As young girls, we are encouraged to watch every single Disney movie and idolize a figure that represents everything that we might one day want in life. Each princess winds up completing her life’s mission, defeating the evil villain and simultaneously ends up with the love of her life, who is handsome and usually a prince. Needless to say, I find these standards to be extremely high.
Culture has come to emulate the idea of young people growing up to get married, have successful careers and have two kids with a dog. Honestly, I would like to know where the rule is to have this exact life. I cannot seem to find it anywhere.
As I am sure many other young women have as well, I grew up with conflicting opinions on what constitutes a successful woman. On the one hand, I was encouraged to do everything that I wanted and build the career that I was passionate about. On the other hand, I was constantly reminded of the need to find a husband because my biological clock would begin counting down in my early thirties and I would need to have found a husband by then to have the best offspring. Needless to say, I was a bit confused about people’s expectations of me.
Regardless of the aspirations that people have for their life, the pressure to conform to a societal mold can be discouraging and stressful. Furthermore, the fear that is instilled in people if they cannot meet the designated time for life events is paralyzing. For some reason, every girl thinks that if she is not married by 25, she must be undesirable. If someone is turning 30 and just starting to have kids, they are a late bloomer. The notion that people with entirely different personalities and careers are on the same schedule is completely bizarre and outdated.
But if we are honest with ourselves, all these comparisons did not begin when we were freshmen in college and trying to find a boyfriend within the first two years to ensure that we properly got to know them before settling down. No, the comparison started when we were in elementary or middle school when dating became popularized. Every girl that did not have a boyfriend at this time can understand what I mean when I say that the pretty people were always dating someone.
Movies and social media even perpetuated the narrative that if a girl was attractive, she was surely dating someone. So, the adolescent minds of females everywhere were wired to believe that if they were not being sought after, they must not be attractive.
Even for those of us who did not have an interest in dating, the same ideal was true about friends. The pretty girls would have friends that they would hang out with all the time. But what about the bookworm that didn’t want to hang out with anyone or attend high school parties? Those girls were not living up to society’s high expectations of them, and even if it was not true, they had a small voice in their heads saying that they were a failure.
Somehow, young women of multiple generations have found a way to deal with these criticisms. If you are anything like me, you desperately clung to the idea that college would be different. You dreamt of college as if it were a faraway world, where the boys would suddenly become men and the girls would not be mean or catty. And then you arrived, and all of your dreams faded within the first two weeks because you realized that your fantasy was entirely inaccurate.
Where do these expectations even come from? One could argue that they are self-imposed or ingrained into our minds as children from watching every Disney princess accomplish everything she ever wanted while finding true love. Others could argue that it is simply a passed down tradition from mother to daughter. Considering how the role dynamics have changed since the ‘50s and the stereotypical housewife mold that has been discarded, there may be some validity in the passing down of expectations from the older generation to the next.
There have been multiple studies that confront the issue of gender stereotypes and their effect on females. Specifically looking at the Frontiers article concerning Gendered Expectations, there is a clear discrepancy in the number of males and females going on to receive degrees in Engineering or Computer Science with there being roughly a 35% difference in the number of males and females interested in those degrees and over a 60% difference in actual degree attainment.
Not only does this inequity affect females’ realized potential for education, but it also affects their mental health. By comparison in an article by Medical News Today, women are twice as likely to have general anxiety, have a panic disorder and develop depression in their lives than men.
This does not begin to touch on the expectations placed on females for their traditional roles. Women spend an average of 8.5 hours more each week in domestic chores, provide more unofficial care for family members and are likely to be getting less sleep and exercise than their male counterparts.
While society has grown to accept the desires of women to make something of themselves professionally and encourages this through current media, society fails to understand that the expectations placed on women are growing too great. With the addition of expecting them to gain a degree and career while finding a suitable match and settling down, females are being worn ragged by the demand being placed on them.
Women do not need to conform to societal standards to be worthy of praise. A middle school girl does not need to be dating a boy to be pretty, nor does a high school girl need to have a clique of other girls surrounding her to make her important. Similarly, a fully grown woman does not need to have a two-story house with a picket fence and kids in each room to make her successful.
Furthermore, not all women are going to want to become mothers. Some women do not want to become wives either. Beyond this, some women want to be a wife but not a mother, which is completely acceptable as the two roles are not mutually exclusive. However, society has ingrained in women from a young age that this is the only suitable outcome for a female, regardless of her career standing or personal hopes and dreams.
Each woman is created uniquely, with her own identity and her own timeline for what she wants to accomplish in life. So, if you want to become a stay-at-home mom to three kids, do it. If you would rather just live with your best friend and adopt a dog, that is valid too. In being silent, we are allowing society to propagate these ideals of what women should be. This should not be allowed to continue unchecked as women deserve to live their lives only by living up to their own expectations.