Seems it’s men who are more miserable when they’re not in a relationship.
Are you still reeling from the elevation to US vice president-elect of a man who complained in 2021 that his country was being run by a cabal of shady characters including “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”?
*Breathe*. We are.
That women must be miserable and unfulfilled if they don’t have children is an age-old sledge, like the one that says single women must be bitter and twisted and desperate to trap a man, while single men should avoid commitment for as long as they can get away with it.
Only here comes a study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, which finds that relationship status satisfaction, life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and desire for a partner are significantly higher, higher, higher and lower respectively in single women than in single men.
Titled “‘Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves’: Gender Differences in Singles’ Well-Being” – a quote that seems to hint at one way of coping without a fixed sexual partner – the study surveyed nearly 6000 participants on these four measures and compared the males’ and females’ answers.
The strongest effect was for relationship status satisfaction, followed by desire for a partner.
“Overall, single women appear to be higher in their overall well-being compared to men,” the authors write. “At a broader level, our findings appear to run counter to existing stereotypes regarding women as the uniquely unhappy gender in singlehood.”
They note that their results are in line with research from all over the world finding that women generally have higher life satisfaction than men, and suggest that single women are simply no exception to this trend.
But how could the culture have it so wrong?
“According to theoretical perspectives on heteronormativity, inequities within heterosexual relationships, including inequitable divisions of household labour and the deprioritisation of women’s sexual pleasure, lead to more rewards for men and more costs for women in committed heterosexual partnerships,” the authors say.
“Add to this that one traditional advantage for women in partnering with men – income – is dissipating as societies trend toward increasing pay equity, and it appears possible that men’s lower relationship status satisfaction when single may be an accurate recognition that they have more to gain from partnering than do single women.”
You’ve probably read about the 4B protest movement swelling in South Korea, in which heterosexual women are saying no to sex, dating, marriage and children with men.
Whether this sort of sanction will have the effect of improving conditions for women or merely driving men further into the manosphere, where repulsive twerps can go viral for proclaiming the end of women’s right to reject them, well, we’ll see.
For now, single ladies, try to relax and ignore the noise. You’re fine. Maybe even stretch out on this Vance model couch – you deserve it.
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