The H-Spot ─ The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

What do women want? It's a time-old question, but if you head out into America and talk to women one-on-one, as Jill Filipovic has done, you discover that what they want is happiness. Despite what recent books, articles, or tv shows would have you believe, real women are less concerned about "having it all," ?leaning in,? or ?settling for 'Mr. Good Enough.'? Unsurprisingly, the way to achieve happiness is as varied as the realities they face.

In The H Spot, Filipovic argues that the main obstacle standing in between women and happiness is a rigged system. In this world of unfinished feminism, men have long been able to ?have it all? because of free female labor, while the bar of achievement for women has gotten higher - never before have we had to work so much at every level (whether it's to be an accomplished white-collar employee or just make ends meet), and never before have the requirements for being a ?good mother? been so extreme. If our laws and policies made women's happiness and fulfillment a goal in and of itself, she explains, so many contentious issues would be resolved with one fell swoop—from women's health to equal pay.

Filipovic illustrates this argument by asking women across America what it is they need, Filipovic provides an outline for a feminist movement we all need: one that provides a blueprint for how policy, laws and society can deliver on the promise of the pursuit of happiness for all.

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in Nairobi and New York City. Formerly a columnist at the Guardian and Cosmopolitan.com's senior political writer, she is also an attorney. Her work on law, politics, gender and foreign affairs has appeared in Al Jazeera America, the Nation, Foreign Policy, GOOD Magazine, Marie Claire, and others. She was an editor at NYU Law's Journal of Law and Social Change, and a contributor to the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, named one of the best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly. A winner of a 2014 Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for her global health reporting, and of a Society for Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for political commentary, she was also a 2013 UN Foundation Fellow in Malawi and Indonesia and a 2014 International Reporting Project fellow in Brazil and India.