Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Epicurus]

the poll says worldwide - I wonder if this applies to Korean women, as well?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?em

Blue Is the New Black

Maureen Dowd

Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl.

�How can you tell?� he deadpanned. �It�s always been whine-whine-whine.�

Why are we sadder? I persisted.

�Because you care,� he replied with a mock sneer. �You have feelings.�

Oh, that.

In the early �70s, breaking out of the domestic cocoon, leaving their mothers� circumscribed lives behind, young women felt exhilarated and bold.

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.

Before the �70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there�s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.

As Arianna Huffington points out in a blog post headlined �The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling�: �It doesn�t matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk.�

(The one exception is black women in America, who are a bit happier than they were in 1972, but still not as happy as black men.)

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.�

Buckingham and other experts dispute the idea that the variance in happiness is caused by women carrying a bigger burden of work at home, the �second shift.� They say that while women still do more cooking, cleaning and child-caring, the trend lines are moving toward more parity, which should make them less stressed.

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands � and stress � on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties � and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.

�Choice is inherently stressful,� Buckingham said in an interview. �And women are being driven to distraction.�

One area of extreme distraction is kids. �Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,� said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called �The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.� �It�s true whether you�re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn�t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.�

The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.

Add this to the fact that women are hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable. Women are much harder on themselves than men.

They tend to attach to other people more strongly, beat themselves up more when they lose attachments, take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants.

�Women have lives that become increasingly empty,� Buckingham said. �They�re doing more and feeling less.�

Another daunting thing: America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever, with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies.

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

Buckingham says that greater prosperity has made men happier. And they are also relieved of bearing sole responsibility for their family finances, and no longer have the pressure of having women totally dependent on them.

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.

Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend, suggesting that happiness is beside the point. We�re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, she said, even if those choices end up making us unhappier.

A paradox, indeed.

[Konglishman]

Actually, there is already a thread about this issue in the current events area.

[PARAMDUNGI]

Yea feminism basically f*cked up everything worldwide.

If you just look at the rates of divorce, abortions, orphans, etc....since the 1960's it speaks for itself. The irony is what women REALLY want hasn't changed. Women still look for providers. Women still want the door opened for them. They want men fulfill all the manly duties just like its always been, but just want to avoid the classic female duties (mothering, cooking, etc...)

So basically, what do women want? EVERYTHING. That's bound to cause some unhappiness.

[I'm no Picasso]

[misher]

[VanIslander]

[Draz]

Women just quit lying on those surveys and convincing themselves they were happy and satisfied with life. Saving face is less important now, so we can feel free to tell everyone how we really feel. Feminism is in its "soul-searching" stage. Wonder what's next.

[Joe666]

PARAMDUNGI wrote:

[Countrygirl]

I'm in my late 30's and life has never been better. I feel more confident, I'm looking better than ever, my marriage is better than before, etc etc. It doesn't mean that I don't have bad days but who doesn't.

Of course, it's hard to balance a job and a family as a woman. But I couldn't stand to be one of those women who spend their days having lunch with my friends and nagging my husband to make more money, either.

[Goku]

[Kikomom]

One word: War

Any woman that can truly support war (yea, that's you Sarah Palin), is a heartless bitch and has no business being happy unless it's the business of war that brings her 'happiness' in monetary form. And that's just plain shallow greed.

And yes, we can support our troops because we love them and realize the danger they face. But we are also sad for the death and destruction being caused--on our behalf? That's sad.

Put a stop to war and maybe mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, aunts can be happy again without the grief and worries brought on by war.

[xingyiman]

Yes the backlash against feminismm is in full force. It will be bludgened beyond recognition until, down the road some enlightened female feels the urge to resurrect it and start another social movement. Thus the cycle starts all over again.

[redaxe]

[blaseblasphemener]

It's always been my feeling that women in Korea seem happier than women back home (Canada).

But how could that be? Women here never went through the feminist revolution. They have the lowest level of work v. education level of any OECD nation.

But, they DO have
>husbands that very often don't want them to work outside the home
>parental support with the kids. No daycare necessary.
>children who spend several hours a week in after-school activities, and husbands who don't spend a great deal of time at home, thus leaving wives with more free time.
>a choice to not participate in the workplace ladder-climbing and maternity-leave then back to work in 3 months stomach turning choices that western women often have to make.

The article also talks about how women don't age happily. That's certainly been my observation. My dad was a pill most of my growing up years, but now he's an old softy that happily takes orders from his second wife, who revels in controlling everyone and everything that she can. She works at a high stress job, while he is retired and watches baseball everyday. My mom was great growing up, but has morphed into a controlling, judgmental old hen. She still has the looks, a rewarding job, hobbies, and a great boyfriend, yet in many ways, she seems like someone who feels something is missing in her life.

I think a lot of it comes down to no matter what many women get in life, they want something else.

[Tundra_Creature]