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Hey Ross Douthat: What’s Your Point?

by Orlando 5/26/2009 - 12:33 pm   |

I love it when men pontificate about what is wrong with women. Really (not really). I mean it (I don’t mean it).

Love. It.

That’s why I was so pleased to see Ross Douthat’s New York Times column today in which he discusses a new paper that a couple of economists have written, detailing how American women are less happy today than their 1960s counterparts (and also less happy than men).

Douthat walks a very thin line, trying very hard not to come off as sexist while basically coming off as sexist. As far as I can tell, his main point is that society should make it easier to balance raising children with work, which is hard to argue against. But he suggests we start by socially stigmatizing fathers who don’t participate in their kids’ lives. While I agree that fathers should be full and active participants, emotionally and financially, I would suggest that social stigma is hardly the way to achieve happier women.

  • Here are some alternative ideas:
  • universal health care;
  • affordable child care;
  • quality education for all kids;
  • college tuition that doesn’t bury graduates in debt until they are well into middle age; and
  • a living wage.

In the 1960s, regardless of your position on mothers in the workplace, it was possible to maintain a middle class family on one blue-collar income. Today, it is pretty much impossible.

If I had to venture a guess at why women report themselves unhappy, in addition to all of the factors that Douthat puts forth, I would add a general sense of economic insecurity. Even before our economy entered its current state, we had the first generation in the history of our country that isn’t going to do better financially than their parents did. That’s got to be a big piece of the puzzle.

What Orlando said. Universal health care rightly being No. 1.

by acanuck 5/26/2009 - 2:06 pm

I love it when people pontificate about happiness. Really (not really).

No one understands how happiness works or even what it is really. I'm curious how those economists measured it. But even if you could truly measure happiness, it's essentially impossible to determine how external factors affect it a macro level.

And I'm not sure that it really matters. Policy should not be designed to increase emotional happiness. For instance, it's arguable whether middle class wealth makes people happier, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't enact policies to eradicate poverty. Policies should be designed to maximize liberty, opportunity, security, education, and satisfaction of basic needs. How people maximize their own emotional happiness within that context is between them and their therapists.

by Genghis 5/26/2009 - 2:21 pm

Egads.  Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse than Bill Kristol, the New York Times brings on Ross D'Asshat. Maybe direct him to this NYT column,  from when people used actual data to back up their theories on the happiness gap rather than just pulling a random theory out of his ass like sexual stigmas against single parenthood (for women and men).

Perhaps part of the problem is that he considers parenthood some kin of odious chore that single mothers are stuck with.  Maybe instead of shaming the "sexually irresponsible" we could focus on making changes that would enable fathers to be fuller participants in their children's lives.  Things like paternity leave, splitting the tax credits for children bewteen both parents (rather than just the primary caregiver), making stay-at-home dads as acceptable as stay-at-home moms, more equitable distribution of the "second shift" that women are still taking on hte larger burden.  But no, instead let's focus on shaming sluts.  That's worked so well for us thus far.

And Douthat does not appear to be the best guy to speak for  women and know what they want.  When does this dude's contract end?  Seriously.

by dijamo 5/26/2009 - 11:14 pm

"Ross 'D'Asshat?'  I thought it was Ross D'ouche B'ag.

by KRXA Hal 5/27/2009 - 6:08 pm (re: dijamo)

I think he just started dijamo, like a month ago.  I am trying really hard not to say anything about the way he looks in his picture but I wonder if he actually picked that one and sent it in himself or if it was an ex girlfriend that recommended he use that one for the NY Times. 

It could be the NY Times people were thinking something like - "Well you guys thought Kristol was bad wait until you see this.  You'll be begging for Kristol."

Then again, I don't know.

by Bluesplashy 5/27/2009 - 7:54 pm (re: dijamo)

Well, I think he is better than Kristol in that he appears to realize that he shouldn't appear to be sexist. He just needs a code that harder to crack.

by Orlando 5/27/2009 - 8:12 pm (re: Bluesplashy)

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