By Ellen Goodman

The Boston Globe

October 30, 2009

NOT LONG, ago a group of writers decided to publish a book of essays we called “Feminism Made Me Happy.”  It was an-in-your face title, a deliberate attempt to counter the narrative we all knew by heart.  The one that kept describing how the women’s movement had left us stressed out, discontented, wrenched from home, hearth, and motherhood to struggle and fail at doing it all.

Life and writers being what they are, we never did the book, but we have had some terrific lunches.  Now we are due for another one, because we are in the midst of another dust up over research published under the (too) provocative headline: “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.”

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, partners in marriage and research, dove into the date and came up with numbers suggesting a decline in women’s happiness or, to be more precise, in their “self-reported subjective well-being.”  In 1972, Women were four points more likely than men to describe themselves as “very happy.”  Today they are one point less likely than men to check that box.

This is hardly proof of a mass depression, but the story fueled the predictable debates on websites and talk shows.  The controversy pitted those who blame declining happiness on too much change against those who blame it on too little change.  And those, of course, who just blame the messengers.

Stevenson and Wolfers should have known they were walking into this propeller when they linked the women’s movement and happiness together.  The paradox, as this pair framed it, was that despite all the improvement in women’s lives during the last 35 years, despite barriers that went down and opportunities that went up, women weren’t “self-reporting” greater happiness.

Our lunch group could have warned the researches against one sentence that truly raised hackles, “As women’s expectations move into alignment with their experiences,” they speculate, “this decline in happiness may reverse.”  Oh, goodie, lower your expectations and get happy, gals?

In fairness, the researchers didn’t pin the decline in happiness – oops “self-reported subjective well-being” – on any specific ideology or social change.  It affected married and single, parents and non-parents, working and stay-at-home mothers alike.

Indeed, Stevenson a new mom, say she was surprised by the paradox.  “I look aback and think, ‘Oh my God, I have to be happier than my mother.  I have so many more choices,’ she said.  She and her husband pulled many strings to unravel the happiness conundrum.  Have we doubled the areas in which women are expected to perform brilliantly?  Are women now given more permission to express rather than repress unhappiness?  Women aren’t nostalgic for the old days.  If anyone is, just watch a few episodes of “Mad Men” as an antidote, with its suffocated mad wife Betty Draper and its slapped-down Working Woman Peggy Olsen.  If you prefer nonfiction, leaf through the early chapters of Gail Collin’s history of “When Everything Changed” to those magical yesteryears when a flight attendant was weighed, measured, and hired to be a flying geisha.

Going forward to the past won’t bring a grin to our lips – excuse me, a self-reported sense of well-being to our database.  Happiness is a pretty elusive state and an even more elusive research subject.  We are, as they say, happy as our least happy child and insecure as our retirement fund.  As for linking happiness and social history, today’s flight attendant isn’t going to wake up every morning and assess her own well-being in comparison to her 1970s predecessor any more than I wake up grateful not to walk 4 miles in the snow to school.  It doesn’t work that way.   

Feminism made me happy?  Not, I assure you, in a permanent state of good cheer.  It opened doors.  It opened our eyes – to everything including what still needs to be done.  The women’s movement never promised us a rose garden or a warm bath of contentment.  It offered a new way to understand the world, a lens on injustice and a tool to use in the pursuit of happiness.  It’s a work in progress.

That’s happiness?  Close enough.  

The California Desert Coalition will be holding a benefit dinner and silent auction at the historic Pappy and Harriet's Palace in Pioneertown. The event will be on June 13, 2009, from 4:00 to 8:00 P.M. It will offer those attending an opportunity to hear about the latest progress being made to stop the proposed 500 kV power corridor planned by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power,(LADWP). This corridor would stretch from the Salton Sea to Los Angeles, passing over the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, Oak Glen, and other areas of "Critical Environmental Concern".

The plan of the LADWP is to tap into the thermal energy which lies under the Salton Sea. This is in spite of recent earthquakes generated by the fault which lies under the Salton Sea, and the proximity of the Salton Sea to the infamous San Andreas Fault.

California Senator Dianne Feinstein has announced her intention to introduce legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of the Mojave Desert by establishing a new national monument. A petition is being circulated urging Senator Feinstein to include the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve as the preserve serves as a refuge for more than 240 species of migrating and breeding birds, as well as providing a critical wildlife corridor.

Following is a link to the petition:

http://www.cadesertco.org/form_letters.html

Information from: California Desert Coalition

And the issue is……TAXES.

A month ago, a $200 item would have cost you $215.50 at the check-out stand. Today, that same item will cost $217.50. Certainly, two dollars doesn’t sound like much……..until you consider how many taxable items you buy each month.

California is faced with a major budget crisis, as you all know. Sacramento has responded with several initiatives in an attempt to correct the situation. You’ll be asked to decide on these in May at a special election (we will not discuss here the cost of said election, the printing of the ballots in several languages, the booklet, etc.). Before doing so, recall the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin, “in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes”.

There are two things one should contemplate when reading economic initiatives. One, beware of the use of the word “temporary”. It’s particularly jarring to read an initiative which proposes to “extend the temporary tax increases”. Another way to read that is “we promise that we’ll relieve you of this taxation……but we won’t promise you when”. “Temporarily re-directs” is also a red flag because there’s no assurance the funds will EVER be returned to the originally-designated item . Is there a possibility that they’ll be permanently “re-directed” thus necessitating a NEW tax to cover that resulting shortfall?

The second alarm bell sounds when the government asks you to approve “borrowing against future profits”. Spending money we don’t have in hand is precisely how we got into the fiscal mess. In this case, Initiative 1C focuses on lottery income. This will be “borrowing” from the educational system, already hard-pressed. “Re-paid”? When? In fact, wouldn’t it be interesting to see the actual figures of how many lottery dollars have actually trickled down to each of our local schools?

It is also worthwhile mentioning that, once an idea for a proposition is generated, oftentimes it is someone in the public relations game who’s hired to write the descriptive paragraph. This is an effort to convince the voters of the “rightness” of the proposition in the shortest possible space. Therefore, be very wary of words like “could, would or should, probably, possibly, potentially, may be, might be, etc”. They are used to obfuscate. Look for words which actually MEAN something, words which can be used to hold the legislators to task.

If you would like to read specific arguments for and against these six initiatives, there are several other sites including that of the the state (www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov ), California Teachers Association (www.cta.org) and the League of Women Voters (www.lwvc.org) .

In addition, Democratic Women of the Desert have outlined their position on these propositions.  Scroll down to view.

May 19^th Ballot Propositions

Actions recommended:

Information Provided by The Fiscal Report

volume 29, No.6 – March 20, 2009

Copyright 2009, School Services of California

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, (LADWP) is trying to drive a path directly through the California Desert. This path is a 500-Killowatt transmission line project along a new energy corridor. The proposed path would begin at the Salten Sea, traverse across the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, cut through the Pioneer Mountains Preserve, continue north over the town of Oak Glen, devastating important biological habitat and pristine wilderness and the communities in its path.

Opposition to the Green Path has been mounted by the Morongo Basin, both San Bernardino and Riverside County Boards of Supervisors, The Coachella Valley Association of Governments and cities and communities along the proposed route. The town of Oak Glen and the California Desert Coalition have both paid for billboards on Interstate 10 which protest the Green Path.

The California Desert Coalition continues to call for LADWP to work with southern California Edison to utilize the existing 1-10 energy corridor, and to eliminate their plans to run a new energy corridor through the high desert.

Opposition to the proposed path should be sent to the LADWP, and to U.S. Representative Jerry Lewis.

Source: California Desert Coalition web site.

The Los Angeles Water and Power has proposed building a “Green Path” to carry thermal energy from under the Salten Sea to Los Angeles. The proposed Green Path North would carry the energy through the Coachella Valley, through wilderness preserves in the Morongo Basin, over the town of Oak Glen, north to Los Angeles. The Salten Sea has recently experienced a 4+ earthquake which was followed by numerous after shocks. Given the close proximity of the San Andreas Fault, as well as the fault activity under the Salten Sea, the question must be raised, “How safe would the proposed Green Path North be? And, “Do we want to risk our communities to supply Los Angeles with power?”

Source: The Desert Sun, the Hi Desert Star