Slate Makes You Unhappy
So, you read a fairly crappy piece about a study on the relative happiness of feminist women, and you kind of groan. Then you see Slate feature it as the main story, with the new headline "Feminism Makes You Unhappy," and you realize that the death penalty is worth keeping around on the off chance that a Slate editor will commit a capital crime.
The basic idea is that a study has just been published in which women with feminist views seem to be less happy than women with more traditional views. I'll add a few thoughts, but I don't mean to imply that a much more thorough debunking isn't in order.
So to start, this sort of study is inherently unreliable. First, it was just released, so it hasn't been subjected to much critical review. Second, the results haven't been reproduced, obviously. Third, this sort of thing is likely to be very sensitive to the phrasing of the questions and the overall design of the study. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the study depends on self-reported happiness. Something as simple as feminists having higher expectations could produce the reported results.
More importantly, as the piece itself recognizes, you can't draw any serious conclusions about feminism on the basis of the study. All women in America, regardless of their attitudes, are living in a society shaped by feminism. Their legal rights, the social expectations they face, and their options in life have been improved by the feminist movement. The labor force participation of women has been one of the factors driving American prosperity. I could go on, but the point should be sufficiently obvious. The culture of style over substance, of sensationalism over responsibility, thrives at Slate.
As a final note, my mother is a surgeon. My aunt works while my uncle mostly stays at home with my cousins. These are not options that people had for most of history, and my family has benefited from our ability to live this way. Feminism as a social movement hasn't come anywhere close to making us unhappy on balance. On a personal level, I would loathe a world in which there weren't smart, assertive women freely pursuing their ambitions on equal footing with men.
The basic idea is that a study has just been published in which women with feminist views seem to be less happy than women with more traditional views. I'll add a few thoughts, but I don't mean to imply that a much more thorough debunking isn't in order.
So to start, this sort of study is inherently unreliable. First, it was just released, so it hasn't been subjected to much critical review. Second, the results haven't been reproduced, obviously. Third, this sort of thing is likely to be very sensitive to the phrasing of the questions and the overall design of the study. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the study depends on self-reported happiness. Something as simple as feminists having higher expectations could produce the reported results.
More importantly, as the piece itself recognizes, you can't draw any serious conclusions about feminism on the basis of the study. All women in America, regardless of their attitudes, are living in a society shaped by feminism. Their legal rights, the social expectations they face, and their options in life have been improved by the feminist movement. The labor force participation of women has been one of the factors driving American prosperity. I could go on, but the point should be sufficiently obvious. The culture of style over substance, of sensationalism over responsibility, thrives at Slate.
As a final note, my mother is a surgeon. My aunt works while my uncle mostly stays at home with my cousins. These are not options that people had for most of history, and my family has benefited from our ability to live this way. Feminism as a social movement hasn't come anywhere close to making us unhappy on balance. On a personal level, I would loathe a world in which there weren't smart, assertive women freely pursuing their ambitions on equal footing with men.
posted by James | 10:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home