By Charlene M Brown
I was listening to the radio this morning and they were talking about a recent study that finds women are significantly less happy than they were 40 years ago. The study found that this was true through all age brackets as compared to their male counterparts of the same age bracket. And the trend was virtually the same regardless of marital status, child status and economic status.
One theory is that in the 60’s the expectation was that women put on a happy face and didn’t speak about things that made them “unhappy.” I think this has a lot of merit.
But more interesting to me was the other proposed theory: that with the Women’s Liberation Movement, women have taken on more responsibilities that were traditionally relegated to men without men taking on more traditionally “woman responsibilities.”
The question raised was who has benefitted more from the Women’s Movement, women or men?
What an interesting question!
There is much emerging research that says that yes, women are excelling, but at what cost?
The college/higher education ratio is something like 60% female, and the women there are out performing their male colleagues. And the rate of women executives/entrepreneurs is growing all the time.
But does this come at the cost of being a good wife and mother—traditional female roles?
In the 60’s women had 3 primary choices for work: they could be homemakers, nurses or teachers. Now virtually every career is open to women. Could it be that with the advent of choices, with women taking on more responsibility than ever, that they now have so many arenas that they could be happy in, that they are not happy in any of them.
What was also so interesting about the commentary on the radio this morning, was that these “happiness numbers” weren’t a little different, they were alarmingly different—on par with the women’s unemployment rate increasing by 10% or women’s income decreasing by 30%. “Livelihood-impacting”, they were called.
Yet Women are Excelling!
But at the cost of their Happiness!
Also, expectations have shifted—both of the women themselves and of society in general.
Because women ARE excelling, they are expected to continue excelling. And because women now know that they can excel, they also expect to be good at all the roles they play, all the time. Women want to look good in every hat they wear, so to speak!
Of note from the commentary was this point: perfect balance is impossible or nearly so—it is unrealistic to expect that one would spend an equal amount of time doing all the things that are expected of them. But rather, pick the things that are most important to you and intentionally imbalance the scale in those directions.
While we can imagine our Super-Heroine selves, realistically we will burn ourselves out if we attempt to maintain that ALL THE TIME!
Remember that 100% for you is different on any given day.
Also remember that Life is meant to be Enjoyed!
The study also said that 73% of the women surveyed said they would achieve “Happiness” by “fixing their flaws” vs. the 27% who thought they would achieve it by “focusing on enhancing their strengths.” Whoa! What a morbid way 73% of us are looking at our lives. No wonder we aren’t happy.
Ladies: instead of trying to constantly fix ourselves, let’s work on enhancing our strengths. That one action alone will dramatically improve your outlook. You don’t have to be Perfection’s perfect; you just have to be YOU PERFECT!
AND YOU ARE! EXACTLY AS YOU ARE. RIGHT NOW!
Very interesting Study. Check it out here!
And check out some more interesting commentary here!
Do You Love Your Life Now!? I Do (because I am Me-Perfect, not You-Perfect!)!
PS: Let’s make Women’s Liberation be Liberating to us again!
Related posts:
- Swinging in Swings and Perfect Snow Angels!
- On and Poppin’: All That I Am!
- Life Coaching
- Fight Night: Packing Big Punches (With Little Effort)!
- Are You REALLY Enjoying Your Life!?
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© 2009 You Can Love Your Life Now!
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