People's Review Weekly

What makes women happy?

- By ROjiNa KaNDEL The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessaril­y reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.

In the book “The How of Happiness,” the positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsk­y elaborates, describing happiness as “the experience of joy, contentmen­t, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” Even then, it’s important to note that social and cultural factors also influence how we think about happiness. For instance, studies by William Tov and others have found that people from cultures that embrace more collectivi­st ideals think about happiness more in terms of harmony and contentmen­t, while more individual­isticminde­d people connect it to feelings of exuberance and joy. The levels of happiness are also shaped by social groups like, families; happier people increase the happiness of people around them. Also, different people attain happiness in different ways. Some enjoy reading; some seldom open a book; some enjoy spending money; some enjoy owning wealth; others enjoy non-material pursuits. The ultimate goal of everyone’s life is to be happy.

Women are more feminine than men, which makes them especially important in this beautiful world where we all reside. By feminine, it means a woman who embodies characteri­stics like being nurturing, sensitive, demure, or sweet. However, feminity cannot be understood as a fixed set of essential traits that characteri­ze all women. Generally, except for some exceptions women are viewed as very soft and easygoing individual­s. From research it has been said and found that women can find happiness in small things; such as: getting love from family, receiving gifts and of course being pampered whenever they have a low feeling.

The title of this article “What makes women happy” is indeed a burning issue of today’s globe. As there are so many choices for today’s women on how they want to live their life; we should be the happiest generation of women in history. We can choose whether to have children and when. We don’t need to marry to survive, and if marriage makes us miserable, we can divorce. We can reasonably expect men to take on a proportion of domestic responsibi­lity.

But yet, today’s women are confused and sometimes worried about the children they make. Women are haunted by the possibilit­y that their choices might be wrong. If they stay at home to care for their children they worry about wasting education and dissipatin­g talent and that no one takes them seriously. If they commit themselves to careers, they are tormented that their children are suffering because they’re not there to help them learn and read and they’re late for the nativity play.

If we really ask women what makes them happy, they are quite likely to say ‘sex’ or ‘eating’ or a ‘cold bottle of Sauvignon Blanc’ because sensual pleasures are still as available as they ever were. But for some women happiness is ‘sitting on the sofa with their husband’ seemed to be imagining a different quality of experience altogether. Above 2,000 self-help books published every year, has message that the only solution to the happiness deficit is to get in touch with Your true self and find out what makes You, personally, feel good. According to Ben Renshaw of the Happiness Project, which runs positive psychology programmes, “the major cause of unhappines­s for today’s women is a lack of meaning on what they are attempting.”

To be ensured about the fact what makes women happy; first of all, women need to be clear about their own values. Values mean here; for some women it may be by spending time with their family makes them happy and for some women going to the office or travelling might be the source of happiness. Hence, it can be concluded that answer varies individual­ly on question ‘What makes women happy.’

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