Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Monday Mini: Women and Happiness, Part 4
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephanie
- 0:07Speaker 1: never told you production. I heart radio and welcome back.
- 0:19Speaker 1: And I guess we're doing a small mini Monday mini
- 0:21Speaker 1: series series. Yeah, there we go. Like that did not
- 0:26Speaker 1: make sense in my head because it kind of brought
- 0:29Speaker 1: back some conversations when we had the original. We were
- 0:33Speaker 1: a little sarcastic in the first episode about what was happy,
- 0:36Speaker 1: and then we talked a little more about what was
- 0:37Speaker 1: actually being said it's being happy or unhappy. We did
- 0:40Speaker 1: talk about people who are unhappy in this In the
- 0:42Speaker 1: third part, if you just listen, we talked about couples
- 0:45Speaker 1: and who are the happiest couples and just talking about
- 0:48Speaker 1: what some of those characteristics look like. And before we start,
- 0:51Speaker 1: I do need to know when's the last place you
- 0:54Speaker 1: went when we were traveling. It was Canada. It was Canada. Yeah,
- 1:01Speaker 1: because I was in Florida at the same time and
- 1:04Speaker 1: everything was slowly shutting down up. Yeah, I thought I
- 1:08Speaker 1: might not be able to get out of Canada. Oh
- 1:10Speaker 1: that was Oh yeah, you were like, I might be stucky.
- 1:17Speaker 1: I forgot about about it now I was. I mean,
- 1:21Speaker 1: after places to be stuck was not bad because you
- 1:24Speaker 1: were in Quebec. No, I was in uh oh my god,
- 1:29Speaker 1: what did I say? I was in Montreal. I was
- 1:30Speaker 1: in Montreal. I was very jealous because I wanted to
- 1:33Speaker 1: come and I didn't get it invite. But it's okay,
- 1:35Speaker 1: it's it's okay, it's okay. I got to hang out
- 1:37Speaker 1: with some of my cool People's ease Anna Holly, so
- 1:41Speaker 1: you know, at least I got to do that. The
- 1:43Speaker 1: reason I wanted to ask because I don't know if
- 1:46Speaker 1: it's anybody else. Everybody started to slowly travel. I've seen it,
- 1:49Speaker 1: and I've been very jealous of that, but I'm still
- 1:53Speaker 1: kind of weary, especially not all the mass mandates are gone,
- 1:56Speaker 1: and I'm like, hmm, yeah, I don't I'm gonna still wait.
- 2:00Speaker 1: But people are traveling. And it happened to be a
- 2:03Speaker 1: conversation that when we talk about happiness, what are some
- 2:07Speaker 1: of the happiest places? Because I was just like women
- 2:09Speaker 1: in happiness. That's how I started googling it, and then
- 2:11Speaker 1: it showed happiest cities, happiest countries, happiest places for women.
- 2:15Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well now we got to talk
- 2:16Speaker 1: about that obviously. Yeah, and so we have a few
- 2:20Speaker 1: articles and we're not going to read them, but we
- 2:22Speaker 1: will let you know which articles that talk about the
- 2:24Speaker 1: happiest countries in the world. All right, yes, so we
- 2:28Speaker 1: wanted to start with this article from afar dot com
- 2:33Speaker 1: and the World Happiness Report, and so we're just gonna
- 2:38Speaker 1: read off the top twenty happiest countries in the world
- 2:41Speaker 1: according to this report. Number one Finland, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel,
- 2:52Speaker 1: New Zealand, Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Czechia, Belgium, France.
- 3:00Speaker 1: France faces twenty. That's surprising. Wait, at least not on
- 3:03Speaker 1: the list at all. There's there's some surprises here, some surprises.
- 3:08Speaker 1: So I will say I have only been to two.
- 3:12Speaker 1: The United States is on there. We've got some some questions,
- 3:20Speaker 1: have questions. I have a lot of questions. We thought
- 3:23Speaker 1: this was interesting because this is non gender based. It
- 3:25Speaker 1: just says happiest countries in the world. So essentially they
- 3:28Speaker 1: asked people on a scale of zero to ten, with
- 3:32Speaker 1: the best being the best possible lie for them and
- 3:34Speaker 1: zero being the worst possible um and trying to rank
- 3:37Speaker 1: where people would put themselves, so obviously that means this
- 3:41Speaker 1: is gonna be very very, very very very biased, which
- 3:45Speaker 1: is why I'm very surprised at the United States it's
- 3:48Speaker 1: on this list for two Don't get me wrong, I'm
- 3:51Speaker 1: grateful for where I am. I feel very thankful and
- 3:54Speaker 1: privileged to be at this place that I am. Being
- 3:57Speaker 1: able to be on a podcast and talk about why
- 3:59Speaker 1: are we on this list is a privilege in itself.
- 4:02Speaker 1: But we know things are happening to the point that
- 4:04Speaker 1: many people outside of the country are like, are you
- 4:06Speaker 1: all okay? Yeah, they asked me that when I was
- 4:09Speaker 1: in Canada. In fact, everything all right? Are you good? Good?
- 4:17Speaker 1: There was one country that did score the lowest at
- 4:20Speaker 1: I guess the way they ranged it was two point
- 4:22Speaker 1: four oh four and then Finland was the top at
- 4:26Speaker 1: seven point eight to one out of ten. So that's
- 4:29Speaker 1: a lot of of I really need to know, and
- 4:33Speaker 1: it does. It's a gallop world pole that they used,
- 4:35Speaker 1: so I really I guess we could go look at it,
- 4:37Speaker 1: break down the numbers and who they asked, But I
- 4:40Speaker 1: have questions. I don't doubt that Finland is on that list.
- 4:44Speaker 1: I don't doubt that Canada has been on that list.
- 4:46Speaker 1: They've been through some things, Ireland has been doing some
- 4:48Speaker 1: big changes. I really want to go. This is the
- 4:51Speaker 1: next adventure I want to have outside of China. Get
- 4:53Speaker 1: an r V. I really want RV. UM went to
- 4:56Speaker 1: look at one this weekend too. It was NA, yeah,
- 4:59Speaker 1: it was because I hope this thing happening there our neighborhood.
- 5:02Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, well you have airstream, you
- 5:04Speaker 1: have you have our realised let me go look. I digress.
- 5:08Speaker 1: But yeah, so, yeah, I'm surprised Italy is not on here.
- 5:12Speaker 1: Maybe Italians are a lot more honest than the rest
- 5:14Speaker 1: of us. Well, I know, like obviously we don't have
- 5:19Speaker 1: the numbers in front of us, but there have been correlations.
- 5:22Speaker 1: Are not correlations, but they're people have looked at like
- 5:25Speaker 1: these kinds of numbers and then put them side by
- 5:27Speaker 1: side with something like um, gender equality or even parody
- 5:31Speaker 1: and government to see how that might um, the linquages
- 5:35Speaker 1: that might be there, the linkuage that might be there, um.
- 5:38Speaker 1: And we talked about that a little bit in our
- 5:40Speaker 1: part two of this Happy Many Monday mini series. UM. So,
- 5:49Speaker 1: I know there's just so many factors that go into
- 5:52Speaker 1: to happiness for sure, and especially this being I what
- 5:57Speaker 1: a year to ask, I mean, I guess you could
- 5:58Speaker 1: say that about pretty much any year. The last three
- 6:03Speaker 1: years is pretty much all those. Uh yeah. So these
- 6:05Speaker 1: are based entirely on self perceptions, so that says a
- 6:08Speaker 1: lot um And if they said they bring in factors
- 6:11Speaker 1: like UM, strong social support systems among friends and family life,
- 6:16Speaker 1: expectancy frame to make choices, absence of corruption and government
- 6:22Speaker 1: um and generosity when it comes to donating to charity.
- 6:25Speaker 1: So interesting report for sure, but you know, we had
- 6:29Speaker 1: to take it another step and talk about what are
- 6:31Speaker 1: the best countries for women not just people women? UM
- 6:37Speaker 1: So we have a top ten list from U s
- 6:40Speaker 1: News dot com and essentially they're not the US. UM.
- 6:52Speaker 1: This is one list, so so it is a year behind.
- 6:55Speaker 1: I do need to try to see if we can
- 6:56Speaker 1: find it at number five. We're going backwards on this one.
- 6:59Speaker 1: It's like bill up as Netherlands, which apparently right thirty
- 7:03Speaker 1: one out of a hundred fifty six countries in the
- 7:05Speaker 1: Global Gender Gap Report in one UM so apparently I
- 7:09Speaker 1: think I've never been. Have you wanted to go to
- 7:12Speaker 1: the Netherlands? I've never been I've been to the Netherlands.
- 7:15Speaker 1: Your thoughts Did you feel like it was a great
- 7:17Speaker 1: country for women? I feel like I should put a
- 7:21Speaker 1: caveat here. I worked for the European Union for a
- 7:26Speaker 1: time for like eight months, and through that I've been
- 7:29Speaker 1: to pretty much every country in uh Europe. Every country
- 7:33Speaker 1: is part of the European Union as well, UM, which
- 7:35Speaker 1: I guess obviously yeah, yeah, but I a lot of
- 7:39Speaker 1: times I've spent like I don't know, two or three
- 7:40Speaker 1: days at a time in a place. So it was
- 7:42Speaker 1: sort of I was there and I liked it, but
- 7:45Speaker 1: I didn't get any sense of like, wow, this great
- 7:49Speaker 1: for women, but it was nice. Yeah, Apparently some of
- 7:56Speaker 1: the things that are great for women includes uh, maternity leave,
- 8:00Speaker 1: great place for new mothers. Um. They're completely covered by entrance,
- 8:04Speaker 1: so that's nice to see. We know that they're a
- 8:09Speaker 1: little more socialist, a lot more socialist uh than the
- 8:13Speaker 1: US and a lot of other countries and offer a
- 8:15Speaker 1: lot more, especially when it comes to universal health care.
- 8:17Speaker 1: So I feel like that's going to be why tops
- 8:19Speaker 1: a lot of it off. But maybe that's just me
- 8:22Speaker 1: reading into things at where we don't have that number
- 8:26Speaker 1: four Canada, which you were just that. So did you
- 8:30Speaker 1: feel like, once again I thought, you're going to be
- 8:32Speaker 1: the expert. Now this was a great country for women.
- 8:35Speaker 1: Really have no space to be the expert. Really, as
- 8:39Speaker 1: you've been there, and I have not swear said, okay,
- 8:45Speaker 1: I was there for a very specific conference. I happen
- 8:48Speaker 1: to Canada multiple times, but this last time I was
- 8:50Speaker 1: there her very specific conference and it was a puppetree
- 8:53Speaker 1: festival and it was lovely. Uh. And again I had
- 8:57Speaker 1: a wonderful time and I felt like in the specific
- 9:01Speaker 1: venues and events I went to, it was very Uh.
- 9:06Speaker 1: I don't know, fifty fifty or maybe a little more
- 9:08Speaker 1: women than been So that was I don't know what
- 9:10Speaker 1: that really means. But so I have also been in Canada.
- 9:14Speaker 1: I do have friends who lives in Canada, and I
- 9:16Speaker 1: have gone to see her and really loved like hanging
- 9:19Speaker 1: out with her. We it was in Ontario. I think
- 9:21Speaker 1: she's about to move to like Halifax, and I'm like, yeah,
- 9:23Speaker 1: I gotta go seek and being Gables home place obviously
- 9:27Speaker 1: Prince Edward Island, I have to go to there, but yeah,
- 9:30Speaker 1: I don't know. Obviously I wouldn't know this either because
- 9:33Speaker 1: we didn't live in in that area and get the
- 9:37Speaker 1: benefits of the gender gap being fairly close, as well
- 9:41Speaker 1: as healthcare and all of that. But it seems nice.
- 9:44Speaker 1: I would love that. Yeah. I feel like that is
- 9:47Speaker 1: the problem we're going to run into with this, Samantha,
- 9:50Speaker 1: is that we don't live in these places right right,
- 9:52Speaker 1: So from thes please tell us about it, and you
- 9:57Speaker 1: love it or don't like it or feel like it
- 9:59Speaker 1: is so good, lets us to move there please. It
- 10:02Speaker 1: doesn't talk much. Honestly, I won't take us. It won't
- 10:04Speaker 1: take much. I will go. I won't go through their
- 10:20Speaker 1: Number three was Norway, uh and I think ranked three
- 10:24Speaker 1: out of a hundred and fifty six countries. Like days.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Number three, Uh, it says generous maternally leave mothers can
- 10:31Speaker 1: take thirty five weeks at full pay or forty five
- 10:34Speaker 1: weeks pay according to the World Economics Forum. So they
- 10:38Speaker 1: have a really big appreciation for understanding that being a
- 10:43Speaker 1: mother and giving birth is taxing and deserves to be paid. Yep,
- 10:48Speaker 1: that would be nice to see. Number two is Denmark.
- 10:52Speaker 1: I want to go. I want to go to the Denmarks. Uh.
- 10:55Speaker 1: It moved down. It was apparently number one at one point,
- 11:00Speaker 1: but now it's at number two. The government promotes a
- 11:03Speaker 1: gender quality by offering an earnings related daycare system and
- 11:07Speaker 1: a parental leaf policy that is probably one of the
- 11:10Speaker 1: most flexible in the EU. So that's good to know. Again,
- 11:13Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said about women feeling like, oh,
- 11:17Speaker 1: I'm gonna be taking care of for these inconvenience. It's
- 11:22Speaker 1: not that being pregnant is an inconvenience, but it can be.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Let's be honest, it's not it's not a beautiful it's
- 11:28Speaker 1: not always you know, it's not glowy happy times for
- 11:32Speaker 1: most women. It's hard. It is very hard. It's hard. Uh.
- 11:37Speaker 1: And then number one Sweden moved up one position, so
- 11:42Speaker 1: they they out did Denmark. I want to see I
- 11:48Speaker 1: want to see Sweden and did Mark? Well, just fight.
- 11:50Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, don't just kidding, just kidding, it's just kidding.
- 11:54Speaker 1: But this is report will be interesting. It was the
- 11:58Speaker 1: most progressive attitudes towards gender equality, which was according to
- 12:02Speaker 1: a report released by you gov, a UK based market
- 12:05Speaker 1: research firm. So yeah, apparently a lot of the Nordic
- 12:08Speaker 1: countries really topped this list, and I think that says
- 12:11Speaker 1: a lot. How cold is Sweden though, that's pretty cold.
- 12:15Speaker 1: I had a friendly look for a couple of years. See,
- 12:17Speaker 1: I would like it, but it's too cold. Yeah, it's true.
- 12:21Speaker 1: I find that really interesting. I did find this was
- 12:23Speaker 1: like at least ten years ago, so please don't quote
- 12:25Speaker 1: me on this, but I did find a really interesting
- 12:27Speaker 1: article once. I was talking about possible link between fashion
- 12:32Speaker 1: and happiness for women and in colder countries, like you're
- 12:36Speaker 1: covered up in your body might not be as objectified. Um,
- 12:40Speaker 1: not to say that you can't be objectified in anything,
- 12:44Speaker 1: but that was just an interesting I never really thought
- 12:47Speaker 1: about that before, right, yeah, way back in my brain.
- 12:52Speaker 1: So yeah, now it's in my brain too. Uh. So
- 12:56Speaker 1: they have more of the rankings in here if you
- 12:59Speaker 1: want to go and look at it. And yes, uh
- 13:02Speaker 1: New Zealand does make it in the top ten and
- 13:05Speaker 1: c because I would have thought Switzerland would have been higher,
- 13:07Speaker 1: but they are like the number seven. So yeah, they
- 13:09Speaker 1: have definitely a lot of rankings. Uh. And if you
- 13:12Speaker 1: want to keep looking at this list if you're wondering,
- 13:15Speaker 1: Ireland's at thirteen, Italy is at sixteen on this list,
- 13:21Speaker 1: and the United States is at eighteen. I have more questions,
- 13:27Speaker 1: but moving on because we are in the US, and
- 13:30Speaker 1: we were kind of interested. We did want to look
- 13:32Speaker 1: at to see the happiest cities in the US. And
- 13:37Speaker 1: I think I told you, and he was like, fourteen
- 13:39Speaker 1: out of twenty five was California based, right if you.
- 13:43Speaker 1: So we're looking at this list from Mental Flaws, which
- 13:46Speaker 1: was released March two, so just recently. They took uh
- 13:53Speaker 1: data from finance sites from the US Census Bureau, the
- 13:56Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics uh C, d C IT uh so,
- 14:00Speaker 1: several different organizations. They took it out and did this
- 14:03Speaker 1: whole metric system based on that, and yeah, California was
- 14:06Speaker 1: at the top, including the number one city being Fremont, California.
- 14:10Speaker 1: But I don't see many like southern states on here.
- 14:14Speaker 1: I see Texas technically not southern, but kind of southern.
- 14:17Speaker 1: I guess it's southern, but it's definitely towards West Arizona
- 14:22Speaker 1: I guess would be a part of that list as well.
- 14:24Speaker 1: But those are the only two that I see. Definitely
- 14:26Speaker 1: nothing from the southeast, which is where we're from in Atlanta.
- 14:29Speaker 1: I'm not very surprised by that any on here. So
- 14:33Speaker 1: it's all this list, like I said, that's fourteen that's California.
- 14:35Speaker 1: There's one from Wisconsin, a couple from South Dakota and
- 14:38Speaker 1: North Dakota. I was like, okay, there's one from Texas. Plano,
- 14:42Speaker 1: Texas was at twenty two, which was a surprise. Scottsdale, Arizona,
- 14:47Speaker 1: no shade of Scottsdale, but Arizona was like, huh, there's
- 14:49Speaker 1: a lot of uppets and down so it's interesting to see.
- 14:52Speaker 1: And then Madison, Wisconsin, I can see that. And Seattle, Washington,
- 14:58Speaker 1: Oregon is not on here. That's surprising. Yeah, I mean
- 15:02Speaker 1: that's one thing we haven't talked about. But there's definitely
- 15:04Speaker 1: intersections of like race involved in all of this, and
- 15:07Speaker 1: just so many, so many, so many factors, especially like
- 15:10Speaker 1: any kind of self reported thing that happiness is pretty
- 15:14Speaker 1: hard to quantify a lot of times, right, Yeah. So
- 15:19Speaker 1: of course, again, like the statistics is based on economic status,
- 15:22Speaker 1: so that says a lot of self c DC, that
- 15:26Speaker 1: says a lot of itself. Yeah. This article, if you're
- 15:31Speaker 1: wondering what it is, is the twenty five happiest cities
- 15:34Speaker 1: in America. You should go check it out in Mental Flaws.
- 15:37Speaker 1: But within this article talks about if you can't move
- 15:40Speaker 1: to this new city. You should try this. Science backed
- 15:43Speaker 1: ways to feel happier um in article, it talks about
- 15:49Speaker 1: ways to be happy, including we've talked about it, kind
- 15:51Speaker 1: of self care stuff, sweat it out, sleep more, go outside,
- 15:57Speaker 1: get hobbies, turn out the dunes, write it down. He
- 16:00Speaker 1: talked about sex no essentially said, even if it's a
- 16:03Speaker 1: solo session, so Andy, you're doing great on that, you're
- 16:06Speaker 1: doing great, don't back congratulations. So they have all of
- 16:10Speaker 1: these kind of backed up. And we talked about these
- 16:12Speaker 1: lists before about how content, how to care for yourself,
- 16:15Speaker 1: and how to de stress. It's kind of those same
- 16:18Speaker 1: levels about if you can't go to these cities. And
- 16:19Speaker 1: of course I would love to travel more, but I
- 16:23Speaker 1: still have a little bit of fear. And I think
- 16:25Speaker 1: that's gonna be a whole thing that we need to
- 16:26Speaker 1: know and talk about the fear of travel. Now, me
- 16:29Speaker 1: as an Asian woman, traveling seems scary. I don't want
- 16:32Speaker 1: to go to New York. I don't want to go
- 16:33Speaker 1: to California, although I love both of these states. However,
- 16:38Speaker 1: the rise of Asian hate crimes, and again, I know
- 16:40Speaker 1: it's more that I see on the news and it's
- 16:42Speaker 1: not as common as I feel but the fear along
- 16:46Speaker 1: alone is enough for me. I feel the same way
- 16:48Speaker 1: about Florida. I go to Florida just to see family
- 16:51Speaker 1: and that would be it. But I definitely don't want
- 16:53Speaker 1: to travel right now for so many reasons, and no
- 16:56Speaker 1: incidents have ever happened to me, but just the fear
- 16:58Speaker 1: that it's going to happen has been a lot of trauma,
- 17:01Speaker 1: um and weariness in traveling alone. But one day I
- 17:04Speaker 1: would love to travel again. And I know we've talked
- 17:07Speaker 1: about it before. We were having a conversation with a
- 17:11Speaker 1: wonderful traveling agency that we were going to go to Portugal,
- 17:14Speaker 1: which was not on these lists. Now we may need
- 17:16Speaker 1: to rethink our lists going to Portugal and trying out.
- 17:20Speaker 1: But because of the pandemic. Literally, I think it was
- 17:22Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the end of nineteen when we started talking
- 17:25Speaker 1: about it, like maybe by October it did not happen.
- 17:32Speaker 1: They they are wonderful and have contacted us about almost
- 17:35Speaker 1: at the beginning of every year to be like, how
- 17:37Speaker 1: about this year right right? Running away from your problems.
- 17:45Speaker 1: It will never ever ever solve anything, except for if
- 17:50Speaker 1: you have legitimate reasons to leave, whether it's you know,
- 17:54Speaker 1: jobs or whatever what not, And that's not what we're saying.
- 17:57Speaker 1: But it's interesting to see who is on these lists
- 18:01Speaker 1: and how these lists are made and how realistic these
- 18:04Speaker 1: lists can be for women, um, non binary, queer peoples,
- 18:09Speaker 1: in marginalized peoples in general, because I don't know how
- 18:12Speaker 1: much that accounts for it. And I think we've talked
- 18:15Speaker 1: about it before about traveling, finding people who are going
- 18:19Speaker 1: out and really having the real conversations about feeling safe
- 18:23Speaker 1: as a black woman, or I follow an Asian woman
- 18:26Speaker 1: who travels as well and saying these are the places
- 18:28Speaker 1: that I felt safe. These are the experiences that I've had.
- 18:31Speaker 1: But that's very important for us to really see beneath
- 18:35Speaker 1: just the statistics that's for the status quo, right right right,
- 18:38Speaker 1: And as we've said before, happiness is really important. Stress
- 18:44Speaker 1: does impact your physical and mental health UM and it
- 18:47Speaker 1: can impact your lifespan. So this is like a I mean,
- 18:50Speaker 1: it can seem frivolous. It's very important, UM So that
- 18:55Speaker 1: obviously we've thought so because we've had for very long
- 18:58Speaker 1: one day mates on it. Now we have it's like,
- 19:01Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you, tell us what
- 19:03Speaker 1: you think. Have you been in these places? Do you
- 19:05Speaker 1: live in these places and you agree disagree? What do
- 19:08Speaker 1: you see? Yeah, any of that? Or tell us if
- 19:11Speaker 1: you disagree with the list that we're like, Yeah, no,
- 19:12Speaker 1: you're wrong. This is another happy place that you didn't
- 19:15Speaker 1: talk about. Yes, please, you can email the Stuff mom
- 19:19Speaker 1: Stuff and I hurt me dot com. You can find
- 19:21Speaker 1: us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and
- 19:23Speaker 1: stuff when Never told You. Thanks. It's always your super producer, Christina,
- 19:26Speaker 1: our magic maker. Yes, and thanks to you for listening
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