Women All Over The World Are Becoming Angrier According To Recent Data—Here's Why

The groundbreaking study underlines the fact that women constantly report feeling angry, unhappy, stressed, and worried more often than males. Despite the fact that women are living in one of the best periods in history, with more social rights and opportunities than ever before, this study is unquestionably shocking and highlights an important issue: There is something fundamentally wrong with our culture and society for women to feel this way.

Crunching the Numbers

The Gallup World poll has annually asked more than 120,000 respondents in more than 150 nations questions about their feelings for a large portion of the prior day. When women answered these questions, they routinely reported feeling negative emotions more than before, such as anger, despair, tension, and anxiety. The poll further stated that, even though both sexes have been gradually rising upward over the past 10 years, more women than men have reported experiencing these negative feelings. 

There were some nations where the difference was more pronounced, including Cambodia, where 17% more women than men reported feeling angry, as well as 12% more women in Pakistan and India.

The report highlights that the year 2012 had similar quantities of anger and stress expressed by both sexes, but women are far angrier now in 2022 by a startling six percentage points, showcasing a significant disparity between men and women when it comes to anger. Overall, the report emphasized an important point: Women today are less content and angrier – and this trend is widespread globally.

Why Could Women Be Feeling This Way?

The two fundamental questions are why are women feeling this way and what has caused this widespread problem to erupt on such a global scale?

Some commentators and experts have already weighed in on the subject. Arwa Mahdawi, a journalist and writer for The Guardian, claims that women are becoming more irate because they face particular difficulties like social inequalities, abuse, and the destruction of reproductive rights. She argues these issues are being experienced by women worldwide. 

Mahdawi emphasized recent international events, such as the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to the loss of abortion access, causing widespread uncertainty affecting women. She also highlighted the rising surge of violence against women – particularly, the murder of Sarah Everard, who was killed by a police officer while returning home from a friend's house in London, saying it was yet another trigger that made women feel unsafe and angry. Unquestionably significant and deserving of attention, these recent events may have disproportionately affected women in those nations. 

Women are far angrier now in 2022 than 10 years ago – by a startling six percentage points.

However, the rise in female rage over the past 10 years raises the possibility that there may be deeper causes. For example, Dr. Lakshmi Vijayakumar, a psychiatrist, gave her opinion that such tensions have grown as more women in certain countries have pursued higher education and become financially self-reliant by acquiring work outside the home, while still being responsible for the home. 

She spoke of her experience of witnessing this phenomenon in her home country of India: "You see the men relax, going to a tea shop, having a smoke. And you find the women hurrying to the bus or train station. They're thinking about what to cook. Many women start chopping vegetables on their way back home on the train."

Vijayakumar’s comments highlight an important issue: As more women shoulder the responsibility of working professionally and having the responsibility of performing household chores, it's possible that this is having a negative effect on their emotional health. 

Could Modern Day “Hustle Culture” Inspired by Feminism Be Failing Women?

This raises the next question: Could contemporary “hustle culture” inspired by modern-day feminism be failing women? The feminist emphasis on careerism, placing women into well-paying jobs which demand a lot of time and energy, while simultaneously attempting to change conventional ideas of family life, may be alienating or negatively affecting some women.

Could it be that as more and more women enter the workforce and take on demanding jobs, the home has become increasingly polarized, and the family has become more estranged, fueling this mental health crisis?

The most recent Gallup data findings support comparable findings from a 2020 poll conducted in England by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which indicated that mothers handled more household responsibilities during Covid-19 lockdown than fathers. To make things worse, women were forced to cut back on their paid job hours as a result of this. This tendency affected all mothers, regardless of whether they made more money than the males in the family. The study is important because it brings attention to the detrimental effects on women's psychological health due to pressures caused by work and family conflicts; in fact, the BBC analysis of the Gallup poll made mention of these findings.

Political equality between the sexes has been achieved, but is it at the expense of women’s psychological well-being and quality of life?

Considering the psychological differences between the sexes, women and men historically have played very different roles in society. In general, men are more assertive and self-assured. When it comes to anxiousness, trust, and particularly nurturing, women score higher than men do. In light of the fact that women express traits such as tenderness and nurture more than men, it’s particularly noteworthy that, for the majority of history and before the rise of modern feminism, women were in charge of taking care of the home, bearing children, and caring for their family – not being breadwinners.

However, as more women today enter the workforce while also simultaneously taking on domestic responsibilities like child care and home maintenance, the roles that historically have been assumed by women have drastically changed and diversified.

Even though it seems that political equality between the sexes has been achieved through the advent of modern-day feminism, with women living in the most advanced era in history, allowing them to pursue financial independence and freedom, it’s still possible that this comes at the expense of their psychological well-being and quality of life as a whole – which could possibly be one source of this increased “female rage” being experienced by women globally.

Closing Thoughts

It’s alarming to hear that women are experiencing such negative emotions on a global scale, and it’s still unknown what the true causes of this phenomenon are. One thing is certain, though: Women appear to be less content despite the fact that they are entering the workforce in greater numbers and have more financial freedom and opportunities than ever before.

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