Hill Cone is a columnist in the local fishwrap, and one who has suffered a fair bit — and like many post modern columnists, written about it, because the personal is political.
And she uses Addiction. I dislike this term: I prefer habits. Her point remains: do your habits isolate you or connect you with others?
“Addiction is a disease of loneliness”. The more I read the more I gravitate to Johann Hari’s model of addiction. That the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. ( Also, you can give up one substance – say, alcohol- but if you don’t resolve, process, accept the underlying hurt – you just replace one form of self-medication and escape with another: sex, food, infatuation, whatever)
For the habits we have are dysfunctional. They include over work: over ambition: and a foolish lack of prioritities. Bloomfield reminds us that the Dutch women are among the happiest in the world — for they have choices, and since they are not compelled to work they work not at all or part time, prefering the gym, the coffee with friends, the garden, and family.
And avoiding the fast food, the alcohol, and the weed: In Holland the coffee shops, with their haze of marijuana are for losers and Americans.
The United Nations spends a great deal of time boo-hooing the labor force participation rates of women, as if the fact that half of women don’t work at all isn’t indicative of some enormous privilege for a good chunk of those women. The UN might want to consider women in the Netherlands, where 90% of women work part time or not at all, and no, that isn’t because the Netherlands has no childcare or maternity leave. Even after women have school age children, they still prefer to go to yoga class, have coffee with friends, work in the garden and enjoy their lives. Dutch women are the happiest women in the world, and they are part of the 50% of women in the world who don’t work.
Darn that patriarchy! You know, when it comes to #HeForShe, it appears men have got that on lock. Half of the women in the world don’t work, and a significant number of the women who do work, do so because they choose to. All of which points to the fact that, for a great number of women, forgoing the need to earn a living in the market place is a realistic choice. And choice that will likely make them quite happy.
Patriarchy: making women happy for centuries!
You know, feminists, I think you might be doing this whole happiness thing wrong. Looks like we had it right all along. I expect to see the number of women who don’t work grow, as women reject the feminist narrative in favor of a world that maximizes their own happiness.
Your bad habits are not addictions. You will not have a fit if you stop abruptly, as you would with benzodiazepines and alcohol, or get a flu like illness, as you would with opiates, or have an anxiety attack, as you would with serotinergic antidepressants.
They are habits. And habits we can change.
So choose your habits wisely.
It strikes me that, apart from royalty and government leeches, all women work. the question is what portion of women receive a paycheck,no?
Not all women work: some are disabled.
Not all women who work are paid: Not all men who work are paid either.
And some of both groups do anti-work. The are rentiers, charging for access to their monopolies, or bureaucrats, demanding bribes, or, if regulated, fees.
Or they demand respect in adherence to their micromanagement: speech codes is a recent example.
If by work you mean put in an effort, I would agree. But if you mean produce things of value… then many employed women would do far less than the wife raising her child.