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Entity reports on how being a feminist can affect women's happiness.

Are you happier now than you were, say, five years ago? If you are a woman, some studies show this is not the case.

According to Psych Central, a woman’s happiness decreases throughout her life while a man’s happiness steadily increases. Research shows that, on average, women are happier than men in early adulthood, while men are happier later in life. Around the age of 48, men’s overall happiness tends to exceed women’s.

Interestingly, the unhappiest time in a man’s life tends to be during his twenties, when he is also more likely to be single. Author of the study, Anke Plagnol from the University of Cambridge, explains that men tend to have higher financial aspirations than women and end up meeting those aspirations later in life. However, no explanation is given for why a woman’s happiness decreases over her lifetime.

This trend of increasing unhappiness during a woman’s life becomes even more interesting when combined with new research from “The Paradox of Declining Happiness.” Studies found that in the past 40 years, women have become not only less happy relative to men, but less happy in general. Women are more unhappy now than they were in the 1960s, despite all of the progress that has been made in women’s rights.

So what’s going on?

Some experts believe that with newfound freedom comes an overwhelming amount of choices. Women throughout most of human history didn’t have any choices at all; many of them were taught to simply aspire to marriage and motherhood. However, women now have choices around to marry or not; to have children or not; as well as pursuing a multitude of career paths.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz explains this phenomenon in his TED talk. According to him, women experience the “paradox” of never being “happy enough” because choices have “two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis, rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.”

For example, most women nowadays have joined the workforce. This alone could be a cause of decreasing happiness because, as Steven D. Levitt says on Freakonomics, “Women’s lives have become more like men’s over the last 35 years. Men have  historically been less happy than women. So it might not be surprising if the things in the workplace that always made men unhappy are now bedeviling women as well.”

Additionally, while many appreciate the opportunity to pursue a career, 84 percent of working women admit that their dream is to stay home with their children. Forbes shares, “A growing number of women see staying home to raise children (while a partner provides financial support) to be the ideal circumstances of motherhood.”

But while at-home parenting is ideal for many women, some stay-at-home moms don’t necessarily feel the same way.

On Today’s Parent, Jennifer Pinarski points out that a simple Google search for “being a SAHM sucks” pulls up more than 409,000 results. Pinarski then talks about her personal experience of being a stay-at-home mom and how she “resented other working moms and was jealous of the stay-at-home parents who seemed to find joy in all of the little things their kids were doing.”

Because of the series of choices laid out, women feel confined by their inability to make a decision.

Perhaps part of the reason for the unhappiness also lies in the fact that women are laboring over their independence. To further explain this, Angela Tantaros from New York Post writes, “You can’t achieve the Holy Grail of feminism – ‘having it all’ – if you are doing it all alone.”

Tantaros points out that while feminism has pushed the mentality that women can open their own doors, pay their own bills and stand up for themselves, it also sometimes convinces them that it’s considered “failing” if you ask people (especially men) for help. Because of this mentality that pushes women to be totally independent, women grow unhappier as they worry about being “better” than their predecessors or because they are scared to make the “wrong” choice.

Has feminism taken away your happiness? Tell us what you think. Comment below or tweet us @entity_mag to join the dialogue.

Edited by Angelica Pronto
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