Takes

TODAY'S FEMALE PARADOX: Another Faltering Step in the March of Human Progress "Has liberation made women happier?" The Economist dares to raise that question in analyzing a survey it commissioned among women in 11 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico and the U.S. The survey found a "near universal" belief that "the lot of women has improved" during the past two generations. Upwards of 90 percent in most countries said they're "in a better position" than their grandmothers' generation with respect to equal rights and opportunities. But that leaves what the magazine termed "something of a paradox." Asked whether they're happier than the earlier generation, a majority of respondents declined to say they are. The "yes" tally was just 28 percent among women in the U.S. and 33 percent in Canada. In Europe, it ranged from 42 percent in Britain to 25 percent in the Netherlands. Only in Japan (82 percent) and among urbanites in South Africa (54 percent) and Mexico (53 percent) did majorities deem themselves happier than their grandmothers' generation. It's not that today's women are wretched. "But if you add those who think they are less happy to those who will admit to being no more than equally happy," notes the magazine, "they outnumber those who think they are happier by 54 percent to 41 percent." Perhaps it's because men still aren't pulling their weight around the house. Another section of the survey found 75 percent of the women saying they do all or most of the bathroom cleaning. (Just 5 percent said the man of the house does so.) Similarly, 74 percent said they're stuck with all or most of the cooking. EARLY DISFAVORITES: Disliked--Well Disliked In some countries, unsuccessful aspirants for political power are taken out and shot. In the U.S., they end up doing TV spots for everything from Pepsi to Viagra. (That's why the U.S. is called a commercial republic.) Not all losers are created equal, though. Marketers on the lookout for post-election talent will study the results of a Harris Poll in which people were asked, "Are there any potential presidential candidates you really dislike?" Indeed there were. Having not quit the race in time to escape inclusion in the poll, Dan Quayle topped the list, named by 48 percent of respondents. Running second was Pat Buchanan (47 percent), which suggests he'd have limited utility as a commercial endorser. Considering how little heed has been paid to his candidacy, Orrin Hatch did a remarkable job in placing fourth (23 percent), ahead of better-known hopefuls like George W. Bush (18 percent), Elizabeth Dole (17 percent), Steve Forbes (15 percent) and Bill Bradley (10 percent). KITCHEN KIDS: The Hot-Stove League We're not necessarily talking haute cuisine. But with their parents busy at work or elsewhere, kids are cooking for themselves. A Yankelovich study of 9-17-year-olds finds 44 percent of boys and 52 percent of girls routinely make their own meals. Sizable numbers--21 percent of boys and 31 percent of girls--cook for the whole family. While their parents may view meal preparation as a chore, 40 percent of kids who cook say they enjoy it and most of the rest "don't mind doing so." FOOD SCIENCE: Why All the Ruckus About A Few Rearranged Genes? In Europe, farmers and foodies take to the barricades to fend off the onslaught of genetically engineered foods. In the U.S., by contrast, a new Gallup poll finds the issue of biotech foods "barely registers a ripple." As you can see from the chart, just over one-quarter of respondents take up the offer to express alarm at the prospect of "Frankenfood" as a fixture of the family diet. Another question in the survey found just 16 percent saying they "strongly oppose" biotechnology in agriculture and food production, with another 25 percent saying they "moderately oppose" it. One might credit Americans' composure in this matter to their generally lower culinary standards. Having accepted industrial food, they're less apt to stick up their noses at post-industrial food. Who's to say a biotech tomato won't taste better than the red menaces that already come our way from the agribusiness sector? It's not as though we'd be giving up foods grown on quaint family farms if we bought comestibles tweaked by guys in lab coats. Meanwhile, we shouldn't underestimate the role of nationalist prejudice in the way different peoples react to this issue. In Europe, distaste for biotech foods is clearly heightened by a spirit of battle against the encroachment of American culture--or of American agriculture. In truth, fewer and fewer Europeans subsist on unadulterated foods grown by ruddy-cheeked Old World peasants. But people are all the more attached to an ideal when it ceases to reflect real conditions on and in the ground. More broadly, Americans tend to be early adopters of every new technology that comes down the pike, whether it be cars or telephones or the Internet. We shouldn't be surprised if that pattern holds good for high-tech foods as well. And at a time when medical science is tacking years onto the average life expectancy, it seems churlish to charge food science with conspiring to shorten it. Tellingly, the poll found attitudes toward biotech food vary with one's level of education. Among respondents who never attended college, 21 percent are strongly anti-biotech. Among those with a college or post-graduate degree, a mere 8 percent put themselves in that camp. YOUTH CULTURE: Fix the Fixation, Please Today's young adults may not come across as a particularly mature bunch. But they are mature enough to have a distaste for pop-culture's fixation on an even more immature cohort. A reader poll conducted by Glamour quantifies that sentiment. "Does U.S. culture put too much emphasis on youth?" Responding to that question, 65 percent of readers said it does. But when asked whether they "watch or listen to teen-oriented movies, TV shows and music," just 28 percent answered "no." Forty percent said such fare "keeps them feeling young and up on the latest trends." A grudging 32 percent watch or listen "only because it's what's out there." TIME TO SPARE: More a Leisure Gap Than a Leisure Famine Perhaps you've been too busy to notice, but there's a spirited debate about Americans' leisure, or lack thereof. Some argue that the "leisure famine" is a national crisis, while others insist it's anecdotal mythology. Reviewing the pertinent data, an article in the current issue of The Brookings Review comes to a mixed verdict. The writer, Gary Burtless, notes that the discussion typically focuses on households with young kids. "But households without children are on the increase. By focusing on families with children, we can lose sight of the leisure gains in an important and growing part of the adult population." And families with kids have fewer of them than before. "Families with women between 25 and 34, for example, averaged 2.3 children in 1968, but only 1.2 children in 1998." People spend less time raising children "because there are fewer children to raise." Putting together data on employment and family composition for 1968 and '98, the author found that adults in the bottom fifth of the income scale "saw sizable reductions in both the time spent in paid work and the likelihood of living with children." While the loss of good jobs is a "serious problem" for low-income Americans, "the loss of free time is not." As for middle-income folks, they collectively work more than they used to (mainly because of the shift in women's roles), but they're "significantly less likely to live with children under age 18." So who's left in the leisure bind? "Only in the top fifth of the income distribution were adults working much longer hours while experiencing little reduction in their child-care responsibilities," Burtless writes. "These high-income adults seem more stretched for time than similar adults in the past." They've been "richly compensated," though, and "many lucky couples have walked into a time vise with eyes wide open." MILLENNIAL FAVES: Wasn't the Ad-Trade Press The Greatest Invention? As millennia go, this has been an interesting one. Lots of action, colorful characters, plenty of surprises. A survey by ABC News (summarized on the Polling Report Web site) assembled a kind of Best Hits album for the past thousand years. As the chart here indicates, today's Americans believe the greatest inventions of the millennium are mostly recent ones. On the other hand, a historically challenged 3 percent of respondents volunteered "the wheel" as their answer. Those of us who read and/or write for magazines may feel the printing press gets short shrift, but at least it was not left off the list altogether. When respondents were asked to pick the "greatest human accomplishments" of the millennium, no one entry scored in double digits. "Medical advances" topped the list with 9 percent of the vote, followed by "space travel/going to the moon" (8 percent) and "Columbus/American discovery/exploration" (7 percent). Jonas Salk bested Louis Pasteur (24 percent to 11 percent) when people were asked to name the millennium's greatest figure in medicine. In music, popular culture proved to be less popular than high culture, with Mozart (15 percent) and Beethoven (12 percent) topping respondents' picks for the greatest figure of the past thousand years. J.S. Bach (5 percent) was sandwiched between Elvis (8 percent) and the Beatles (3 percent). Pope John Paul II would be chagrined, one suspects, to learn he outscored Jesus by a margin of 16 percent to 4 percent in the poll's religious-figure category. Martin Luther (7 percent) placed behind Billy Graham (14 percent) and Mother Teresa (12 percent) but ahead of Gandhi (6 percent). FRAGRANT MEN: Scents and Sensibility The flattering theory: Men have become more self-reliant. The unflattering theory: Men have adopted a genre of vanity that used to be foisted on them. Either way, a study by The NPD Group finds men more likely to buy their own fragrances than was once the case. This year, 14 percent of men who use the stuff got most of their supply as gifts--down from 22 percent in 1998. Increasing numbers of male fragrance users put on scent every day--42 percent this year versus 37 percent last year. And men are more adamant about their choices: Now, 34 percent (versus 40 percent in '98) would stop using a favorite scent if their significant other asked them to do so. MIXED BLESSINGS: Art vs. Virus vs. Clinton, The Exalted Donor, Etc. What do Charles Saatchi and Bill Clinton have in common? Each is believed to pose less peril to New York than encephalitis. Actually, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll spoke not of Saatchi but his art collection when it asked people in New York: "Which of the following do you think is the biggest threat to the quality of life of New Yorkers"--the Brooklyn Museum's "Sensation" exhibit, Clinton's move to a New York City suburb or the West Nile encephalitis contagion? Sixty percent cited the virus, 20 percent chose Clinton and 8 percent named the exhibit of Saatchi's art--or "art," as the case may be. Of course, people might have chosen differently if the "Sensation" artworks were flying loose and the mosquitoes were confined to the museum. Can U.S. automakers get mileage out of "Buy American" campaigns? It's harder to do so as Japanese companies shift production to this country, even if lots of the value-added work stays in Japan. In a poll conducted here for the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association--not a disinterested party, of course--63 percent of respondents "agreed that today a car made in America by Americans is a U.S. product," regardless of the automaker's country of origin. Some ads merely sell you a product. Others educate you. An ad for Elisir du Dr. Roux places itself in the latter camp as it gives Latin descriptives to the botanicals from which the French liqueur is distilled. You probably weren't aware that ginseng was known as "melancholia departus." Or that lemon peel is "romanticus eroticus." And on the off chance you've even heard of damiana, you probably never referred to it as "aphrodisia stupendosa." New York-based Gigante Vaz Partners created the ad. When they're smart, ads soliciting charitable donations put the giver on a metaphorical pedestal. So why not try a real pedestal? A campaign for the United Way, via Peterson Milla Hooks of Minneapolis, uses that ploy to good effect in conveying the range of good works one can do by writing a check. Given a choice between looking at society's unfortunates and seeing themselves exalted, people will pick Option B every time.

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