Book beast
More Book beastWhat Makes Women Happy?
Marisa Meltzer is coauthor of How Sassy Changed My Life. Her next book Girl Power will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
A new book by Ariel Gore set out to answer the question of what makes her and other women happy. Marisa Meltzer discusses with her what she learned.
Is there anything more American than the pursuit of happiness? From Dale Carnegie to Elizabeth Gilbert, we're a nation obsessed with finding happiness. Defining it, however, has proven to be more elusive.
Most books about happiness start out with the premise that happiness itself resists definition. Ariel Gore, author of Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness, wanted to begin her book with a clear description of the feeling. "I wanted to start somewhere and not have the cop-out that you know it when you see it," she says from her Portland, Oregon, home. "I define happiness as the ability to rejoice in the midst of suffering."
Gore, who is the founder of the indie magazine Hip Mama and the author of several parenting books, a novel, and a memoir, was inspired to delve into that elusive emotion when she found out that a class on the study of happiness was one of the most popular classes at Harvard. She decided to research the subject, particularly how it pertains to women, by interviewing hundreds, talking to experts ranging from scholars and psychologists to service workers and artists, and evaluating her own life.
“Women,” Gore says, “have been socialized really differently with happiness and cheerfulness and our place in the world.”
She found that most happiness studies were authored by men but that women, especially mothers, were often left out. So she asked a group of women to record their thoughts in a happiness journal, answering questions like, "What could make you happier?" The results were highly individual: One women thought it was moving to Vermont and having a farm; another wanted to move back to the city.
Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness By Ariel Gore 208 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $24.
Gore writes that happiness "isn't the opposite of sadness. Happiness doesn't require us to suppress our other emotions or emotional states. Happiness often creeps up on us unexpectedly, but it can be an act of will—a choice. We don't have to be happy. Sometimes we choose happiness."
"If you want to get scientific," Gore says, "the psychologists and scientists say 30 percent [of happiness] is circumstantial: based on how much our lives look like we want them to look, whether we're married or not, or have kids or not. Fifty percent is your nature, which seems a little high to me. And then there's a little portion left—20-40 percent—that we can control."
Some of her findings seem, at first glance, counterintuitive. She writes about the research of the American psychologist Martin Seligman: "When mothers are asked what brings them the most joy in life, they tend to respond without hesitation, 'My kids.' But when asked to keep a daily record of individual moments of joy, women report that they're actually happier reading, hanging out with friends, watching TV, or even doing the dishes than they are when interacting with their children." Gore, whose personal anecdotes scattered through the book keep the book from feeling overly academic, notes that she "could relate to both realities. Parenting, the source of daily heartbreaks and annoyances, has for me become a body of memory and experience that provides a sense of purpose that seems to cradle my general contentment."
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Marisa Meltzer is coauthor of How Sassy Changed My Life. Her next book Girl Power will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Marisa Meltzer is coauthor of How Sassy Changed My Life. Her next book Girl Power will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Marisa Meltzer is coauthor of How Sassy Changed My Life. Her next book Girl Power will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
westcoastjane
"When mothers are asked what brings them the most joy in life, they tend to respond without hesitation, 'My kids.' But when asked to keep a daily record of individual moments of joy, women report that they're actually happier reading, hanging out with friends, watching TV, or even doing the dishes than they are when interacting with their children."
Gore seemed to have a rather shallow response to this finding from Seligman's research. Just- well, we need to strike a balance, and we tend to want the things we have the least amount of.
When I read that statement from mothers, I found it quite unsettling. What lies beneath the surface of such a statement? Look at what these women are saying- "My kids. My kids are my source of happiness." When pushed, "Well, actually, no, I feel happier when I'm washing the dishes, or watching TV." Washing the dishes? Watching TV? Does anybody else hear a buried and profound boredom in these answers? Where are the interests, individual pursuits, goals, desires of these women?
I hope that Gore's exploration in Bluebird of the modern American woman's happiness is deeper than this interview gives the appearance of.
sillylemur
Do you have children? I can promise you, both sides are true. My greatest joy comes from my daughter, as do some of my most stressful times. Sometimes, doing the dishes is a blessing in disguise. Any moment alone means a lot to any parent of a small child.
thedesigner
In my 68 years, I have had my definition of happiness change so many times, often according to a given situation. It might have been so simple a thing as feeling complete happiness when a child awoke from a successful surgery; or receiving final divorce papers from an abusive marriage.
Now, it has become so simple. I have watched myself, listened to myself, FELT myself; and I know how I need to be loved. Now, happiness comes down to being loved the way I need to be loved. It is the most basic, simplest of needs, and the most difficult to achieve. I am soaking it up while I have it!
THINKNIUM
Reverse is true as well, men know how they need to be loved, but almost all never get it in their life time, modern women just don't care about their men, hence the high divorce rate. Growing old together is a mythical fairy tale nowadays. I'm happy that at least you have it.
sillylemur
Most people don't get the love they want or need, because they're too afraid to ask for it. It's not just men. And it's also not true that " modern men just don't care about their men", and more than it's true that modern men don't care about their women. We're all working with changes, and women are no more to blame for the divorce rate than men. Women instigate divorce more often, but that doesn't mean men are any happier - they're just more willing to stay in a bad relationship.
Growing old together is always going to be a fairy tale for most. We live twice as long. It was easier to grow old together when people died twenty years earlier.
TanMan
It's called perspective. You can be happy for what you have instead of bemoaning what you don't.
But you can't sell a book with two lines. Can you? :)
THINKNIUM
Personally, I have not seen any women happy with what they have, just the ones pass 60s years of age. I'm sure there're exceptions. but I only see (wanting more and other than what they have) is the main drive.
sillylemur
THINKNIUM - you need to get out more. Most women I know are happy, but they are also not sitting home, waiting for the "perfect" marriage, either.
THINKNIUM
Exactly, not sitting home, not happy with what they already have. Older ones are very pleasant to converse with. Wide range of topics, but younger ones talks about themselves with constant problems and issues, "me me me me" very little about others about the world around them. If I hadn't got out more, I wouldn't have observed this trend.
toomanynotes
That's easy. Complete control.
goffbum
She's usually happy when she think's she's in love but money and security and like toomanynotes said "controll".......
Trilby16
I have stumbled on a new theory of my own. I call it "Enjoy the things you enjoy." I make it a point, every day, to enjoy the hell out of all the little things I find enjoyable,an aroma, a song, steel-cut oatmeal, whatever it may be. It's that simple. I think I'm going to write a book about, because it is advice people can actually use to make themselves happier.
sangha774
HAVING EVERYTHING: beauty, career, husband, lover, motherhood, wealth, slimness, big hair, height, good breasts, white teeth, intelligence, orgasms, youth, nice ass, great legs.
Yeah, now they are happy.
THINKNIUM
Everything is not enough, greed is the happiness. MORE !
sillylemur
Aw, THINKNIUM, you're sounding awfully bitter, and hardly happy.
THINKNIUM
Bitter, but wiser regarding gender disposition differences. Many of my older female friends advises their sons to be careful and must get pre nup for marriage; advises their daughters about "user" men.
kscr14
It is funny how it changes as life moves forward. Now in middle age, if my husband sits down with a bottle of wine with me,, sitting out on the patio, drenched in sunshine, makes me so happy. Nothing makes me smile as much as , just the two of us.
ProfessorDaddy
Socrates, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, ... Some truly great thinkers have debated the nature of happiness.
So I'm glad Ariel Gore had final settled this for us all with her answer. "The ability to rejoice in the face of suffering"? Really? Take that Aristotle! Eudaimonia is for wimps.
THINKNIUM
Who's face?
cvillekid
No need to read the article. For many men, Bellow's Moses Herzog said it best over 45 years ago, regarding what women want: "They eat green salad and drink human blood."
By the way, what is that thing Marissa Meltzer has on her head? It looks like whatever it is that Brad Pitt has on his chin these days. Is it alive?
sillylemur
So, you're commenting on an article you didn't even read?
You sound bitter, wrinkled and old. And really, more likely to drink blood than most.
torodad
What do women want?
Shoes.
sillylemur
And naked Brazilians.
my3sons
It's not one thing that makes us happy. It is those certain moments in our daily routine. It could be a kiss blown by your kid, a day of successful negotiation through the rough waters of life, a great sunset, your husbands hand of your back as he introduces you to a coworker, a great dinner with friends or even a crappy dinner with friends filled with laughter. I am convinced that there is no constant happiness, it comes and goes. We just need to slow down a bit to catch it.
prettyscary1
1 and 1/2 hour massage...aaahhh!
joymars
Winning the lottery. Bigtime.
Daniela
Winning the lotto would mos def make me one happy camper!
joymars
How did you put an avatar next to your screen name?
jomama
There are points of intellectual happiness and emotional, also, hapiness is sometimes work. Would a mother give up her children to 'read' full time? Of course not. Children are greatly an intellectual satisfaction - and so much hard work that the emotional parts can be trumped. 'reading' 'being with friends' are breaks from the 'work' part of building a family so they are relative points of happiness in an otherwise stressful day.
Thank you.
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