Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

THE BACKLASH MYTH 251ogist in charge of researching symptoms of community distress. What didthey think of the way the Harris poll had used their scale? She saidimmediately, "We wish they would not do this. They should know better."She explained that the survey instrument was never intended as ameasure of depression: if all twenty questions are asked and carefullyinterpreted, it can be helpful in measuring symptoms of distress in acommunity but not in diagnosing a medical illness. She added that insome of her other studies she had found a similar percentage of men andwomen showing signs of affective distress: women have more symptomsof depression; men, of antisocial behavior and alcoholism. 79In informal conversations with several psychiatrists, I quickly learnedthat they considered a 40 percent depression finding (not to speak of"severe depression") preposterous, because the responses to the six questionsthe Harris pollsters had selected from the CES's twenty did notshow depression. They showed only that some women (and men) hadfelt "blue" during the week in question. They were at a loss to understandhow Harris and Associates had come up with such a bizarre result.Faludi's Backlash appeared before Harris and Associates published theirfigures on women's depression, but she, too, found significantly higherrates of depression among women—married women, that is: 80"Marriedwomen have more nervous breakdowns, nervousness, heart palpitations,and inertia . . . insomnia, trembling hands, dizzy spells, nightmares, hypochondria,passivity, agoraphobia . . . wives have the lowest self-esteem,felt the least attractive, reported the most loneliness." 81 Her findingechoed feminist sociologist Jessie Bernard's 1972 warning that "marriagemay be hazardous to women's health." Yet in Psychiatric Disorders inAmerica, we read, "The strong protective effect of marriage against affectivedisorders is confirmed in much of the epidemiologic literature." 82Here are the findings of a major National Institute of Mental HealthStudy: 83MAJOR DEPRESSIONANNUAL RATE PER 100married (no divorce) 1.5never marrieddivorced oncedivorced twicecohabiting2.44.15.85.1In a 1989 review of the literature on marital happiness in PsychologicalBulletin, the authors conclude, "For both sexes the married state (vs.