Can a woman have it all???
For someone, who works in a women empowerment docket that advocates the
unleashing and maximizing of human potential, sometimes i am tempted to
think that nature has really short changed us, women. Or so i have been thinking, after one of my women challenged my training and my stand as a Mijikenda role model for young girls!
I have been told over and over again that i talk too much! Of course i don't agree...heheheh! Believe me if i could tell you the things that i stop myself from saying, then you would agree that relatively i talk very little. Very very little!
That aside. The woman forced me to start thinking. About life. The life of a woman. And the expectations of society. And her dreams.
They say, reach for your dreams, go for it. There is nothing you can not do. And they get you all excited.
You grow up, go to school, graduate, get a job and a man. You are in your late twenties...the time is ticking and biology waits for no woman. This is your life.
You are supposed to get married, have babies, be an awesome wife, and the best mother in the world and adopt a whole other family that you will likely have to run. This is society's expectations.
And then there is your dreams; you want to conquer the world, (Read, advance your education, go up the corporate ladder, venture into business, and also throw in a little bit of changing the world.) And you have it all planned out so clearly, because you have been taught to believe with all your heart that you are destined for great things.
And you are supposed to juggle it all.
What they do not tell you is that this system, this whole plan more often than not, does not work out so well.
And what is just disheartening for me, is that i am yet to come across a woman who has successfully juggled these three aspects of her life and lived to tell of it.
History tells that, at some point, a woman just has to compromise. You just can not have it all! No matter how you look at it, either way, you just gotta give something. And i think it rather sad!
I remember my bushman lecturer in campus telling of evolution theories that painted the woman as the weaker and disadvantaged sex. In my opinion, then, i thought him (and the thinkers) crude, old fashioned and insulting.
I mean, how could that be? I strongly believed, and i still do, that there is no height or depth that a woman can not reach. I have seen it.
However, fast track three years down the line and i am at a cross road! And even worse, i have no response to the challenge an old woman expects an answer to.
Truth be told, beneath it all, most of us are simple girls who are conservative enough to believe in marriage and family, and yet modern enough to believe in having a career and attaining self-actualization. And most of us want it all.
But after lengthy lectures from my rural women proving the contrary, i find myself wondering, is it really true that we can not have it all?
I mean, seriously, is life orchestrated in a way that either way, a woman just can not win???!
And if we can, can someone please share the secret?!!! Because i seriously need a solid answer to preach to to these old women and young girls that are eagerly waiting to hear from me very very soon.
And i plan nail it right on the head!
I have been told over and over again that i talk too much! Of course i don't agree...heheheh! Believe me if i could tell you the things that i stop myself from saying, then you would agree that relatively i talk very little. Very very little!
That aside. The woman forced me to start thinking. About life. The life of a woman. And the expectations of society. And her dreams.
They say, reach for your dreams, go for it. There is nothing you can not do. And they get you all excited.
You grow up, go to school, graduate, get a job and a man. You are in your late twenties...the time is ticking and biology waits for no woman. This is your life.
You are supposed to get married, have babies, be an awesome wife, and the best mother in the world and adopt a whole other family that you will likely have to run. This is society's expectations.
And then there is your dreams; you want to conquer the world, (Read, advance your education, go up the corporate ladder, venture into business, and also throw in a little bit of changing the world.) And you have it all planned out so clearly, because you have been taught to believe with all your heart that you are destined for great things.
And you are supposed to juggle it all.
What they do not tell you is that this system, this whole plan more often than not, does not work out so well.
And what is just disheartening for me, is that i am yet to come across a woman who has successfully juggled these three aspects of her life and lived to tell of it.
History tells that, at some point, a woman just has to compromise. You just can not have it all! No matter how you look at it, either way, you just gotta give something. And i think it rather sad!
I remember my bushman lecturer in campus telling of evolution theories that painted the woman as the weaker and disadvantaged sex. In my opinion, then, i thought him (and the thinkers) crude, old fashioned and insulting.
I mean, how could that be? I strongly believed, and i still do, that there is no height or depth that a woman can not reach. I have seen it.
However, fast track three years down the line and i am at a cross road! And even worse, i have no response to the challenge an old woman expects an answer to.
Truth be told, beneath it all, most of us are simple girls who are conservative enough to believe in marriage and family, and yet modern enough to believe in having a career and attaining self-actualization. And most of us want it all.
But after lengthy lectures from my rural women proving the contrary, i find myself wondering, is it really true that we can not have it all?
I mean, seriously, is life orchestrated in a way that either way, a woman just can not win???!
And if we can, can someone please share the secret?!!! Because i seriously need a solid answer to preach to to these old women and young girls that are eagerly waiting to hear from me very very soon.
And i plan nail it right on the head!
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