Heart Attacks Rising in American Women
Recently, the media has devoted an uncanny amount of time to reports about “Generation Me” (people currently in their 20′s and 30′s…a.k.a. talkin’ ’bout my generation) and it’s proposed narcissism. The New York Times recently followed up with an article briefly discussing the existence of opposition to the view that Gen Y lacks empathy and suffers from swollen ego.
At the very end of this article, there is this tidbit:
“[The Narcissistic Personality Inventory] is not a diagnostic tool for narcissistic personality disorder, a serious psychiatric condition; it is simply a rough gauge of self-confidence, vanity, and self-importance, traits everyone has to some degree. And scores have gone up significantly, at least in some college samples. ‘This is particularly true in women,’ Dr. Twenge. ‘That is where we see the most dramatic increases.’”
Could it be that the overall increase in “narcissism” shown by the data is actually a result of the advancement of feminism in American society? The Inventory doesn’t just measure narcissism–it measures confidence, and the two are lumped together. With half the population transforming into a more empowered social group, how could the composite score for a generation not increase?
Man, feel like a woman.
