And I doubt they’re too pleased that it has helped make men happier either:
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.”
It’s not that hard to figure out. Men have been freed from the expectation of marriage and supporting families, while increasing numbers of women now have to support themselves while being juggled by a series of guys who wait until Sportscenter is over to decide between picking up the phone to make a booty call or firing up World of Warcraft.
In fact, if a man doesn’t care about seeing his kids after a psychotic ex-wife blows up the family and begins her doomed search for a nonexistent happiness – and there’s usually little he can do about it anyhow- there are really no social pressures on him anymore. He can play video games all weekend, charge a call girl online, wear a dress, dance in public to the Pet Shop Boys, attempt to download all the porn off the Internet, or take home a different girl from the bar every night, and no one is going to say boo to him. Feminism isn’t responsible for all those things, of course, but you couldn’t openly do any of them back in the 1960s without expecting to hear a lot of negative feedback. Whether you’re a bad boy or a virtuous and upstanding gentleman, it’s all good these days. Men have more options now and few of them are unpleasant.
With the exception of their wives and daughters, men no longer have to give a flying rat’s posterior about anything the women around them do, think, or say, (which may have always been true, of course, but they used to have to be polite and pretend). No one of either sex expects them to anymore. Meanwhile, women are fretting over twenty times as many things as their grandmothers ever did, and because women hate making decisions, their increase in options feels like an oppressive burden.
I’ve always said that men won the Sexual Revolution. Reading Dowd’s column, I’m not sure what is funnier. Is it the fact that feminism has made women less happy or the fact that so many women will still cling to the “gains” that are making them miserable?