Comments on: Articles on women’s unhappiness make me unhappy.

By: Harpy Seminar (Now With Commenters!): The Gender Draft - The Pursuit of Harpyness

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:02:18 +0000

[...] I said in the comments on SarahMC’s Maureen Dowd post that I’m totally up for trading Maureen, because she is an underminer-y frenemy of women [...]

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:06:42 +0000

We have a protester at our clinics here who claims that women wearing pants causes abortion. I am not making this up. You’d think the wearing of trousers would inhibit unwanted pregnancies, but…This guy once made a young woman protester who was wearing pants break down in tears. I almost felt sorry for her, but came to my senses.

I always thought that happiness was something you measured at the end of your life. We can have moments, or periods, of contentment but happiness is a product, not a goal in and of itself. Productive work (for pay or not), the ability to give and receive love, the freedom to learn and grow as a person, time for rest and for using your body, giving of yourself to make your community and your world better places-all these can lead to happiness. But obsessing about being happy will never get you there.

And yeah, Maureen Dowd lost me back when she started banging on the Clintons. I’d much rather read Ellen Goodman.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:54:10 +0000

tallgirl wins for “Axis of Estrogen.” One zillion harpybuxx to you, sister.

I’ve developed an easy plug-n-play template for a MoDo column.

Opening personal reference
Leading question
Unfounded claim
Generalization
Generalization
Complete absenting of non-white/middle-class/straight/cis/able-bodied/etc. women
Unfounded claim
Bold Assertion!!!
Wrap up w/ end to personal reference.

I invite you all to draft your own MoDo madlibs; we might even post the most brilliant ones.

By: June

June — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:01:35 +0000

“True, although there’s not nearly the societal pressure for them to stay young and sexy as their is for women.”

Becky, you’re right- but the pressure is slowly building for them to stay young and sexy too- at least in the steady growth of the advertising/marketing pitch of cosmetics/cosmetic surgery aimed at older men here in Australia.

My point is more that I get tired of the constant “men get more attractive as they age” mythical like statements.
btw, I love this blog- read everyday. Thanks!

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:33:55 +0000

@June: True, although there’s not nearly the societal pressure for them to stay young and sexy as there is for women.

And about 2 seconds face-to-face with Maureen Dowd will tell anyone that she’s wholeheartedly embraced the Restylane-and-botoxed 20-something wannabe look.

By: June

June — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:22:49 +0000

“Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s.”

What a load of bollocks…unhappy and unattractive older men abound.

By: tallgirl-in-heels

tallgirl-in-heels — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:14:38 +0000

If women were so damn happy before feminism, then why the hell did it even take off in the first place? To read crap like this you’d think that a few angry bitches forcibly stuffed all of womanity into an ugly pants suit to be dragged off kicking and screaming towards a dismal, feminist future. OMG ladies, I can see it so clearly now! We’re all really just sad, whiny victims of the evil Axis of Estrogen!! Thank god Maureen Dowd and her sensitive, respectful friend Carl showed me the light.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:13:19 +0000

Agreed, JD. Feminism was meant to ensure our political, economic and social equality. No one ever said that once we got those things we’d all be happy and live in a meadow with puppies and kittens and unicorns.

Having those things, though, gives women a lot more tools with which to create their own happiness. I am happy because I have a job I love, can pay my own bills, own my own home, have plenty of lovers without shame and control my own fertility. None of those things would be possible for me without feminism.

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:06:06 +0000

Also, was feminism invented to make women “happier?” I thought that was what meditation was for. Feminism was invented to make women more powerful and free, I always thought.

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:04:33 +0000

I’m totally LOLing at that guy’s comment. So it’s easier to resist a woman’s ass than her ankles? You have to hope these are just really old dudes and that they are dying out. Not that patriarchy is, mind you, but the kind that feels threatened by dungarees.

I think that women have access to modes of unhappiness now that used to be reserved solely for men. Because different choices come with different sacrifices and kinds of pain. I don’t think we are unhappier overall, I think that we have more varieties and kinds of experiences that lead some us to the kind of feelings and expressions that men can recognize as “unhappiness,” if that makes sense. We have louder voices and our narratives are told now.

It just sounds like another way of patriarchy being like, “are you bitches STILL TALKING?” and then trying to act like it is for our own good to shut up.