We've pretty much got it all... so why are we women so miserable?

Well, here we are then. We've done it, we females of the species - we've pretty much got it all. Success, love, careers, sexual freedom, babies. We're running countries, for goodness' sake, huge, powerful ones like Germany and Bangladesh and one of us - Hillary Clinton - nearly got to be the most powerful person on Earth.

We must be over the moon, dancing all the way to the office and then all the way home again at night.

Only - we're not. Far from it, it seems. New research, published in the U.S., and relating to a study of more than a million people, shows that women are more miserable than we've ever been. And we're actually getting more miserable.



Umbrella days: Research in the U.S. shows that women are more miserable than they've ever been

And this is the real point - men are not. According to the same research, men are getting happier and, moreover, are even happier as they get older.

And it's not just this study. The World Health Organisation reports that depression is the second most debilitating disease for women; for men, it's the tenth most.

Now why is that? What miserable little worm of a gene must there be in our psychological and emotional make-up that means we do nothing but complain about our lot, when that lot is so extremely good? Indeed, better than ever in the history of womankind.

Someone said to me once, way back in the early days of bra-burning feminism, and I've never forgotten it: 'Women are terrible moaners. They moan because they want to be married, then they moan because they want a baby, then they moan because it's boring at home and they want to go back to work, then they moan because they feel guilty about leaving the baby.'

Not a quote from some cynical man, as you might presume, but from a fully fledged, successful, working woman with three children.

Letting the sisterhood down to be sure, but wouldn't you admit there is something at least in what she says? Are we not just permanently dissatisfied?

Of course, being dissatisfied has got humanity where we are today. We always want more, we always want to better what we've got and, as a result, humankind progresses.

But that doesn't explain why women in particular are feeling a lot less contented than we did, say, 50 years ago.

So is our unhappiness directly related to our new post-feminist - and theoretically enviable - situation in society, with every possibility seemingly open to us professionally, academically and even romantically?



Could it be that having too many choices has left us dissatisfied with whichever one we choose - because we constantly fear another path in life could make us happier?

If that is the case, then many men, and many of my mother's generation, might find that rather rich given how much drudgery was involved in being a housewife half a century ago.

Maybe our unhappiness these days just seems so outrageous because we do have it so good. Because we do have the option to work or be at home.

Yes, my mother resented her dependence on my father and the boredom of her daily round of housework, shopping, cooking, washing, ironing and running around after me with no prospect of escape. But at least she was valued by society.

Back then, mothers simply didn't work outside the home. They had their babies and stayed at home to look after them. There was no option.

So maybe our unhappiness these days just seems so outrageous because we do have it so good. Because we do have the option to work or be at home.



What this research also tells us is that we can't complain that we have to do all the domestic stuff any more; technology has lifted a huge amount of the burden, and men are becoming increasingly good at doing their share of the chores.

That's all well and good, but while the men may be helping more at home, most of us are tying ourselves in knots trying to make a success of the careers we regard as a birthright.



The cost of being a working mother is astronomical - and I'm not referring to nursery and childminding fees, although the stress of earning the money to cover those does come into the equation.

Measured in terms of guilt, exhaustion, fear (yes, I do mean fear - fear that the creche catches fire, or the au pair gets involved in a long phone conversation and the two-year-old wanders out into the road), well, it doesn't get much pricier than that.



Show me a working mother who can concentrate 100 per cent on a meeting that starts half an hour before she absolutely has to leave in order to arrive at the nursery before it closes, and I'll show you a creature as rare as the unicorn.



I simply do not believe that any man, however 'new' and however much he has changed nappies and bonded with his babies, feels the same gut-wrenching guilt and anxiety when he's away from them on a regular basis that women do.

The study by the WHO found that depression is the second most debilitating disease for women

It's simple biology. In that area, we haven't really progressed much from the days of the cavemen. Until someone finds a way for men to actually bear the babies, it won't change.

So, if the modern right to work is making mothers unhappy and feeling torn in two, what about the cost of being a stay-at home mother?

You feel bored, frustrated and resentful much of the time, however much you love the small person who has just tipped its juice onto the floor for the fourth time, or grizzled all the way home from the swings.

And who makes the very thought of a sex life some kind of blurred and unimaginable mirage.

Was it for this, you wonder, that you struggled to get your 2:1 in Classics or fought your way up the company ladder and got a car and key to the executive washroom? What are you doing here at home? How did that happen?



And however much you love your children, there's no doubt the attitude of society towards stay-at-home mothers fosters a feeling of inferiority for many women.



When my children were small, the stay-at-home mother was the 'good mother' who was feted as an example to us all. As the working variety, I was in a tiny minority and I was pilloried for it.



But now if you're at home, you aren't cherished by society. You are somehow cast as a self-satisfied prig, letting down the worker bees, unable to say anything meaningful about anything and most unfairly endowed with a husband who earns enough money to indulge your desire to stay at home.

The Government's desire to drive all women back to work by offering ' wraparound childcare' doesn't help either.



So my argument is that millions of modern women are unhappy whether they go to work or stay at home.



It seems the shackles we cast off in the feminist revolution have only enabled us to be miserable whatever we do.



I sometimes think (not entirely seriously, but it bears examination) that we'd all be a lot happier if we were obliged by law to stay at home for five years - or maybe three - after having each baby, and then went back to work.

There would be no conflict, no self-doubt and, most importantly, no guilt; you'd just have to settle down and get on with it and wait for your turn to go back to the real world.

And you know what? You'd probably enjoy it.

There is no doubt that the to-work-or-not dilemma is absolutely crucifying. I believe it is at the heart of women's unhappiness. And there really is no correct answer. The glass is always half-empty, wherever you are.



If those are the issues that drag down a woman's mood throughout her 30s and 40s, what happens to our male counterparts later in their lives?

A woman of 50 is reproductively done for, all washed up; a man of 50 can marry again and have babies. The fact he probably won't is neither here nor there - he knows he could if he wanted to.

Why, for example, do men get happier as they get older, while we get more miserable?

I think it's biology. A woman of 50 is reproductively done for, all washed up; a man of 50 can marry again and have babies.

The fact he probably won't is neither here nor there - he knows he could if he wanted to.

That's the whole point. We're left staring into the empty nest, with absolutely no chance of filling it again, except spasmodically with the grandchildren.

And I don't care what anyone says or how many pictures there are of Sophia Loren looking dazzling at 75, women age faster than men. And most of us do mind.

I'm extremely blessed, with a huge and happy family (last time I looked anyway) and work I adore.



But I still fret on a daily basis about unworthy things, such as my sagging arms and wrinkles multiplying at the speed of light.

Perhaps that's because we live in a horribly introspective age. We fret and fuss over ourselves as never before; it's almost a disease in itself. Never were upper lips less stiff; never were so many hearts to be seen on sleeves.

Diana, Princess of Wales led the way and the nation followed, confessing, kissing, weeping.

Among the famous, it's reached boiling point: who's had the unhappiest childhood, the most demeaning relationship, the toughest rejection? Me, Me, Me!

Pouring out their hearts at the drop of a designer hat, gazing into their surgically reduced navels. Just Putting Up With It is seriously old-fashioned.

Too much self-analysis is dangerous. Am I happy? Am I bored? Am I fulfilled?

It's a bit like thinking you might have a sore throat or a stomach ache; concentrate really hard on the throat or the stomach and yes, there it goes, nasty little tickle, beastly little ache.

The problem is that if you ask yourself 'Is my life as wonderful as I'd hoped?', the answer is that it probably isn't.

If you ask 'Am I really still in love?', the response is that, of course, it's not the same as it was when you met.

It's all a bit like constantly digging up a frail little sapling to see if it's growing, and killing it as a result.



If you leave the sapling of happiness alone, it will have a much better chance of setting down some roots and starting to thrive.

What we must do is appreciate the things we are doing well in life, whether it is mothering or working - and not dwell on the things we fear we're missing out on.

Collectively as a sex we must hang onto that approach. If we can convince ourselves that our glasses are actually half-full rather than half-empty, then we should feel a whole lot more optimistic. And maybe a whole lot happier.