Split Thread Are post-feminism women happier?

[gnome]

Could you elaborate more on how liberalism wrecks community? Can you describe an example? Because I'm not sure how that works.

 

[bruto]

I've been trying to hack my way through the increasingly dense jungle of sexual politics here, and it seems to come down to the observation that happiness is a trap because the more you get the more you want, and it means you do worse on the test, which just happens to have been written by men. Nobody knows, of course, what women want. It got Freud all steamed up, reminded Bill Cosby what a sexist ******* he was, and made Mel Gibson forget how to act for a moment or two too. But, we are told, happiness is what they should want, but they were happier when thought they were miserable.

Sorry, I know I can't take this seriously. That reflects badly on me, I know, but I suspect there's an underlying cause too.

 

[shuttlt]

Too many simultaneous issues, so I'm going to only choose one, and I'm going to bow out soon anyway.

On what time frame does the (ill) effects of liberalism operate? It seems nearly 100 years is too short for the Nordic model, but 50 years is not too short for women and feminism in the US.

I'm puzzled by the idea that there would be a set number of years, even approximately. How many bricks can you remove from a building before the building falls down? It depends on the building. Why would removing bricks from a new section of the building you have already spent a long time removing bricks from cause problems quickly, when the same bricks removed from an intact building don't cause obvious problems? Why are there no problems being caused by removing bricks from those houses over there that I glanced at from a long way away?

 

[shuttlt]

Could you elaborate more on how liberalism wrecks community? Can you describe an example? Because I'm not sure how that works.

I kind of feel like this has been explained already. I'll have a think if there is a better example.

 

[shuttlt]

I've been trying to hack my way through the increasingly dense jungle of sexual politics here, and it seems to come down to the observation that happiness is a trap because the more you get the more you want,

No. Short lived types of happiness are substituted for sustainable types of happiness.

and it means you do worse on the test, which just happens to have been written by men.

Sure, a survey that asks "do you feel satisfied with your life" is a trick question measuring something that only a man would think important. Men!

Nobody knows, of course, what women want.

Is that true? There is surely lots of info about states preferences and revealed preferences. Women aren't some deep unsolvable enigma.

It got Freud all steamed up, reminded Bill Cosby what a sexist ******* he was, and made Mel Gibson forget how to act for a moment or two too. But, we are told, happiness is what they should want, but they were happier when thought they were miserable.

Did they think they were miserable? Feminism started as a vanguard movement like so many other revolutions. There had to be lots of consciousness raising and propaganda before it became anything like a mass movement. It's not as if conservative women are sitting there wishing that progressive liberals would only come to free them.

Sorry, I know I can't take this seriously. That reflects badly on me, I know, but I suspect there's an underlying cause too.

OK, but nonetheless.... after all this feminism.... women are now less happy in the US than they were in 1972 and have gone from being more happy than men, to being less happy. The US of 1972 suited women better than pretty much any year since. I'm sure the changes have suited a bunch of women at the top edge of the assertiveness, lack of agreeableness, competitiveness distributions. Your average woman is less satisfied with her life.

 

[shuttlt]

Could you elaborate more on how liberalism wrecks community? Can you describe an example? Because I'm not sure how that works.

I kind of feel like this has been explained already. I'll have a think if there is a better example.

I had a brief think. This doesn't really answer your question.... I'm still thinking about that.... but it seems to me that the whole thing rests on Burke's criticism of the French Revolution. What is your take on that?

 

[Paul2]

I'm puzzled by the idea that there would be a set number of years, even approximately. How many bricks can you remove from a building before the building falls down? It depends on the building. Why would removing bricks from a new section of the building you have already spent a long time removing bricks from cause problems quickly, when the same bricks removed from an intact building don't cause obvious problems? Why are there no problems being caused by removing bricks from those houses over there that I glanced at from a long way away?

It’s just that it makes your claim unfalsifiable, albeit in a minor way. This is kinda my main problem overall, though. You have a thesis and I’m skeptical of it. That’s what we’ve been doing lo these many gallons of digital ink we’ve used up.

If that sounds like me bowing out, that’s right. See you next time.

 

[Chanakya]

I've been trying to hack my way through the increasingly dense jungle of sexual politics here, and it seems to come down to the observation that happiness is a trap because the more you get the more you want, and it means you do worse on the test, which just happens to have been written by men. Nobody knows, of course, what women want. It got Freud all steamed up, reminded Bill Cosby what a sexist ******* he was, and made Mel Gibson forget how to act for a moment or two too. But, we are told, happiness is what they should want, but they were happier when thought they were miserable.

Sorry, I know I can't take this seriously. That reflects badly on me, I know, but I suspect there's an underlying cause too.

Yep, that too.

So then I see two ...difficulties, with shuttit's position. One, this is a form of special pleading. That is, he's using a standard to evaluate feminism that he doesn't use for other things (which is a univariate standard, the basis for which is happiness). And two, and like you say, the fact that the more of happiness you have, the more you tend to want it. So that a much better off person (better off in every way) may find themselves less happy than they'd been when far worse off ---- which is no big deal, because that far-worse-off version would probably be ...not just happy, but actually ecstatic, to be able, in that moment, in the shoes of the much-better-off version.

 

[bruto]

No. Short lived types of happiness are substituted for sustainable types of happiness.


Sure, a survey that asks "do you feel satisfied with your life" is a trick question measuring something that only a man would think important. Men!


Is that true? There is surely lots of info about states preferences and revealed preferences. Women aren't some deep unsolvable enigma.


Did they think they were miserable? Feminism started as a vanguard movement like so many other revolutions. There had to be lots of consciousness raising and propaganda before it became anything like a mass movement. It's not as if conservative women are sitting there wishing that progressive liberals would only come to free them.


OK, but nonetheless.... after all this feminism.... women are now less happy in the US than they were in 1972 and have gone from being more happy than men, to being less happy. The US of 1972 suited women better than pretty much any year since. I'm sure the changes have suited a bunch of women at the top edge of the assertiveness, lack of agreeableness, competitiveness distributions. Your average woman is less satisfied with her life.

Maybe in 1972 things looked more hopeful, progress in the right direction was becoming visible, so maybe women were happier because things were looking up. If you're happy about what's to come, you won't stay happy if it doesn't.

Just rereading the beginning of this thread, and reminding myself of the ideas that give rise to it, if one starts off believing that feminism is an offshoot of Marxism and the distortion of what used to be thought "normal," of course women would be less happy now than they once were, given how our society is going, especially if the idea that formerly marginalized or disenfrachised people want to join the ranks of the "normal" means that normality is lost and society is "queered" by the effort.

This whole argument seems to be based on the premise that the decrease in women's happiness is a fault of feminism and liberalism, but the same argument could castigate the canaries in the coal mine for falling down on the job.

 

[shuttlt]

It’s just that it makes your claim unfalsifiable, albeit in a minor way. This is kinda my main problem overall, though. You have a thesis and I’m skeptical of it. That’s what we’ve been doing lo these many gallons of digital ink we’ve used up.

Given that I'm not the one whose political hunches have changed the world, I kind of feel like its on liberalism and feminism to prove themselves. All of this is unfalsifiable. That women have become less happy than men as feminism has been implemented doesn't matter because none of this is really rational, scientific or evidence based. Picking my reading of the implementation of an unfalsifiable set of ideas and saying "it's unfalsifiable" is rich.

We could discuss the impact of these things in societies that we are both familiar with, but instead you want the societies we debate this on to be ones neither of us are familiar with. This is like that story of the duel fought in a darkened room using axes that neither party was strong enough to lift.

 

[shuttlt]

Yep, that too.

So then I see two ...difficulties, with shuttit's position. One, this is a form of special pleading. That is, he's using a standard to evaluate feminism that he doesn't use for other things (which is a univariate standard, the basis for which is happiness).

Which things am I not using it for?

And two, and like you say, the fact that the more of happiness you have, the more you tend to want it. So that a much better off person (better off in every way) may find themselves less happy than they'd been when far worse off

You seem to have confused having stuff with happiness. You can't start be assuming people have more happiness and then say that they are less happy. A kind of happiness that leaves you less happy, if it isn't contradictory nonsense, doesn't seem particularly worth having.

---- which is no big deal, because that far-worse-off version would probably be ...not just happy, but actually ecstatic, to be able, in that moment, in the shoes of the much-better-off version.

You assert that more happiness, of some speculative type, might make one less happy... then you mock the idea that the person receiving this gift might have been happier before they were made less happy....?

 

[shuttlt]

Maybe in 1972 things looked more hopeful, progress in the right direction was becoming visible, so maybe women were happier because things were looking up. If you're happy about what's to come, you won't stay happy if it doesn't.

That is possible. I have considered that. It's the best data I have at the moment though. If one were going to take it seriously, it feels like a phenomenon that could be teased apart. This has blown up into this whole big conversation off the back of a few posts to Emily's Cat. There are surveys that say community is at the top of the list for causing happiness, then I think safety, and you also have women's happiness declining as they age, where men become happier. I don't think it really is taken seriously though because this is ideology.

Just rereading the beginning of this thread, and reminding myself of the ideas that give rise to it, if one starts off believing that feminism is an offshoot of Marxism

2nd wave was. 1st wave is I think muddled up in all sorts of things like Fabianism, Protestantism, pacifism, eugenics, and all sorts of stuff. I haven't done enough reading on that period though.

and the distortion of what used to be thought "normal," of course women would be less happy now than they once were, given how our society is going, especially if the idea that formerly marginalized or disenfrachised people want to join the ranks of the "normal" means that normality is lost and society is "queered" by the effort.

Sure.

This whole argument seems to be based on the premise that the decrease in women's happiness is a fault of feminism and liberalism, but the same argument could castigate the canaries in the coal mine for falling down on the job.

No. Liberalism has a few things baked into it. One of them is an idea of man in the state of nature being free.... and also the rationalist dream of man being able to escape nature. Another idea is liberty conceived as freeing the individual to act freely from non-rational constraints. We are on this quest to free man by conquering nature and simultaneously by uprooting customs and traditions that restrain him. The idea that men and women are simply different and you are never going to have as many women wanting to work on oil rigs, become maths professors or be soldiers and you are never going to get as many men wanting to be kindergarten teachers, or do craft blogs offends both of those core liberal principles. The differences between men and women are of course far more profound than that and society necessarily both reflects and magnifies that difference.... so we are committed to this constant battle where we reshape the world to try and get girls to make the life choices necessary to achieve this unachievable liberal dream. That then takes us to the idea that we can and should use rationalism to remake and perfect the world - see my constant references to Burke.

The Marxist stuff is just the intellectual scaffolding that appeals to academics. Marxism comes from the French Revolution and liberalism the same as everything else. By the 60s and the period we are talking about it had moved away from economics and class and had repurposed itself to focus on identity groups. One of the things you get from Marxism is a proposed solution to the contradiction between liberte and egalite in liberalism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've been trying to hack my way through the increasingly dense jungle of sexual politics here, and it seems to come down to the observation that happiness is a trap because the more you get the more you want, and it means you do worse on the test, which just happens to have been written by men. Nobody knows, of course, what women want. It got Freud all steamed up, reminded Bill Cosby what a sexist ******* he was, and made Mel Gibson forget how to act for a moment or two too. But, we are told, happiness is what they should want, but they were happier when thought they were miserable.

Sorry, I know I can't take this seriously. That reflects badly on me, I know, but I suspect there's an underlying cause too.

Quite to the point.

I don't think it reflects badly on you, but perhaps that's because I don't think it reflects badly on me either.

The premise of this thread is based on an assumption of causality, for an effect that is merely correlative, and is also correlative with a large number of other variables. It's a flawed premise.

No support has been provided to show causality. There have been repeated arguments from authority, where the authority presented is a philosophical hypothesis that is equally based on an unproven assumption.

At the end of the day... it's a house of cards built on sand. There's not really much point in me continuing in this discussion. Shuttit is arguing from a position of belief, I'm arguing from a position of skepticism. Shuttit argues that the lack of happiness is caused by feminism (and even further because of liberalism itself). I argue that without actual evidence of a causal relationship, this is an assertion from faith. They are unable to provide sufficient support for their assumptions, and I will not accept blind faith in place thereof.

 

[shuttlt]

The premise of this thread is based on an assumption of causality, for an effect that is merely correlative, and is also correlative with a large number of other variables. It's a flawed premise.

I must have responded to this five times now, and you just loop right back around.

No support has been provided to show causality. There have been repeated arguments from authority, where the authority presented is a philosophical hypothesis that is equally based on an unproven assumption.

I don't think you know what argument from authority means. Explaining one's world view is not argument from authority. Argument from authority would be if I relied on the stature of some important authority figure, which I don't.

At the end of the day... it's a house of cards built on sand. There's not really much point in me continuing in this discussion.

No there isn't, because whenever things go too far you press the reset button and make the same statements again that I have replied to and that you never address.

Shuttit is arguing from a position of belief, I'm arguing from a position of skepticism.

All these things are beliefs. All these things are chains of reasoning that can't be finally proved. I think it's been admitted (I don't recall if by you) that liberalism and feminism are basically just sitting on axiomatically assumed articles of faith. The main attack from that is the argument by Burke I keep explaining which is yet another thing that you just hit the reset button on and never address.

The reason this discussion never goes anywhere is because you aren't actually willing to debate these things. You are too emotionally invested in your ideology.

Shuttit argues that the lack of happiness is caused by feminism (and even further because of liberalism itself).

And the reset button is pressed again and my rebuttal to this is erased from Emily's Cat's mind.

I argue that without actual evidence of a causal relationship, this is an assertion from faith.

Sure. And I answered that before. Remember, I don't say that it is caused by feminism. I say that maybe it isn't, but that if feminists actually cared about the happiness of women, or their worldview was founded in rationality.... maybe it would seem to them like a problem that maybe would be worth questioning some foundational assumptions over. That isn't how political movements operate though. I think that's the sound of the reset button being hit again.

They are unable to provide sufficient support for their assumptions, and I will not accept blind faith in place thereof.

Yes you do accept blind faith. Your worldview is based on it. You aren't actually willing to debate your worldview, so why pretend?

 

[Chanakya]

Which things am I not using it for?

We've discussed this already, remember? You left my post #278 unaddressed, so I assumed you agree, or at least that you don't care to defend your position further as far as that line of argument.

You seem to have confused having stuff with happiness. You can't start be assuming people have more happiness and then say that they are less happy. A kind of happiness that leaves you less happy, if it isn't contradictory nonsense, doesn't seem particularly worth having.

You assert that more happiness, of some speculative type, might make one less happy... then you mock the idea that the person receiving this gift might have been happier before they were made less happy....?

Although I disagree with where you're going with this, especially when you restrict your application of this principle only to one or two ideas that you're ideologically opposed to; but I do think you've raised a very valid question, that deserves exploring further. In general terms, why exactly do we do what we do, and shouldn't one important factor in deciding what we're to do be how that impacts our happiness?

Likewise, I think bruto brings out a valid and interesting psychological insight here. Of course, this is only an idea, and it is research that can tell us if this is indeed so: but stands to reason, that the more you have of happiness (or of the stuff that makes for happiness, if you insist on splitting hairs) the more you will want it. If you've no joy in your life, if your life is utterly miserable, then the smallest spark of happiness will probably find you gratefully on your knees in apprecation; while the same you, who is used to and takes for granted a much higher level of happiness, will likely see that earlier level of happiness as actually misery. Stands to reason, although absolutely, I realize at this point this is merely speculation-that-sounds-reasonable, in order for it to actually be reasonable we'll need that to be backed by research.

 

[qayak]

Honestly, I think you may be right.

I do think the issue is somewhat complicated. I can see how changes in social norms have shifted us away from an equilibrium that was more generally aligned with our nature, and that had a negative impact on people in general. But at the same time, more freedom to choose is generally a good thing for people's individual happiness. The problem that you've identified happens, in my view, not so much because of ideas of freedom of choice, but because of other ideas related to the sexes being identical.

There is a large body of evidence that says otherwise. People are happiest with a few clear choices. Large numbers of choices quickly overwhelm people because there is no basis for comparison. In society today people are given wide range of choice because they have no way to discern which choice is good and which is bad. It allows them to be easily manipulated. An infinite number of marketing examples come to mind.

 

[shuttlt]

I appreciate your patiently spelled out arguments, shuttit, but as far as I can see you're contradicting yourself.

Is there anything more important, or at least as important, than happiness? If yes, what are those things?

Tricky question. I think ultimately everything reduces down to something like that. It's not something I have spent thousands of hours considering. I'm certainly open to be persuaded otherwise.

If there are, and if we can clearly spell them out: then, to see if something/anything -- including feminism -- has been worth it, we'd need to evaluate that something/anything (including feminism) across all of those parameters.

Again, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. Generally things seem to sit on long term life satisfaction type happiness.

And if there aren't, then I don't see what objection you can possibly have to having your happiness enhanced by hooking you up to a hospital bed for life.

A very philosophical question. I'm dubious to what extent it would be me being happy under those circumstances. If you are coercively manipulating my brain, I don't think I accept that that is any longer me.... or at least it is less me. By the same token, I would be extremely uncomfortable giving my some treatment that permanently and radically altered his personality. I would have changed him into somebody else. I don't see that the brain in a jar hypothetical has much real world relevance. To some extent the world that we live in anyway, though the culture, manipulates our brains. I accept that in the manner of the Ship of Theseus our minds and personalities change, but there are limits.

Also, at the end of the day.... we are talking about what we hypothetically think we would do in a hypothetical circumstance. Would we really push the fat man off the bridge to switch the trolley bus on to the other tracks? In reality these are questions that exist differently in the world than they do in philosophy problems. I doubt I would trust you and society to put me and my family in such a device. I doubt I would trust the device. Maybe if I truly did, I would let you? I don't think I can imagine myself into that situation and tell you what I would do any more than I can really tell you whether I would push the fat man off the bridge.

[eta]That is, you're clearly using two separate standards. On standard for you, and your near and dear ones. And another, very different, standard for women-qua-women/feminism.[/eta]

How so? I mean, there is an obvious sense in which I care for my family far more than I care for some hypothetical woman. I don't get you though. I don't think I would be comfortable solving female unhappiness by putting them into a drug induced happy stupor either. One might as well just painlessly kill them all and replace them with Stepford Wives robots that always claimed to be blissfully happy. I mean, what would really be the harm?

(1) You suggest that in opting for happiness via hospital bed you'd be abandoning your family, which you're not prepared to do. Two responses to that: first, that shows that you're considering other parameters than just happiness as far as you yourself, isn't it

Certainly. Their happiness and my happiness. We were talking earlier about female happiness. Again, my happiness is highly contingent on their happiness.

second, and more importantly, I'm offering to do this exact same thing for your family as well, so that no, you aren't abandoning them, you'd be giving that same enhanced happiness that you yourself would be going in for.

No good. For starters I don't accept that with you manipulating their brains they are really them any longer.

(2) You'd raised techinical/practical issues in your last post. I'd suggested that we consider, for the sake of argument, that all such purely technical issues have been settled, and that we discuss only the principle of the thing, this proposition that I offer you and your family. To which your objection is that you don't want to deal in such impossibilities and abstractions, and look at only the real world, only what can be. There is some merit in such a practical approach: but then, isn't that special pleading as well, because after all the world we live in is already fact, and no one can possibly undo what has already happened, so what is the point of even evaluating whether or not feminism has been a success?

When you are in a hole, why evaluate whether all the digging is making the situation better or worse? One can never truly go back, of course..... but it's not like that means we should never reconsider our direction and keep pressing on forever.

No matter how you do this, this is special pleading.

I don't see that.

For you yourself, and for your family, you're clearly using a multi-variate paradigm to evaluate your choices, rather than just one variable (happiness).

I disagree.

While for women/feminism you're content to evaluate this across one single variable, happiness.

Again, I don't see that I am doing anything different except that I obviously feel closer to my family than a hypothetical woman.

With the further special pleading that you're not open to evaluating abstractions and might-have-beens and can-bes and theoretical propositions when it comes to you yourself, and your near and dear ones; while you're content doing that when it comes to women/feminism, in as much as considering a scenario where feminism did not happen is simply an abstraction.

One can, I think, say that particular bits of thinking and particular policies that have been enacted are battles with reality and nature. One can I think talk about historical trends and patterns. Going back to Burke though, one never really knows how upending society is going to turn out. I'm not clear what you think the equivalent in my reasoning to your hypothetical is.

As I think I've said before. I'm not insisting that the only valid metric for anybody else for this stuff should be happiness. I think the average person in the street is under the impression that it was supposed to bring them happiness. I'm perfectly well aware that that wasn't the motivation behind plenty of the people who started these movements.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is a large body of evidence that says otherwise. People are happiest with a few clear choices. Large numbers of choices quickly overwhelm people because there is no basis for comparison. In society today people are given wide range of choice because they have no way to discern which choice is good and which is bad. It allows them to be easily manipulated. An infinite number of marketing examples come to mind.

Again this is because we, too often, use "happiness" to only mean shallow "someone's injected my spine with dopamine" happiness and not broader concepts of fulfillment and satisfaction and a billion other positive emotions.

Yes like I said earlier having no volition is kinda... oddly comforting. It's why "getting institutionalized" is a thing. It's not the same thing as saying it makes you happier though.

 

[shuttlt]

We've discussed this already, remember? You left my post #278 unaddressed, so I assumed you agree, or at least that you don't care to defend your position further as far as that line of argument.

Apologies, somehow I missed it.

Although I disagree with where you're going with this, especially when you restrict your application of this principle only to one or two ideas that you're ideologically opposed to; but I do think you've raised a very valid question, that deserves exploring further. In general terms, why exactly do we do what we do, and shouldn't one important factor in deciding what we're to do be how that impacts our happiness?

I have no particular expectation of the world ever working that way. One cannot simply discover a set of just principles that, if followed, would lead to a good result. Theoretically good principles can easily have bad outcomes in the hands of the unscrupulous and powerful. The whole thing is a feedback system like coming up with some scheme for predicting the stock market that, once widely known, alters the behaviour of the market so it stops working.

Likewise, I think bruto brings out a valid and interesting psychological insight here. Of course, this is only an idea, and it is research that can tell us if this is indeed so: but stands to reason, that the more you have of happiness (or of the stuff that makes for happiness, if you insist on splitting hairs) the more you will want it.

I would say there are some very different types of happiness. My son was very happy when he got an xBox, but I am far from convinced that it has actually made his life happier. Give a toddler their own bodyweight in sugar and they will be ecstatic at first, but they will certainly be crying later. Equally, having children has certainly raised my base level of happiness. I spent some time in the countryside recently, and I don't think that caused any subsequent crash in my happiness.

If you've no joy in your life, if your life is utterly miserable, then the smallest spark of happiness will probably find you gratefully on your knees in apprecation;

Doubtless true, but one can also find that too much unhappiness can damage one's ability to be happy, I think.

while the same you, who is used to and takes for granted a much higher level of happiness, will likely see that earlier level of happiness as actually misery.

Misery is an internal state. There is no condition that is intrinsically miserable in the absence of people experiencing the condition and being made more or less miserable by it. Therese of Lisieux coughed up blood during the night and described excitedly having to wait till morning to confirm the joyous news that she had TB and was being called to God.

Stands to reason, although absolutely, I realize at this point this is merely speculation-that-sounds-reasonable, in order for it to actually be reasonable we'll need that to be backed by research.

I'm not sure that it makes much difference to the discussion. We all seem to agree on this part. The bit I disagree with is this idea that people's circumstances have somehow been made happier, even though they have become less happy, and that we should discount how they actually feel.

 

[Chanakya]

Tricky question. I think ultimately everything reduces down to something like that. It's not something I have spent thousands of hours considering. I'm certainly open to be persuaded otherwise...

I'm trying to do that, to persuade you that people value more things than merely happiness, by showing you that you do that yourself. And in the process also show you how, sitting where I am, your approach looks like blatant double standards / special pleading to me.

...If you are coercively manipulating my brain, I don't think I accept that that is any longer me.... or at least it is less me. By the same token, I would be extremely uncomfortable giving my some treatment that permanently and radically altered his personality. I would have changed him into somebody else. I don't see that the brain in a jar hypothetical has much real world relevance.

...I don't get you though. I don't think I would be comfortable solving female unhappiness by putting them into a drug induced happy stupor either. One might as well just painlessly kill them all and replace them with Stepford Wives robots that always claimed to be blissfully happy. I mean, what would really be the harm?

...No good. For starters I don't accept that with you manipulating their brains they are really them any longer.

1. What exactly is happiness, then? It's a state of mind, and that state of mind is the result of chemicals being fed into your brain. What I'm proposing is to keep you, and your family, in a state of chemically induced happiness that exceeds the happiness the real world would have given you. Provided the technicalities of that proposition can be effectively dealt with --- or else ignored for the sake of argument, in order to focus on the principle of the thing --- I don't see how you can possibly say that this isn't really happiness.
   
   And hey, if you're going to insist that only this kind of happiness is acceptable to me, and not that other kind of happiness, when it comes to me and my family; well then, why shouldn't women take that same line, and say that the kind of happiness that I get as some kept woman that isn't quite man's equal is unacceptable to me, the only kind of happiness I care for is the happiness I get from (the chance of) full actualization of every talent and potential that I have?
   
   
   
2. As for this changing the person that you are, or that your loved ones are, well, then here we already are, at something that, by your own reckoning, trumps happiness. Even when you and your family are being made happier, you reject that happiness because you don't like "who you become", and "who your family becomes" in the process.
   
   Likewise, then, maybe --- in fact, quite likely --- women reject "who they become", when they become your typical patriarchal-society-caricature-woman, as opposed to the fully fledged human beings that they get a chance to be today, even if it means that they are in the process less happy.
   
   And in giving yourself and your family to determine "who you are", while clearly not doing the same with women in general, again you fall back to double standards / special pleading.
   
   
   
3. I think it's ultimately a question of consent, informed consent. Should you, or I, decide for ourselves that we'd prefer a long and happy but comatose-on-a-hospital-bed life for ourselves, then it's good and right that we should have that life, if the economics and other incidental factors permit it; and should you, or I, reject that option, then absolutely, force-feeding that "happiness" to us tantamounts to ...I'd go so far as to call it evil.
   
   Likewise, if it is the considered choice of some woman to embrace the happy but limited life of the domesticated coddled kept woman, well then it is good and right that she should have that life, if she's able to. Indeed there are women, even today, who do opt for exactly that, and more power to them if that brings them fulfillment. But again, and as above, I think it tantamounts to, well, evil, to compel all women, including those that don't want that kind of life, to be force-fed that happiness against their wishes.

(And of course, the above assumes that women's happiness is indeed compromised by feminism. That too is by no means given, because clearly we have at least two valid-sounding objections here: one, the bit about correlation not amounting to causation, unless this can be expressly shown; and two, bruto's insight about higher levels of happiness (or the stuff of happiness) leading to greater requirement of happiness (or greater requirement of the stuff of happiness), which forces us to see such studies on happiness in a very different light.)