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SW Article: Has Feminism Made Women Unhappy?

This is a great article that takes on some of the recent pundits' responses to a survey on men's and women's happiness.

Considering the impact of Arizona's cuts to education and health care on women especially we thought it appropriate to post. Check it out!

HERE WE go again. Another study is out to show how the women's movement ruined women's lives.

This time it's called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," and it's being used by self-help guru Marcus Buckingham to claim--over three decades after the height of the women's rights movement--that "though women now have the liberty to choose whichever life they'd like, many are struggling in their pursuit of a happy life."

The survey by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers at the Wharton School is an analysis of General Social Survey data, which attempts to track Americans' feelings. Each year since 1972, the U.S. General Social Survey has asked 1,500 men and women, "How happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 3, with 3 being very happy, and 1 being not too happy?"

The study concludes that "women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging--one with higher subjective well-being for men."

Check out the rest at Socialist Worker.org.

We Demand Full Equality

It's been a while since the Tucson Branch has thrown something up here but there is nothing better than picking back up the pace with an article by Eric Ruder. "We Demand Full Equality" is Ruder's report back on the National Equality March, which happened over the weekend from Friday to Sunday with a full line up of talks, lectures, workshops, marches and rallies. Associate Press claims 300,000 thousand, which is fine by us! But, more conservative estimates put the attendance at around 200,000. And yet, no matter how you cut it, the march reached a number that organizers never expected. This is truly the beginning. Check back for more soon.

Read Ruder's article here on Socialist Worker.

It's not an "option" if you have no choice

Obama's ratings are going down as people are none too thrilled about his Bush-like policies on health care reform, Afghanistan, and the economy. As Obama and his action team sit in backrooms deciding how to split up the bounty that is health care, millions are watching.

Right now there are nearly 50 million people in America, who are not insured. Those uninsured range from students, single moms, low income, middle class, employed and unemployed. Regardless of the reason why, the fact remains that a significant portion of American citizens are uninsured. Not to mention how many are underinsured!

With "promises" such as health insurance co-ops it is not surprise that people are growing tired of the same old from Washington. For instance, private health insurance companies will receive government subsidies to help pay for low income recipients. The list goes on of backtracking on crucial health care reform, like dropping the percent of expenses that insurance companies have to pay for low income people from 80-90 to 65. Big Pharma too gets a sweet deal, with 10 years to drop off $80 billion from prices.

It is no wonder that people are not satisfied as the Obama administration surrenders to the status quo.

The myth of scarcity

Paul D'Amato wrote a great article for Socialist Worker this week that takes on the arguments of scarcity and overpopulation. These arguments are often toted as justifications for why we must continue to live in a world where the wealth and abundance so easily produced in a capitalist economy are unjustifiably distributed to the few and not the many. We have heard it before, I am sure, when our mothers, fathers, or grandparents told us to finish up everything on our plate because there are children starving in Africa. And I feel confident that many probably went in their head, "But how would this food get to the children of Africa if I didn't eat it?"

It may have been more useful if our parents or guardians just told us things like, "I spent a lot of money buying groceries and cooking dinner and I don't want to see you gorge yourself on Cheetos."

And yet these arguments abound all around us, from conservative to liberals, from schools to workplaces. Americans notably are admonished for their gluttonous lifestyles. But even those arguments are ill placed. When we produce enough in the world to provide over 2,500 calories a day, and yet six million children die each year from malnutrition we have to admit recognize that the problem is not scarcity but distribution.

Paul D'Amato's article for Socialist Worker is a great break down of the arguments of scarcity and overpopulation and shows that they are truly problems of imbalanced distribution. D'Amato explains, as the title argues, there is enough to go around.