It’s The American Dream, but for Women
Did you know women can have it all these days? With all the access to birth control we have -- cough -- we now have the power to choose when we have our families. So if you want to start adulthood focused on a career, no worries because birth control has you covered. Oh, you want to start adulthood as a parent and focus on your career later? So cool, birth control has you covered, too. Isn't choice great?
Yes. Choice is great for human rights, but sometimes it doesn't feel like a choice. For a lot of women the pursuit of having it all includes extreme bouts of anxiety, self-doubt, insecurity, and depression. What woman -- or any person of any gender -- would choose that? It's because having it all in American culture isn't a choice -- it's a gendered expectation.
The Remix
The American Dream has always been pedaled to those who wish to transcend some social category and attain just a little more power -- just a little more security. The idea is if you work hard enough, you can have all your dreams. But if we put this gender norms lens on the American Dream, women are being told if you work hard enough, you can have all of the dreams. It's like The American Dream didn't realize that women shoulder the burden of fertility and reproduction, parenting, household labor, and relationship building. The American Dream didn't recognize women, so it didn't value our roles.
I like to remember this video I watched in grade school. It felt like one of those propaganda videos from war times that probably everyone watched in grade school. I remember it had Rosie the Riveter -- there was even A Boy Meets World episode about it -- and it thanked women for stepping into the jobs left by men who were fighting the war oversees. I even remember them saying something like the war wouldn't have been won if it hadn't been for the women "taking care of everything back home."
Because that's what women are expected to do. Our American Dream is trapped in the expectation that we seize it all and take care of everything. We have the choices, so we better use them. We better plan out our whole lives -- school, marriage, career, kids, kids again, maybe a third kid -- to be as efficient as possible, less we are squandering our opportunities. Isn't this what our ancestors fought for? Isn't that what your sisters fight for today?
Having Enough
The pressure of having it all is too much on women's mental health. The counseling field refers to these topics as 'women's issues,' but I don't see it that way. If women aren't taking care of everything back home, we have a systemic issue. We have a society that relies on the labor of women. And women are tired.
So if I could rewrite The Women's American Dream it would be: if you pursue your dreams, you'll have enough. You'll have enough work to be busy and enough energy to still enjoy it. You'll have enough accomplishment and enough play. You'll have enough tension and enough relaxation.
Want to Know More?
If this resonates with you and you want to know and do more, I'm hosting a free workshop in Chapel Hill next month. You can preregister by clicking on the link. If you're not ready to do the work though, that's okay too. Subscribe to the newsletter and keep an eye out for more blogs on the topic.
