Can Women Really Have It All??? // Dannet Palacios

 

Image from www.huffingtonpost.com

Gone (hopefully) are the days when women were expected to stay at home, take care of the children, household, and husband. Women have worked hard to change societal expectations and definitions of being a woman. Yet a lingering question remains: Can a woman really have it all? So what does this question even mean? Who defines what having it all means? Does society still dictate this issue, or do women get to decide what “having it all” means to them. This issue seems to be a debate fueled by media, men, and women around the world, and will not likely have a resolution any time soon.

So I ask women everywhere to consider my original questions. Whose rules or expectations are you going to follow? When I think of these same questions, I ask myself: What does it mean to me to have it all? Am I thinking of material items, family, and a career? Is it even possible to have ever have it all?

I believe there may be a misperception by larger society of what it means for women to have it all. It seems to me, that for women to have it all, said woman should have a successful career, a partner, and children. She should be able to juggle household duties, multiple children, and their related activities while being the best in her career, and having a successful relationship with her partner. In other words, she should be a Wonder Woman. Is this a realistic and actual expectation that women should have for themselves and other women? Well, that is not for me to decide. Instead, I believe that women should redefine their own expectations of what having it all means, and choose to live instead by those standards. Choose to ignore what society or others think you should be doing, be and do instead what makes you happy. Women embrace our own uniqueness and realize that all women have different strengths and weakness, which does not make them better or worse than any other women. Women should unite in this debate and support other women in defining their own choices. After all is that not what women rights are ultimately about?