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If feminism is making women on average less happy, that is not necessarily a strike against feminism. There is also freedom to consider. If freedom makes you less happy on average, that does not necessarily mean that you should do away with freedom. Perhaps it can mean that, in some cases, but not as a general rule.
Children generally become less happy at first when parents stop just providing everything to them and start to demand more adult behavior. That does not necessarily mean that it is bad to at some point start to demand more adult behavior from children.
An adult man who makes his own living is probably less happy on average than a sheltered boy who has everything provided for him. That does not necessarily mean that it is better to be a sheltered boy than it is to be an adult man.
It is not surprising that as women went from having a sort of middle status between children and adult men to having legal freedom equal to men and being expected to make their own economic decisions, they also became less happy in some ways and developed various new stresses different from the stresses that they had before. It is especially not surprising given that this is a new development in history, with few precedents. So there is no guidebook.
But this does not mean that women's liberation is a bad thing. In any case, the journey of women's liberation has only begun. It will be interesting to see where it goes.
Yeah exactly, freedom is bound to make tons of people unhappy, because they make bad choices for themselves in at least one area. Like every fat ass is unhappy with their freedom over food consumption instead of big government controlling calorie intake. It's a tradeoff situation, big government authoritarianism favors the retards who can't control themselves and make choices so bad that having someone else tell them what to do works out better. From people who eat a little too much to the morons who go and take a mortgage on their house to gamble with or whatever else. Even the midwit of government can be better than their own idiocy.
Freedom favors the smart and responsible people who can control themselves and make good decisions. Freedom says you are accountable to yourself. Freedom is for the people who make better decisions in their life than a central bureaucrat on a power trip could do. If you're less happy in a free society, that's on you for overeating or being an asshole or choosing to gamble or whatever stupid shit you do.
I don't think of myself as a retard, I think of myself as someone who knows better for my life than the government would. I want my freedom to do with myself as I wish. If the retards want their king, I guess we can have an opt in no freedom program for them or something where you can sign up and live in a government facility that stops you from overeating and drinking too much and changes your diaper for you. They'll tell you when it's work time, play time, nap time.
This is one of those things that seems obvious, but also seems like it's not talked about nearly enough, to the extent that people actually don't understand it as obvious. I certainly wish the feminist movement talked more about these downsides and the fact that many women will end up less happy (and, quite possibly, less good for whatever they might judge as "good" in terms of their life), but that this is a worthy cost to pay for the freedom that feminism offers them. Because, right now, I see so many women being failed by the feminist movement, having been convinced that freedom won't have these severe and significant downsides and then conclude that their own lack of happiness despite their freedom means that the movement clearly needs to keep doing more until
morale improvessomehow both greater freedom and greater happiness is achieved. Without that grounding in actual reality - and the tradeoffs that are always present in reality - it's become a movement that just keeps inviting greater and greater justified pushback while leaving its supporters dissatisfied.Of course, the
marketmovement can stay irrational longer than you can staysolventalive, and there's a sucker born every minute, so its inability to - and apparent lack of desire to - accomplish its stated goals doesn't mean that there's going to be some correction anytime soon.This is kinda true but in a different way. It's more possible for the average person to do a stereotypical "traditional life" of a working husband and stay at home wife than ever before, and it'd be far cozier since the women back then actually had to do hours and hours of meaningful domestic work. If you want to be the "loyal Christian wife who serves her husband instead of working" you could do that and get to watch soap operas or makeup tiktoks all day. Or at least it would be, if it wasn't for two things.
The main one of Housing. It's basically impossible to have the cheap and small homes people lived in back then, zoning and land use regulations saw to that. Owning a home on a single income is more difficult when you're competing against richer households on less stock. More freedom to build would allow for these one earner households to also get a home. This is where "we need more freedom" is true, just not of women's liberation.
And the second one of "keeping up with the Joneses". Obviously having someone sit at home watching Tiktok while the laundry machines and dishwasher do most of the domestic labor for them is less contribution to society than having them go out and do a job, so your household is gonna earn less money than your neighbors who have two working adults. You have to sacrifice somewhere else like not having fancy cars and new stuff for the kids as often or whatever if you want a one income life. Unhappiness here is just "waaah I want the same pay as someone who is smarter and works more than me" complaining.
But if you're willing to accept that one earner is obviously less money than two earners, and live in a smaller home with less stuff then freedom allows you to do that for yourself. You have no excuse for unhappiness there except for your own fault. There are no feminism police coming to break down your door because you're a wife without a job.
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Women's liberation isn't a bad thing, unless it ends up with society overcorrecting because people refused to implement corrections before things got out of hand.
Humans respond to whatever incentive structure that is laid out for them. If society allows a group to maximize their advantages and minimize their disadvantages they will respond accordingly, and that might come at the expense of some other group. In the case of women's liberation, that expense appears to be laid at the feet of the modern day average Joe.
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