I'm Dr. Orion Taban and this is Psychax

Better Living Through Psychology and the

topic of today's short talk is women

walking away. So, there's been some

chatter on the interwebs recently

indicating that women are increasingly

walking away from relationships with men

and these posts and articles generally

point to the fact that women regularly

report lower relationship satisfaction

than men do as the reason behind that

exodus. Of course, there are all kinds

of explanations for this perceived trend

in the data. Some believe that long-term

relationships fundamentally prioritize

men's desires over women's. Some point

to inequitable housework splits or poor

communication or uncompensated emotional

labor or grief related to unmet

emotional needs. Reading these

explanations, you might wonder if women

get anything out of relating to men.

They give so much, they get so little,

and all of their sacrifices are for the

benefit of the unfair sex.

And on the surface, this sounds pretty

convincing. Like, we don't want one

gender, whether it is men or women, to

be significantly and consistently less

satisfied with relationships than the

other. Like, that's going to create some

problems. Not least of which being that

fewer and fewer relationships will be

transacted, which is actually what we're

already seeing. So this is a serious

complaint.

But you know, I decided to look into

this a little bit more first. As a

clinician, it is sometimes essential to

get information from multiple sources.

For instance, in identifying ADHD in

children, a psychologist needs evidence

to confirm the diagnosis from two

independent sources like his parents at

home and his teachers at school. If the

child is only acting up at home, it

could be that the problem actually lies

with the home environment or the

parenting style and not with the child

him or herself. On the other hand, if

the same issue appears across multiple

contexts, we can be more confident in

diagnosing an individual problem. And

this of course is very important to do

with children as they cannot consent to

their own treatment and may end up being

medicated against their will as a result

of being inconvenient to a particular

adult.

So let's apply this logic to the problem

of women's dissatisfaction in

relationships.

It would certainly be damning if we

found evidence that women reported

significantly more satisfaction in other

domains of their lives.

So, what about work? If women are

unsatisfied in their relationships, then

maybe they find satisfaction in their

careers. And you know what? While the

literature isn't unanimous, it turns out

that women report lower job satisfaction

than men do. Well, that's interesting.

And of course, there are all kinds of

interpretations for that finding. The

gender pay gap, sexist management

policies, patriarchal organizational

structures, etc., etc.

Well, that sounds concerning. Are men

keeping women down at work just like

they're keeping women down at home?

Jeez, men get a hobby. But then I looked

into that. According to an article in

Labor Economics, forthrightly titled,

"Do women prefer female bosses?"

[snorts] Women report significantly

lower job satisfaction when working

under another woman compared to working

under a man. Men's reported job

satisfaction, on the other hand, was

unrelated to the gender of his

supervisor. So, there's that. And I've

already debunked the gender pay gap in

another episode, so check that out if

you need a refresher.

Okay. Well, yeah, that's just two

places, right? Maybe outside of their

jobs and outside of their relationships,

women are more content.

But it turns out that women have

significantly higher rates of anxiety

and depression relative to men. They're

also over twice as likely to be on a

psychiatric medication than men are. But

of course, there are explanations for

that as well. It's not that women

actually have higher rates of mental

illness than men do. Women are just

better at asking for help than men are.

They are more open with their feelings

than men are. They value

self-development more than men do, etc.,

etc. And of course, if that were

correct, it would indicate that men are

a wildly underserved population, and

this would merit a substantial

and immediate social action to help men

given they apparently receive a fraction

of the treatment for presumably

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In any case, this is just the pits.

Women are less satisfied in their

relationships. They're less satisfied at

work, and they're more discontented on

their own. Perhaps they'd be more

satisfied if they didn't have to deal

with men whatsoever, since men are so

often presumed to be the cause of their

discontent. in which case sexual

relationships that don't involve men

would presumably be the happiest and

most harmonious of all. Right?

Actually, uh it turns out that the

divorce rate among lesbians is even

higher than the divorce rate among

straits.

And it's already pretty high among

straits.

How men might be to blame for that one,

I'm not sure. But I imagine an

explanation exists somewhere. Perhaps

it's internalized homophobia as a result

of participating in a toxic misogynistic

culture. However, given the fact that

the divorce rate among gays is

significantly lower than the rate among

the other two groups, this might be a

tough cell.

You get the point. Let's return to the

original topic. We can now see how many

of the reports of women's lower

relationships satisfaction relative to

men are functionally misleading. It's

not that they're not true.

It's that they all kind of assume that

this increased discontentment

is a deviation from the norm. That it's

unique to this context to their

relationships with men. However, we've

seen evidence that this might not be the

case. We see lower satisfaction in women

in numerous different contexts relative

to men.

And this of course suggests another

possible explanation of the data. An

explanation that to my mind has the

advantage of parsimony as this one

explanation could account for all the

observed phenomena we've just discussed.

It could be wild speculation, but here

it is. It It just might be the case that

women

are more discontent

than men are.

I don't know. Possibly, maybe.

And if that crazy idea could possibly be

true, it

might not be

men's fault. Perhaps

it could be based on enduring

differences that exist between men and

women like oh god jeez I don't know men

significantly higher concentrations of

testosterone which has been well

documented to increase contentment and

emotional regulation

but

that would be nutty. Um but at least we

can't rule it out completely. So where

does that leave us? Maybe women do need

to walk away from their relationships in

order to determine whether it actually

makes their lives better. If it does,

wonderful. I'm not going to argue that

they come back. I'm concerned about

reducing unnecessary suffering wherever

it happens to appear.

But my hunch is that this is not what

will happen. And that a lot of the

dissatisfaction that women experience is

rooted in inappropriate expectations.

Women have been sold a bill of goods

about work and relationships. And when

they find that dating and jobs don't

live up to these expectations, they tend

to believe that there is something wrong

with that particular relationship or

with that particular company or with

that particular culture or that

particular worldview in which that

particular relationship or company are

operated

rather than with their unrealistic

expectations.

However, comparing reality to the ideal

of what could be is always

disappointing, regardless of whether the

person doing the comparing is a man or a

woman. And perhaps the difference then

comes from the fact that men aren't

inundated with propaganda about what

they deserve from the time they're

children.

Food for thought. What do you think?

Does this fit with your own experience?

Let me know in the comments below.

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