Pursuit of happiness a work in progress

[BridgeTheGap]

BOSTON — Not long ago a group of writers decided to publish a book of essays we called Feminism Made Me Happy . It was an in-your-face title, a deliberate attempt to counter the narrative we all knew by heart. The one that kept describing how the women's movement had left us stressed out, discontented, wrenched from home, hearth, and motherhood to struggle and fail at doing it all.

Life and writers being what they are, we never did the book — excuse me, we haven't yet done the book! — but we have had some terrific lunches. Now I think we are due for another one because we are in the midst of another dust-up over research published under the (too) provocative headline The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, partners in marriage and research, dove into the data and came up with numbers suggesting a decline in women's happiness or, to be more precise, in their “self-reported subjective well-being.” In 1972, women were four points more likely than men to describe themselves as “very happy.” Today they are one point less likely than men to check that box.

This is hardly proof of a mass depression, but the story fueled the predictable debates on Web sites and talk shows. The controversy pitted those who blame declining happiness on too much change against those who blame it on too little change. And those, of course, who just blame the messengers.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20091030/OPINION04/910300316/1054/OPINION/Pursuit+of+happiness+a+work+in+progress