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Notes -
Married women are happy when they are treated as partners, not dogs on a leash.
There's some interesting research showing that Lesbian marriages are more likely to end in divorce than heterosexual ones, and male-male marriages divorce less often.
I dunno, if women are even less able to sustain a relationship if their partner is a woman, it indicates that they're not very good at being a 'partner' at all.
And its still very odd gotten less satisified with life even as they have more rights than before
I suggest you're missing some critical factor.
And no this isn't a calling for women to be reduced to chattel. My whole perspective is that the spouses differing roles are complementary, but across the board the male will tend to be the one best-equipped to make decisions for the family as a whole.
Its pointing out that your thesis isn't very explanatory of why women are LESS happy despite MORE concessions than ever, and why women who DO find men to lead them tend to be less neurotic and more happy.
This doesn't necessarily determine how EVERY marriage should be run, of course.
This is a reality that I think any honest feminist has to deal with. Is feminism about freedom for women, or is it about a better life for women, as measured by their own personal satisfaction? It would be an incredibly convenient world if prioritizing the former led to the latter, but the evidence seems quite clear that it is not the case and, in fact, there's strong reason to believe that it leads to the opposite of the latter.
And, as a feminist, I find it very easy to square: feminism should prioritize freedom (to equalize it between the sexes) over life satisfaction, and the costs to the women whose lives are now less satisfying due to feminism (but more free) is worth it for the benefit to the women whose lives are both more satisfying and more free. I just wish more feminists would openly and honestly acknowledge and state as such, that there will be tradeoffs, because there always are, and that some people deserve to suffer not because they're morally or ethically bad or whatever, but merely because they lack the wisdom/intelligence/etc. to make choices that lead to better outcomes for themselves when given the freedom to do so, compared to the alternative where they were not given the freedom.
This, of course, applies not just to feminism but more broadly to most/all liberalizing/libertarian ideologies. And the same criticisms as above apply just as well to those.
Sure, but feminists generally square this circle by going
and note that this is the same as
and the way this is legitimized to a people who otherwise aren't just cartoon-villain evil is with varying other justifications that center around how being X is the best proxy for "lacking the wisdom/intelligence/etc. to make choices that lead to better outcomes". This usually takes the form of some scientific justification (melanin, testosterone, brain development, etc.). It generally works quite well for people of not-X, and the moral hazard for continuing that state of affairs leans in their direction.
By contrast,
is the liberal view, and liberals who still call themselves feminists are pointing at a legacy where this was at one point true for their group (or are low-information enough to believe it's still a problem especially thanks to those who work to generate the above justifications), but because they're just better than average human beings, their tendency to be sympathetic to those who claim to be on the low side of that moral hazard until they are crushed to death by a literal army of concern trolls.
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