Women more prone to depression than men: it’s NOT the fault of feminism

There are however many conservative columnists and pundits generally who’d like us all to believe that lie. Amanda at Pandagon debunks the following common claims (how many have you heard, and more importantly, at least partly believed?):

Assertion #1: Women need marriage more than men, and it’s their marriages, not their jobs, that help save them from depression.
Assertion #2: Women’s depression is the result of equality.
Assertion #3: Higher status in career and education makes it harder for women to get married.
Assertion #4: Climbing the education and career ladder makes women unhappy.

By this point, you probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that none of these assertions is supported by actual evidence. Amanda lays out the evidence that women who achieve independent financial &/or career security are actually both happier generally and more likely to be happily partnered than women who are enmeshed in financial & social dependence, and here is the conclusion:

According to the APA, men and women aren’t so different after all. We’re both huge risk factors for depression if we have crappy, underpaid, unappreciated work. We’re both more stable if we have some independently attained stability.

The big difference is that women are still less likely to obtain some independent financial/career stability, and there’s nothing either “natural” or feminist-caused about that gap.

More Feminism Friday posts: two from Melissa at Shakesville

I just left this link in comments to the previous post, but it deserves greater visibility.

Feminism 101: Calling Out Fellow Progressives for “Sexism Prevents Unity on the Left”

Melissa comprehensively debunks this pernicious silencing tactic.

Just one little part:

There are too many progressives who view social change like conservatives view economics: Make everything as splendid as possible for those at the top and the benefits will “trickle down” to everyone below.

Well, it’s bullshit when we’re talking about tax cuts, and it’s bullshit when we’re talking about equality and opportunity.

ADDIT: Melissa also wrote another great Feminism 101 post earlier this week (can you tell that I’m only just catching up with my feed-reader?):

Feminism 101: “Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About”

Of all the condescending, dismissive, and factually incorrect accusations used by concern trolls (or hostile trolls) to attempt to silence, shame, or in some other way discourage feminists from addressing sexism in all its manifestations, perhaps none is quite so stupid as the charge that feminists are “looking” for things about which to be offended—as if feminism is a product that will go out of production if there aren’t enough buyers and sales are waning because sexism is, like, so over, dude.

Two from Melissa as well as two from Jill. We’re very spoilt for Feminism Friday style posts this week. Read any other great posts that display the Feminism Friday sensibility recently?

Centenary week: Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir was born on the 9th of January, 1908.

Toril Moi writes in The Guardian that all of us should read her masterpiece, The Second Sex (of which Random House has recently announced a new English translation to be published in the next few years, finally acknowledging long-standing criticisms of the only English translation thus far, by one HM Parshley, which excises approximately 15 percent of the original French text for a start).

Moi writes:

Beauvoir’s analysis of sexism is perhaps her most powerful theoretical contribution to feminism. In a sexist society, she argues, man is the universal and woman is the particular; he is the One, she is the Other. Women therefore regularly find themselves placed in a position where they are faced with the “choice” between being imprisoned in their femininity and being obliged to masquerade as an abstract genderless subject.

FAQ: I’ve got nothing against equal rights for women, but we’ve got that, so isn’t feminism nowadays just going too far ?

Updated: 2010-07-06

aka “Why do we still need feminism?” (see “Does feminism matter?“)

Simple, basic legal equality regarding the right to own property, sign contracts or vote does not always translate into social equality in work, the community or the home. Feminists who point out residual cultural traditions and reactionary business practises that disproportionately disadvantage women are not making it up (see FAQs on Patriarchy, Gender Gap and Objectification).

This FAQ is mostly clarifying-concepts rather than introductory. If you haven’t read any of the basic level FAQ posts (See FAQ roundup here) then I suggest you start with some of those before reading these posts.