Bluebird: Women And The New Psychology of Happiness by Ariel Gore

Ariel Gore is one of my primary writing sheroes.  When I think of the sort of success I would like to aspire to as a writer, it is her kind of success of which I dream.  From her days as a zinester to her days when most of her books were published by a small press to today, when she has a book being published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ariel has always been everything I aspire to be as a writer.  Her writing is inspiring, compassionate, honest and intelligent.  Intelligent.  It's hard to find writing like that.

Given my bad case of hero worship, I was particularly thrilled when Ariel sent me a review copy of her new book, Bluebird:  Women And The New Psychology of Happiness to read and review on my blog.  I told her my blog only got around ten hits a day, but she sent it anyway, which made me very happy.  If only happiness was always that simple.

Bluebird chronicles Ariel's research on the positive psychology movement, a movement that she found to be rather heavily populated with men at first, men who had strange ideas about how women could find their bliss cleaning toilets.  Fortunately, Ariel found some research done by smart men and by (gasp) actual women as well as that done by delusional men and men living in Privilege Land.  She did her own research, as well, convening a "council of experts", real women who responded to Ariel's questions about happiness from their own life experiences. 

The book chronicles some interesting findings.

 In Bluebird, Ariel Gore intelligently discusses the role of money in happiness (it has one), the role of work, of family, of friends.   She discusses attitude and the role of things that we can and cannot control. She discusses the role of motherhood in the happiness of women.  I was especially interested in the discussion of "flow" experiences.

Bluebird discusses the fact that the same systems of psychology that choose to describe victims in terms of pathology often treat victimizers as perfectly normal. Ariel addresses the fact that certain whole psychological theories seem to be designed to describe women as pathological and to convince us to give up on liberation in favor of medication.  She assures us that we can have happiness and liberty ...  and that we must refuse to be made to choose between the two.

She's right.

Bluebird:  Women And The New Psychology of Happiness is an excellent book for any woman, as well as for men who care about women and society.  It should definitely be a must-read for those psychologists who continue to ignore the possibility of a healthy, free  reality for women.  Bluebird hits the stores on January 19th and can be pre-ordered now.  It's a good read, but it's also an important book.  I highly recommend it.