How Women Got Screwed By Feminism-Expectations that are Impossible

 Let me first preface this article by saying that I am no fanatical...well anything I suppose. I don't have radical beliefs about women staying in or out of the home, how many children they should bear (if any), or how many times a week they should serve their families Hamburger Helper or pizza. I don't care, it's really up to you! We live in a world of infinite choices, but often times in trying to choose we end up choosing nothing and trying to live out and fulfill each choice. Johnny want spaghetti and Susy wants clam chowder? Gee isn't it easier to just make both, rather than fighting with the both of them?

Today, isn't it easier to try to do what is expected of us women, rather than just choose one or two roles and try to be good at them, while defending the choices we make to angry dissenters? Let me explain what I mean.

 Most little girls, from the time they can walk, are told that they can do anything! This is a marvelous thought, we can be whatever we want! No longer do women have to choose from a few acceptable roles, now we can be whatever we choose. Truly I love this idea, and welcome wholeheartedly the opportunity to hopefully someday tell my little girl that doors are wide open for her, whether she wants to be a doctor, author, or stay-at-home mom. But what we realize as we get older is that we are allowed to choose, yes, but there are still certain, rather archaic, expectations of women that refuse to just disappear with a couple decades of progress.

You see, where the whole grand idea of feminism went wrong, or got turned around, was when it failed to shut some windows while opening doors. Yes we can pick and choose from so many different roles, more than ever before, but now women are expected to do everything. As any single woman can tel you, social gatherings without a spouse get ever more awkward as the years go on. "When will you get married?" asks Aunt Hazel for the 50-millioneth time. Isn't it enough to be a good worker, in whatever field you choose?

So you finally do get married, and everything is going along swimmingly. Hopefully your new spouse has some great new-age ideas about division of labor in the house, but it's also quite likely that he expects you, the woman, to do much of the cooking and cleaning. Oh, and have fun at work by the way! Aching feet or not, clean underpants are still a necessity of life.

And then the next question starts, "When will I be a grandma?" moans your own mother. Great! Now that you have thrown the work, wife, and housekeeper roles into the air and have managed to juggle them, everything thinks you need another ball to juggle, a crying and screaming one no less! Oh, and don't you dare let yourself "go" after you have a baby, or you'll be decried as one of those hopelessly depressed and ugly mothers who just doesn't have a handle on her own life.

Whoohoo, so you've got one, or possibly more bright and shiny kids being juggled as well! Puff-puff, you can handle this! Until you ask for time off work because your kid has the flu/a soccer game came up/got suspended from school or other various tragedies. Great Scott, you've used up your sick days, and it's only the beginning of April? So sorry, but we need a serious disciplinary talk...

 Unfortunately our wide world of choices has become a world of back breaking responsibilty. The modern woman is expected to do it all, and to do it damn well. Her house is orderly, her children clean, and her job is respectable and possibly earns more dough than her husbands. Her hair is dyed, her nails polished, and she never has a mental breakdown or shouts in public. Who is this mythical woman? Surely not anyone I know!

With so many roles, when we choose just one or two we spend a lifetime defending them. Ask any voluntarily childless couple and they'll tell you exactly what I mean. Ask any single woman, single mother, stay-at-home mom or working mother and they will tell you that someone out there thinks they aren't fulfilling their role as a woman properly.

 Perhaps the point I'm trying to get to is that the only way we can ever shed these high, and impossible, expectations is to be more accepting ourselves. Don't judge a friend or relative for her choices, after all, isn't she free to be whatever she wants? Aren't we all? Let's all try to live in a world that expects only one thing of women: to be the best at what they desire, without the expectation to be or do more.