts boys for the benefits of girls, in some twisted “social justice” mindset.
And of course, our public schools cannot let any boys slip by despite their best efforts to hold them back. Any boy that shows any defiance to this system or manage to succeed despite all odds against him, there is always good ‘ol Ritalin, an ADD/ADHD drug that will turn the happiest and smartest little boy into an obedient zombie in no time.
And if parents refuse the Ritalin, the young boy will simply be kicked out of school or parents will have a nice visit by a social worker from the taxpayer-funded “department of children and families”, to investigate “child abuse and neglect”. The social worker will be come in without a warrant with a local armed cop, you know “just in case”.
Our young boys in public schools are put there to fail. It is by design, one of the most dangerous social engineering experiments in modern world history. An experiment that will destabilize society for decades to come, if not permanently. But by the time the full results of this disaster come in, it will likely be too late for millions of fully-grown men. And believe me our leftist overlords will simply shrug at the disaster they engineered.
The only successful boys will be kids from the upper-middle class and the elites, who will attend expensive private school focused on performance, not social justice, and the few lucky boys who will get homeschool. Very few boys will ever amount to anything coming out of the “loser factories” (a/k/a/ American “public” education). The majority of our boys will be toast.
Smart young guys who come out of the Loser Factories and become Red Pilled later on will simply learn to game the system, become slackers, and simply enjoy the decline, which will reduce their frustrations in life as a whole. But that is stealing from their true potential and weakening our society for sure.
It s not fair, but that is absolutely the case. Denying this reality is simply a blue-pill/delusional way to live. If you can, help your boys after school any way you can, if they are forced to attend a Loser Factory due to economic reasons.
And yes, women today are unhappier than ever. No matter how much the system is rigged in women’s favor, from criminal and family courts to college admissions to job prospects to chivalry, women are always angry, depressed, or complaining about something. Satisfaction in life comes from doing something great and having a family and a good spouse, not have a worthless degree on a wall or working 65/h week as a corporate slave.
Red Pill,
“It’s not fair, but that is absolutely the case.”
Yes, you’ve nailed it. The mystery to me is why the parents of boys tolerate this.
Mr. Kumer, you posed a great question: why do parents put up with this?
I think there may be 4 reasons:
1) Parents are not aware of this anti-male bias in education, at least not until it is too late and they begin to see their son(s) slip more and more as they move through the grades.
2) Parents are too busy (or are too self-involved) to care about their kid’s education.
3) Parents who grew up when America was a more sane and stable place just assume the schools know what they are doing or that the schools kids attend today are like schools back in their town time.
4) Parents find out and have no viable alternatives (i.e. homeschool or move child to private school). Short of a major political and cultural change within a State’s education system, parents may be trapped into this failed system. But then again, Parents could still help their kids after class, but that is not easy to do, time consuming, and you need have a son willing to engage in more work even after school.
5) Parents may be afraid to “shake things up” with their son’s teachers or the school board, maybe out of fear of retaliation or an “unexpected” visit from Child Protective Services/Dept Children and Families investigating an anonymous complaint.
I have been reading your site for a while and just recently decided to comment, since you are one of the few people exposing this widespread misandrist educational bias and the “War on boys” topic, which is, for some strange reason, grossly under-covered online.
The consequences of this problem beuing ignored will be tremendous to our society. We already see the results of this in Scandinavia with a massive “slacker” class of young men unwilling to work and in the UK with the “YOB” phenomenon of youth joining gangs and tuning against societal norms. The YOB thing is affecting white, working class British youth, not migrants (the migrants go straight into crime, but the YOB situation is a huge trend in UK now and a serious problem the Brits seem to at least recognize as a problem, while here in the USA, the elite sin DC are acting like nothing is even an issue).
I find this topic of male miseducation to be so significant I forwarded the link to this page to everyone on own my e-mail list.
But why is this topic so under-reported today? And how can we help reach a wider audience to this very serious topic? And what are some ideas/alternatives for parents of boys who recognize the misandry in public education?
First, I often enjoy your website. I’m a subscriber, and have found that the site pulls together some interesting perspectives on social and political trends.
However, I’m also a woman (a successful one), and I wish you would stop continually looking at gender roles in a nostalgic way. The 1950s style roles did not produce happy people, although the facade might have given a different impression in some cases.
I’ve taken issue with some of your “gender wars” posts on many occasions, but today was truly taken aback by your apparent linking of female opportunity with suicide attempts and self-harm. This is crazy talk– quite irresponsible and misleading! You have looked at two entirely separate trends and linked them without any evidence of a causal link.
Did it ever occur to you that young girls might actually be unhappy because even though they are working hard enough to become valedictorians and rise to the top of the class, they are still not paid equally or taken seriously?
I am a woman with a genius-level IQ and {many} graduate degrees. I can tell you that I would certainly be depressed if I were relegated to making dinner every night and vacuuming the floors. Chill out. You are going to drive away readers who enjoy your other materials.
Thanks for listening,
Thank you for your comment. It raises quite a few questions.
(1) “The 1950s style roles did not produce happy people”
I provide citations for the material in my posts. What is the basis for this claim? The only data I see goes back to the 1970s. Surveys show that women today have lower levels of happiness than they did then. See the cites in this post.
(2) “You have looked at two entirely separate trends and linked them without any evidence of a causal link”
That’s how epidemiology – and more broadly, science – works. Linkages are first found, then researched. Look at drug testing. When an adverse reaction is found (even if rare), the experiment is stopped. They don’t continue running it until the causal link is found. These are people, not lab rats.
(3) “young girls might actually be unhappy because even though they are working hard enough to become valedictorians and rise to the top of the class, they are still not paid equally or taken seriously?”
(a) So girls are disproportionately winning awards, honors, and leadership positions – but “are not taken seriously”? What more could be done for them?
(b) Women are paid equally for equal work in the US, and have been for many years. Unequal average pay results from many factors. First, women’s career choices. For example, preferring indoor work without heavy lifting. Second, taking time off, in some form, for child-rearing. Third, retiring (or going part-time) earlier than men (after the children are raised).
(4) “I would certainly be depressed if I were relegated to making dinner every night and vacuuming the floors.”
As is shown in this post, depression has become more frequent among women – not less. You’re doing great. What about the other women who are not doing well? Do they matter to you?
It’s interesting, now that we have women in the office, in the R&D lab, in the pilot’s seat, as managers, executives, CEO’s etc., they are angrier and unhappier than ever.
The US women’s national soccer team is a great example of this. Even though they won their championship twice in a row they are unhappy, because they aren’t paid as much as the men. Never mind that the men’s world cup has TV viewership, attendance, sponsorship and advertising revenue that dwarfs the women’s world cup. The fact that they have their own world cup, which is broadcast, and that they get paid to participate in it, isn’t good enough for them.
The US women’s team scrimmages with 15 year old boys, and the boys often beat them. Yet we never hear about the boys demanding to be paid the same as the ladies. In fact, the U15 boys have to PAY to play on their clubs.
I was recently promoted at work after a VERY long drought. To be honest, I thought I would never get it, even though I had been performing work at the job description of the next level for well over a decade. But I got it, along with a decent pay raise, and I was pleased. I didn’t dwell on how I haven’t climbed even higher on the ladder or that I wasn’t taken seriously.
As for doing chores at home, I do those too. I take care of the house’s exterior and help out with the interior. It doesn’t make me feel “relegated”, even though if I don’t do it, it won’t get done; because I’m taking care of what’s mine.
Frank,
You mention many very transgressive facts.
I too had wondered about the oddity of complaints by women on the national soccer team. If they are paid, like other sports, by size of the audience – then they are fairly paid. If they are paid by the skill displayed – on a gender-neutral basis – they are overpaid vs. boys. But their sense of injustice seems fact free, as so often the case with women today.
Re: work times by men and women
Surveys have consistently shown that men and women work similar hours, combining (as is logical) work and home. If that is adjusted for workplace deaths and injuries – as is just – then men sacrifice far more than women. But these facts too are transgressive.
Strange times. My guess is that this system is unstable. I don’t know what will collapse it, but I believe that something will do so.
Why do you assume that the women that independently decide to make dinner are depressed. The statistics show that with more women in the workforce there are greater number of women on antidepressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotics than ever before. I would have thought that with women becoming more empowered the use of medication would all have disappeared.
If you are a genius than you should know that if a person works less hours for less dollars per hour at professions that are less dangerous that equals less annual income.
icu trauma,
Harshly stated, but all valid points!
“The 1950s style roles did not produce happy people, although the facade might have given a different impression in some cases.”
That’s exactly where you’re wrong. That is exactly the myth being exposed.
Your personal anecdote does not disprove the broad truth captured here. In fact it illustrates it perfectly.
Dr. Torch,
“That is exactly the myth being exposed.”
That’s a bold statement. I didn’t say it, and I should have. Thanks for speaking out.
The family system of the 1950s was not perfect. Nothing on Earth is. But I think the available evidence indicates that it works better than what we have today. Lower rates of mental disorder, delinquency, gangs, illiteracy, etc.
This isn’t just a statement about white suburbs. The disadvantaged (aka lower socio-economic classes) need a strong family even more (money cushions many bumps). People in our inner cities were poor and oppressed. But areas like Harlem and Watts were functioning communities, not the dysfunctional ghettos they are today.
Once upon a time, one of the most urgent goals of the Left was the establishment of a “family wage”, which would have allowed a man to support his family without his wife having to enter the labor force. The 50s can be said to be the realization of that goal: a union guy assembling Edsels could own his own home and a lot of toys in his driveway while his wife could bake chocolate chip cookies. It only took about ten years to undo all of that.
370H55V,
“It only took about ten years to undo all of that.”
That is only sorta true. It didn’t just happen. A good language would not even allow a sentence like that, without a subject: “who” undid all that? The 1% did it. They formulated plans in the 1960s and 1970s to overturn the New Deal. Over the next 40 years they implemented their plans. Skillfully, step by step.
“Nature’s god” rewards that kind of intelligent, organized, well-funded effort. The New Deal was the culmination of such a project. The 1%’s counter-revolution was another.
For more about this, see this post.
Did it ever occur to you that girls might be unhappy because they have bought into the canard that they had to compete with men every step of the way, and that men don’t appreciate that. They want, as Boy George once put it, a lover not a rival.
And they have also bought into the canard that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. I believe there actually are huge numbers of women who are perfectly happy without a man in their lives, but I really don’t want to pay for their socialized pension plans when then become “elder orphans” without providing a next generation to shore up such schemes.
And how many kids do YOU have?
370H55V,
(1) “Did it ever occur to you that girls might be unhappy because they have bought into the canard that they had to compete with men every step of the way, and that men don’t appreciate that.”
First, I have little interest in such guessing. We need research into this, and stabilization while that’s done to minimize further damage.
Second, I doubt that something like that – even if true (which I doubt) – would produce the decades-long increase in mental illness among girls.
(2) “And they have also bought into the canard that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”
Do you have any factual basis for these big assertions? Or are you just making stuff up?
(3) “I really don’t want to pay for their socialized pension plans when then become “elder orphans” without providing a next generation to shore up such schemes.”
We appear to be starting a new industrial revolution. If so, the increased productivity it will produce (like 1880 – 1950) will pay for any deficits in our social welfare systems. So you need not exhort women to breed in order to support the national balance sheet.
(4) “And how many kids do YOU have?”
Two. Why does that matter?
370H55V,
My mistake! I thought your comment was addressed to me. I apologize for any confusion this caused.
The WordPress Administrator’s control panel is a bit tricky to read.
” The 1950s style roles did not produce happy people, although the facade might have given a different impression in some cases.”
You paint with a mighty broad brush there. That was a little before my time, but the many people I know who did live through it generally recall the time quite fondly. The exceptions are the kind of people who probably wouldn’t have been happy anywhere.
Sex roles exist for a reason. Biological division of labor. But there has always been room for bright, ambitious women who wanted to step out of the box. Note that some of our most admired cultural icons are precisely such people.
You show not the slightest concern for the male half of species, which among other indispensable roles, does the dirty and dangerous work of keeping this society running, which your gender, notably avoids in droves. I don’t see you all clamoring to be drafted, either. Kind of sounds like you want all of the benefits and glamor but none of the grunge.
Females have the overwhelming advantage now in the Western world, in almost every area. Yet still it isn’t enough. Don’t think we men haven’t noticed.
Scott,
Note Dalrock is, as usual, spot on in his post about this article: “Discontentment is both the input and the output of feminism.”
Are you sure about the NORC General Social Survey data? When I looked at Table 6 (General Happiness) I read the following:
1972 Female: Very Happy-32.7%, Pretty Happy-52.1%, Not Too Happy-15.2%
2014 Female: Very Happy-33.5%, Pretty Happy-55.5%, Not Too Happy-11.1%
It looks like the percentages for happy went up. Granted, I am looking at two points and not the trend over time. I’ll have to plot the data to see for sure.
AC,
The data varies too much from year to year to make point comparisons useful, which is why such studies use rolling 5 or 10 year comparisons. That will show the deterioration.
1/ This has been a huge social change, I would find it strange if there were only unalloyed goods to come of it.
2/ The young have been the most affected, pre work, pre collage, perhaps it is the thought of the expectation that is weighing on teen girls, rather like the very miserable teenagers in Korea and Japan who labor under massive social pressures to conform and succeed in school and work.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/05/01/commentary/japan-commentary/japanese-teens-glum/#.XSNYYo8o8uU
3/ Raising rates of unhappiness have been linked to social media use, higher among teen girls than any other cohort.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/05/youth-unhappiness-uk-doubles-in-past-10-years
4/ Validation is very important to self worth, I suspect women do not receive as much validation from work as men, either given to themselves or given by society. As much as we have changed there are still things that women are expected to do (babies) that the absence of which can provoke comment. Simply put, a woman can spend her prime reproductive years educating herself and building a career, but still be haunted by the specter of childlessness. The implctions of passing time weigh heavier on women.
Every week my wife is asked by someone when she is going to have her second child, I’ve been asked once (by a women obviously) and a couple of times by my mam.
5/ Men have seen a reduction of social expectation, there is less pressure to conform.
For example my Dad left school when he was 12 to work on the family farm. That was the end of his childhood (1940’s) from then on it was helping to provide, first his parents, then his family, large family, 5 boys, his role was as a disciplinarian and provider.
There experience is like night and day to my own, and that of my peers. The financial burden is shared pretty much equally, so is the childcare, fathers see more of there kids, this is a really nice thing for most men, its made me realize what Dad missed. Our education is prolonged, we don’t have to grow up as quickly. Children come later, usually when you have built some kind or career, so money is not as tight.
That pressure has gone somewhere, on to women, at the same time they see less of there children, less children and more pressure, hooray.
Gerard,
(1) “I would find it strange if there were only unalloyed goods to come of it”
Looking for “only unalloyed good” is a false dilemma logical fallacy (that’s a weak opening to your comment). Magnitudes matter. What is the magnitude of side effects? Think of this as public health experiment, as is done with new drugs.
(2) ” I suspect women do not receive as much validation from work as men”
This discusses teenage girls, so that is off-topic (this discussion has to be focused to have any use). As for girl’s validation: they are disproportionately winning awards, honors, and leadership positions. What more could be done for them?
(3) “Men have seen a reduction of social expectation, there is less pressure to conform.”
You are just making stuff up. I cite a large body of studies, and you make up stories. I could reply with other stories, but that’s a waste of time. Why not just wave your hands and be done.
You have ignored all the evidence given, showing a callous disregard for these girls which is quite amazing.
No kidding. Scholarships too, there are plenty of non sports scholarships that are for girls only, Can’t say that I’ve ever seen one that’s only for boys. Girls receive so much praise and attention that you’d think they could walk on water.
As for women in the workplace, Corporate America sponsors conferences, banquets and other events that honor and promote women in the workplace.
“You have ignored all the evidence given, showing a callous disregard for these girls which is quite amazing”
Seriously what are you on about? Callous disregard? is this some joke?
Evidence of what exactly? what have you shown?
I remember this blog back in 2007, its been a slow deterioration, IDK, i’m giving up, the gender politics stuff, you know the answer you want.
Your driving away people who agree with most of what you say, that’s it I’m out.
Gerard,
(1) “Evidence of what exactly? what have you shown?”
That’s sad. Take off the filters and re-read the post slowly. Look at the citations.
(2) “its been a slow deterioration”
Your comments show that you judge by agreement with your beliefs, and don’t even see contrary evidence, let alone have any ability to respond to it.
(2) “Your driving away people who agree with most of what you say”
You agree with things I’ve said in the past that have become obvious – and so are no longer controversial (even transgressive). That’s the point at which I lose interest in writing about them. I’m only interested in things on the edge of the known – and readers willing to look beyond their beliefs. You’re not one of them.
(3) “that’s it I’m out.”
That’s probably for the best. There are thousands of websites that will tell you what you already believe, and carefully curate the news to avoid shocking you.
Gerard’s comment illustrates something frequently seen in the 66 thousand comments posted on the FM website during the past 12 years. The comments that produce the most outrage are the most heavily documented ones. It does not occur to people like Gerard to click on the research and learn – and then react. Instead, their deflector screens go up to defend against unwelcome news.
The most heavily documented posts here are those with the most transgressive or disturbing news. When these get burning hot comments, I know I’ve hit pay dirt. These are the themes that have proven to be the most significant and prescient.
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Thank you, Larry. I was going to point that out.
370H55v,
Pointing out my errors is a valuable service, and always appreciated!
Parents of boys tolerate this because the men are weak. They consider their girls a princess and self virtue themselves to give the girl what ever she wants when she crosses the other female in the family, the mother. The mother that holds the yoke of vagina to control the man.
When the father gives the girl what she wants when a few tears are shed because her room is a mess, she needs a new phone, a new outfit or a cool trip to a concert, Daddy provides thinking he is the white knight and protector of his princess. Why? His wife no longer shows the attention necessary to capture him, he’s captive. So he turns to his princess daughter for the attention of importance and teaches her that with some tears and a hug she can get whatever she needs from Daddy …from a man. He has taught her how to manipulate a man, not be accountable.
I’ve seen it, i have cared for children 6, 7, 8 years of age on Prozac, and other depressants so that ‘Mommy can get things done.” Daddy sits there slumped over going along for the ride …a ride in hell. The standard when I see a young lady come into the hospital for whatever malady is to be on at least 3 antidepressants, or antipsychotics or antianxiety. The women are broken and the young men are being forgotten.
icu trauma,
Thank you from what sounds like a report from the front lines – and is consistent with the reports cited here.
I have seen these dynamics from another perspective – being a Boy Scout (pack and troop) leader for 18 years. And, of course, raising two boys in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Parental roles are socially determined. Husbands and fathers have the strength and power given them, as it exists in the minds of wives and children. As you – as we all – know, that is almost nil in modern America. Dads are usually the buttmonkey in modern cartoons and family dramas. The media discuss their oppressive nature and how they should be crushed and re-educated.
I inadvertently raised a family in a different way. My wife is a conservative Christian woman from rural America. I had no idea how families worked, so I used the only model I had: TV shows from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Dr. Benton Quest was my chief role model (an unattainably high one, as such should be). I found the modern kids shows and books mostly repulsive, and so my kids were raised mostly on TV shows and films from decades past. It worked well, purely by accident.
But I saw many other families grappling with them then, and I’ve seen them since. A common reaction among the boys I led (not young men) who see the desserts given to the best of the dads they knew My Troop had some of the most impressive men I’ve ever met, must stronger than me; it was an honor and privilege to lead them. Quite a few of them were dumped by their wives. Young men look at this as say “if they couldn’t make it work, what are the odds that I can?”
It’s like the ancient maxim for officers: if you plan requires an Alexander, Casesar, Marlborough, or Napoleon to make it work – it won’t. Perhaps the modern family can work only for the most extraordinary men. Which means that it no longer works for American society.
We can only guess at the causes. I am inclined to agree with you that we have raised a generation with too many weak men. But the inability of even strong men to make marrages works shows that this is an incomplete explanation.
These posts are attempts to explore these deep waters, things on the edge of the known. As the comments show, this hits too close to home for many people – and they close their eyes and run in terror. That is, unfortunately, a logical reaction.
I recommend reading my posts about solutions. You will find them here. Please post your thoughts about these. They are only early stage exploratory sketches.