Throughout history, the “American dream” has always been a quintessential piece of American culture. Although the American dream has always involved financial success and a happy home life, the American dream for women has progressed as our ideas of female success have changed. From what I have learned from my older family members and from what I have been taught throughout my education, women’s definitions of the American dream have greatly evolved over the last 100 years. Throughout the last 100 years women have included health, happiness in marriage and financial stability as three major pieces of the American dream. As members of generation Y and collegiate women, our concept of these three major pieces of the American dream has changed dramatically.
In a history course about women and social movements, we discussed the importance of women’s health. Because you must be healthy in order to pursue success in other areas of your life, health is an essential part of the American dream. Today most collegiate women consider sexual health to be one of the most important attributes of women’s health. To see how much the definition of health as part of the American dream has changed, we can look back to the 1920s. Due in part to the work of activist Margaret Sanger, the early 1920s began to include the use of birth control as a part of women’s health. While women’s health has once again become a hot topic over the last few years, the discussion of women’s health has changed. For women of Generation Y, the American dream includes more liberal ideas about health. Not only does our American dream include birth control, but we desire more options for a healthy lifestyle. Our American dream includes more kinds of birth control, longer maternity leave and more sexual freedom.
As collegiate women of Gen Y our concept of the American dream also includes financial stability. To see how our ideas of finance differ from women of the past, we can look back to women of the 1950s. While women of the 1950s wanted their male partners to provide them with economic stability, we desire to be part of the economic decisions in our households. Women of Gen Y aspire to have jobs that will allow them to support themselves without relying on anyone else’s income. Women of Gen Y also have different ideas on how to spend their money. While women of the 1950s were practical about how they spent their money, Gen Y women are dreamers. In our version of the American dream, we spend our hard earned income on exploring and travelling the world.
Lastly the evolving American dream is evident in our views of family life. While women in the past have desired to be mothers and wives over successful employees, women of Generation Y are less concerned with being married and more concerned with having our dream jobs. There are now more women pursuing careers in medicine, law and business than ever before. While women of the past desired to marry doctors, we dream of becoming doctors. Our concept of the American dream is fueled by our dreams of having a job that we love. Women of Generation Y still one day hope to have a happy family life, but we are content with putting motherhood on the backburner until we reach our career goals. Even though we still desire to be healthy, have financial success and one day be a part of a happy family of our own, the women of Gen Y have created their own version of the American dream.