A Gallup Poll of Unattractive Women

In reading Gallup Poll data on happiness I came across this eyebrow-raiser from 1943:

So far as you personally are concerned, do you think the chances are that the next ten years of your life will be exciting ones, just average, or rather dull?  (Asked of a national cross-section of women from twenty to thirty-five years old.)

National total:

Exciting 43.3%
Average 43.6%
Dull 9.3%

Single women (20 - 24 years):

Exciting 53.8%
Average 35.0%
Dull 6.5%

Unattractive women:

Exciting 26.1%
Average 44.9%
Dull 21.7%


No, I do not know how they determined the sample for that last question.  My guess is that this was the interviewer's judgment.

I take this as further evidence for the 'feminine mystique,' which Betty Friedan would locate specifically in this time period.

I also think that the 1940s were a cultural revolution ago.