Women in today's society

So I am in a Women and Violence class this semester and we had a discussion today about how it is to be a women in today's society. Several responses were as follows: "It's hard." "It's challenging." "It's discouraging." "It's empowering." "It's unfair." Some of the reasons were because of the stereotypes and expectations that we have to live up to through magazines, music, movies, television, etc. We are paid on average $.67 less than men. We are exploited as sex symbols through the media and more. The list can go on and on and I agree with a lot of these opinions of how hard it is to be a woman as well as why it is hard. . .although I do believe that we are provided with the opportunities to better ourselves and the stereotypes and expectations that we are suppose to live up to, but I think that the "short term goal" [I will discuss further] that woman are expected to fulfill holds us back. The short term goal that I am speaking of is that women are expected to have a main goal of finding a man, maintaining a relationship, getting married, having children, and finally being successful mothers. This goal occupies some women's minds so much so that they are constantly obsessing over how they want their weddings to be, the perfect dress, the perfect colors, the perfect flowers, the perfect location. . .etc. The obsession does not end here though. . .there are some women that I know that aspire to be stay at home mom's. I have to wonder if they have this goal because they feel that they are incapable or unsure of being able to do anything else with their life or if they are lazy, or if they are taught that that is what women are suppose to only do? My teacher brought up the idea that once a woman achieves her "short term goal" do they ever feel cheated, betrayed, lied to, or frustrated because once the dreaminess of everything dies away, then they realize that not every aspect of the married life is what it is cracked up to be? Isn't it kind of like. . .now you're just cooking, cleaning, and more for two people instead of just one lol? Instead of women feeling lost or frustrated at the idea of them not being allowed or capable of doing anything else in their life, I think that women need to be taught that it is okay to overcome the past thoughts and teachings of only being stay at home moms and to pursue their passions and dreams, to challenge themselves to over come the stereotypes that society portrays on us. We have overcome a lot through out the years, establishing that we are equal to men, that we should be allowed to vote, that we are capable of earning the same amount of money that men earn, that we are capable of performing the same jobs that men are capable of doing and more but we still have more to overcome. . .Hillary Clinton said there's now 18 mil cracks in the ceiling. . .she did work, obtaining 18 mil votes in this past election in order to create those 18 mil cracks and we have to do even more work to break completely through that ceiling!

Anyways. . .that's just the jist of the conversation that we had today. I thought it was very interesting. I have to get some homework done, but I'll probably throw up those recipes that I discussed in the post before this later. [=