What Really Makes Women Happy?
Categories: Friends & Family, Advice, Happiness, How to Be Happy
For a new book, Ariel Gore decided to tackle the topic of positive psychology and whether it's possible for a woman to be smart, empowered and happy. The result? Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness. Here, Gore fills us in on the connection between happiness and feminism, and what truly makes women happy. (Here's a hint: More sex, less vacuuming.)Q: How did you become interested in positive psychology?
A: I heard on the radio that positive psychology was the most popular class at Harvard and that intrigued me. I thought, Harvard? Happiness can be an intellectual pursuit - for smart people? That seemed to cool to me. Especially because I'd always thought of happiness as, well, pretty uncool.
Q: Can you explain your book's connection between happiness and feminism?
A: When I started doing the research, I noticed that most of the positive psychology literature focused on men, and was written by men. In stark contrast to the literature on depression - in which women are often the subjects - the happiness business seemed like such an old-boys-club. That rubbed me the wrong way. Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression even when we complain about the exact same symptoms. If 20th century psychology focused too much on illness, women suffered more because of that. So I think women can benefit even more from a new psychology that focuses on resilience. I found, as I got deeper into my research, that positive psychology often ends up being a psychology of privilege - so it wasn't just women who were left out, but working class people and people through wars. Of course, we all need food and water and to be free from abuse, but no matter what out lives are like, we ALL want to find the things that make life worth living. Happiness is one of the free things, after all, like love and creativity.
Q: What did you learn about what generally makes women happy?
A: Well, different things make different women happy. And there are different kinds of happiness. But some things that came up for a lot of women were:
1. Getting lost in a creative project or work
2. Less housework and more sex
3. Relaxed time spent with children or friends
4. The quiet time before anyone else was awake
5. Accomplishment - completing something and being recognized
Q: Do you think women have a different relationship with happiness than men do?
A: Well, women have been socialized very differently than men when it comes to cheerfulness, and fake cheerfulness - that kind of "a pretty girl is a girl with a smile on her face" forced positivity - can actually become a real block to authentic happiness. I think in our hearts of hearts, we are the same, but women have more and different resistances to happiness. Women, I found in my research, were very likely to believe that seeking personal happiness was selfish. And I haven't read about that in research on men.
Q: What impact did researching and writing this book have on your own sense of happiness? Did you make any changes to your life as a result?
A: I learned, as a lot of the women who took part in this project learned, that the simple act of focusing on our own happiness actually increased it. Keeping a happiness journal and jotting down a few lines about the happiest moment in each day - something that simple could have a powerful effect. That line from The Little Prince really resonated with me when I thought back on this project: "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." It's embarrassingly simple, but it can be the same with happiness. I simply have to water that plant. To care for it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jane 2-10-2010 @ 9:52AM
I think the person who wrote this article should change her name to Miss Information. Every study of womens happiness, since 1970, has shown a decline in womens happiness that has gotten worse with each passing decade. These studies all showed that the more a woman considers herself a feminist the less happy she was. The more ballanced your attitude, the happier you will be. The more extreme your attitude, the less happy you`ll be.
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Robert 2-10-2010 @ 11:14AM
To Jane: The reason that femininsm has made women more unhappy is because they are unliked by men, and this suprisingly, DOES matter to women.
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Leslie Mulholland 2-10-2010 @ 1:22PM
I am interested to hear that unhappiness in women is associated with the rise of feminism. In my opinion, feminism causes women's unhappiness first by forcing women to struggle to engage in kinds of work and activity for which women are not naturally adapted. We have to face the fact that women's bodies and minds are primarily adapted by God for child birth and child rearing, not for industrial labour or business management. I have taught academic courses to many women and I have no doubt that women have intellect and can be creative, but there are relatively few women who can naturally feel at peace in male dominated occupations. --- Secondly, it was observed that women think of themselves as selfish if they put personal happiness first. I as a man am the same. I feel unhappy if I put my personal happiness above my obligations. I found when I was quite young that most of my worries, depressions, despairs, vanished when I resolved to put duty before happiness. So I think that the problem with feminism is often that it attempts to force women to disregard rules regarding their obligations to their families, regarding promiscuity, regarding respect for other people especially men. I think that a reexamination of the issues of natural adaptation and the effect of keeping to the rules on women's psyche and happiness is due.
Leslie A. Mulholland
Arthr542@aol.com
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gracey 2-10-2010 @ 11:50PM
To the girl from harvard is it "too cool to me"
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yoohoomissblue 2-25-2010 @ 5:53PM
If you consider the term "resilience", we are capable of going
without sex. Afterall, we do that the first 14 or more years of our
life don't we? We THRIVE well and are happy as children unless we're INVADED. Then a child's life is disrupted from there. The basic human needs are LOVE & COMFORT. What women often see in sexual satisfaction is actually our basic need to feel a sense of closeness and bonding. That can make one completely happy and fulfilled without intercourse. However, sexual intercourse is a temporary feeling. As you must know, if one has an affair that 20 minutes can destroy an entire lifetime with the person you cheated on. So was the sex in itself really the happiness? No because if most who cheat could trade in on the mistake in order to get back all of the love they lost, they would. Ask Tiger Woods. He was dodging guilt and lying throughout the entire time while what he REALLY WANTED was to keep the wife and children that he had
at home. So the sex wasn't really fulfilling his happiness. Yes he's
a man but I'm certain this is the case in women too. The main thing
is feeling secure in love. It isn't really a human suffering to go
without sex as we know this from our youth. Being denied comfort,
acceptance and feeling insecure makes people UNHAPPY. So that 20 minutes of guilt consumed Tiger Woods. Others who focus on resilience don't throw everything away for just sex. So nope, I disagree on more sex being the answer to happiness. Sex you can walk away from. It's the relationship through communication and other needs I listed above that fulfill a person.
I agree upon number 1, 3, 4 & 5. Less housework should have a line of it's own.
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yoohoomissblue 2-25-2010 @ 6:12PM
Leslie A. Mulholland, in a strong sense I agree with you. Medical studies show that women are more stressed and prone to health issues as they try to juggle the stresses of family plus working outside the home. However, there are also women who feel being away from household duties is a break. They go to work, meet friends, go out with friends after work... Some women have a sense of guilt in seeking that lifestyle while leaving their children with others to raise them. This day in age you are seeing more grand parents raising the children. A career takes precidence otherwise you lose that in which you educated yourself to attend. Guilty conscience says that "the kids are being cheated" of rights to their parent who brought them into this world. A mental tug-of-war. Especially to those who have kids with a higher need for quality care of the parent. Afterall, babysitters can't love them the same or as well as a parent. The kids are shuffled into a money based assembly. What is even scarier is that you are unaware of what may be going on in that home with your child. Are they being exposed to smoke fumes or drugs? Are they being taught things you would never want them to learn? Are they being propped up with a bottle in a chair all day and not being held?
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