How’s that feminism workin’ out for ya? According to a survey reported in a Psychology Today article, the unhappiest workers are:Female

• 42 years old
• Unmarried
• Have a household income under $100,000
• Work in a professional position (i.e., as a doctor or a lawyer).

Sounds exactly like the feminist ideal: a woman who needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. On her own, independent, unburdened, I am woman, hear me roar. Except that she’s not very happy.

The author, Sherrie Bourg Carter, Psy.D., notes that while it is possible the survey is inaccurate (the sample size is only 670 North American white collar workers),

In fact, a comprehensive analysis of the trends in subjective well-being across several decades revealed similar findings regarding female happiness. In The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness published by the American Economic Journal, researchers Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers found that although women's life circumstances by most objective measures have improved greatly over the past few decades, women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relatively to men. 

Dr. Carter’s further explorations of this “paradox” deals with married women, who suffer the burdens of unequal cooking, etc. For example:

56 percent of working women assume responsibility for cooking compared to only 29 percent of working men, and 62 percent take care of the laundry compared to only 31 percent of men. 

But that completely evades the point that it is unmarried women who are unhappiest.

It’s almost as if there is something like human nature and sex differences. The biological fact that females carry the next generation within them, and then nurture them with mother’s milk couldn’t possibly incline women toward nurturance, could it? Why that’s heresy to feminists! It’s certainly “old-fashioned” and probably “patriarchal” so it must be wrong.

So I guess we are stuck with a “paradox.” Reality doesn’t fit with our assumptions. But instead of questioning those assumptions, we just reframe the question. Men and women are exactly the same, so much so that people get to choose which sex they live their lives at. It is all a social construct anyway. Ask any liberal.  The “party of science” knows that chromosomes mean nothing.

Hat tip: Instapundit.