Women are told they should "have it all" but the expectations are unrealistic and unreasonable. Can a woman "have it all" - face AND bottom, career AND family, cake AND eat it? The question a woman must ask herself is: what do you really want, and who do you want it for? Are you trying to fulfill an expectation from society, or are you doing what feels right to you, and societal pressures be damned? There is no way that the former can bring anything but a sense of neurotic dissatisfaction. The whole idea that it's important for a woman to have a career at all is very modern, and supposed to be liberating for us! "Arbeit macht frei" I suppose...

In fact it is terribly difficult to combine career and family, even if you have a stay-at-home husband (who is then himself not "having it all"), a helpful granny or an expensive nanny. It is in the children's best interests to have a parent at home for them, a stranger being the worst of all choices. A father is good, but mothers are best suited to the job - the father being needed in other ways to provide a role model. It is in the female biology to have a strong urge to nurture our children. We have many related instincts, ranging from feeling broody when in close proximity to a lactating woman (detecting hormonal scents), to being drawn to the sort of professions that involve taking care of people one way or another - teacher, cleaner, nurse or secretary and so on. Even the less sociable of us like to feel that we are helping in some way, as a rule. That is if we feel any draw at all towards taking a job. (That is a big "if" and always preferable to a big "but".) Unsurprisingly, many men and women alike would sooner stay at home than go out to work. It isn't usually that they are "work shy" "good-for-nothings" of course, but rather that subconsciously there is a lack of emotional connection with the society we live in. We feel alienated from our peers, and individualism is encouraged over collective identity - ironically still resulting in a sheep-like herd behavior for the most part. At least when we are at home looking after our own family we know we are working for our own kind.

Careerism is pushed for women in the same way that other "must haves" are foisted on us such as body image, fashion and various products and lifestyle aspirations. Two foreign holidays a year, owning two newish cars and the latest gadgets is something that many take as being more important to them than children - leading to excuses they can't afford children and couples that see no alternative to both being in employment. Well that is their choice. A rotten one, just from a point of view of the unsustainable exploitation that will soon lead, not to everyone "having it all", but rather to no one having anything at all. Women who try to combine these expectations with having children really struggle. Increasingly they come to the conclusion that it is too much of a struggle and it makes them unhappy, and this is the point when realization dawns that priorities have to be decided on and put in order. Career is of less importance than being a mother, and women must stop obsessing about achieving a mythical "balance" of job and family that would make her a model member of the herd.

Our society makes impossible demands on women. True liberation comes from freeing yourself from guilt at not following the social prescription. We must look within ourselves to discover what our own deepest hopes are, and try to realistically achieve them without feeling we have to be guided in life by outside expectations. Anxiety can be replaced by a calm and confident acceptance of who you are and can be.

by Victoria McMagnus

April 22, 2008