On the issues of beauty and happiness

I'm like everyone else--I get happy, I get sad, I have goals and I have fears. And, like everyone else I've given a lot of thought to what makes me happy, if I'm happy, and just what the hell happiness is to begin with. Like I said, I think I'm like all of us in that regard, but there's an entire half of the population that, when we get down to the gritty details of these things, I cannot understand as well as I would like: that being the female half, of course. In fact, if you ask certain women they're liable to tell you that I don't know jack-snappy about women and probably never will. Well, okay, whatever.

I do try to empathize when I can, and I try to be observant of the people around me, including women. Especially women because I happen not to be a woman. Despite my efforts I was surprised when I read a Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times regarding the current levels of happiness in women and how they've been declining since the "feminist revolution."

The column, called "Blue is the new Black," discusses how despite the fact women have successfully broken down gender barriers and expanded their opportunities in the workplace and in their lives, women around the world are more depressed regardless of race, socioeconomic status and career--the one exception being black women in America, who Dowd says is still not as happy as black men.

The column goes on to talk about why that may be--along with expanded opportunities and choices comes greater responsibility and stress, and mentions that men are in fact happier than they were thirty years ago.

I'm still pondering all this right now, and it leaves me shaking my head. I kind of want to ask some of my female friends if they feel this, or have heard of this, and what they might think. If this is true, and according to Dowd, six major studies say it is, is it because of the America's (and now the world's?) obsession with youth and beauty? Are women, as time goes on, set to face a grimmer and more stressful reality?

If this is the case, I can't help but feel that something will ultimately give. Society loves beauty now-advertising and common notions revolve around it, and that sentiment will never truly disappear, but someday women will be completely fed up with these double standards currently in place. As they did in the '70s and '80s, they will effect change to where society's main focus will truly be merit and achievement, not something as specious and shortlived and, in the long run, as meaningless as exterior appearance. I only hope I'm around to see it....