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Millennial Feminism Is a Lie
Growing up, I knew I could do and be anything. As a millennial woman, the world was my oyster, and the future was mine for the taking.
Credit is certainly due to my mother, Joanne, who led by example. She had a handful of careers from interior design and real estate to project management and completely revamped herself as a single mom with two young kids scaling the corporate ladder all the way to the C-suite later in life.
While this had an enormous effect on my outlook as a young woman, the seemingly subconscious cultural forces around me played more of a role in what I believed “real” success meant for a woman and it looked nothing like what I feel today, as a 35-year-old.
This is, at least in part, by my own design. The antics of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte as single twenty- and thirty-somethings were pervasive as hell. As a twenty-something myself a few years later, I ate it up and convinced myself it was the path for me too.
However, around my thirtieth birthday, this feminism, as it was sold to me, began to unravel. And today, it feels like a downright lie.
Truthfully, I’ve never called myself a feminist. I’ve also never for a second thought I wasn’t equal to a man, or anyone else for that matter. That said, the women’s rights movement is not lost on me. I know how hard activists in the past campaigned and fought for the right to vote, equal pay, and reproductive rights.
However, I think choice got lost in the decades following those historic moments.
The subconscious cultural forces noted above created a specific picture and path of success for a woman.
We were told and shown what it was — she was educated, living in a big city, single, and kicking ass in corporate America. There was no time for dating, let alone a relationship; and children were the last thing on her mind, unless the idea of becoming a mother arose in conversation around how it’d derail her career a la Miranda Hobbes. Chasing the next best thing, uprooting, and moving across the country for job opportunities, and making as much money as possible — all normal, expected, and lauded.
There was no question I’d go to college for an undergraduate degree, and I was encouraged to pursue an advanced degree even when I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. (I still don’t know but do feel I’m getting closer.)
I graduated law school with over $200,000 in student loan debt and chased a career in commercial real estate for nearly a decade, tripling my base salary and living in three of the most expensive cities in the country. I was (and am?) proud of those accomplishments but caught in what felt like a never-ending grind.
And the stress of the grind is what I believe landed me in the hospital in 2015 after waking up one morning with no feeling in both of my feet. Not pins and needles — straight up, no feeling. I figured I had pinched a nerve or slept funny and (carefully) headed into the office. A few hours later, while using the bathroom, I realized I could not feel myself wipe. It was jarring.
I headed straight for the emergency room and was poked, prodded, and questioned by well-intentioned doctors for hours. Multiple full spine and brain MRIs later, my official diagnosis was “inflammation of the spine.” At this point, I was pumped with intravenous steroids and had been admitted to the neurology unit. They had no answers but speculated multiple sclerosis. One spinal tap, additional lab work, a visit to the MS clinic at UCSF, and consultation with my amazing neurologist later, the diagnosis remained the same — inflammation of the spine. No MS diagnosis and I recovered completely, for which I am grateful. The cause? Given this was the only attack I suffered, my doctor believed stress was the likely culprit.
It was as if I was living a life, I’d worked so hard to make, without really wanting it in the first place.
I’ve had this conversation with more frequency recently. At first, I struggled to articulate my feelings but after more one-on-one time with friends and similarly situated women in my life, I know it’s a common, albeit confusing, sentiment.
The women-can-do-anything-so-long-as-the-end-goal-is-competing-with-men-in-the-workplace anthem pushed us into adulthood with a total lack of focus on what really wanted, and we all woke up one day in our mid-thirties asking what the hell we’re even doing.
This sentiment is not held exclusively by women who now want children, I should add. But those who do want children and come to that realization in their mid- to late-thirties face the very real fact of decreasing fertility and a geriatric pregnancy as they inch closer to forty.
In my twenties, I had outright convinced myself I never wanted kids. Or so I thought? Candidly, I’m still working through what I felt and whether it was a legitimate lack of desire for them or more active suppression because I was “busy” doing other things.
But I can say, once I hit 30, my feelings began to shift. Upon meeting my now husband (later that same year), I felt pangs of wanting to get married and eventually, start a family. That ticking biological clock? Perhaps.
It was as if a switch had flipped — almost instantly — and ignoring it wasn’t an option. By this point, I’d become more comfortable around kids generally and I paid attention to, even smiled at, babies in the wild (on flights, while grocery shopping, when my friends and family started having kids).
However, I was fully focused on the demands of my corporate job.
At that point, I felt I’d reached the pinnacle of my career. The “pinnacle” being feeling important in my day-to-day (negotiating multi-million-dollar real estate deals), having nearly complete autonomy in my schedule, and of course, making enough money to pay off $75,000 of private student loan debt in a year and save and spend as I wished all while living in San Francisco.
Never mind that in my last 12 or so months working in the corporate world, I had chronic migraines, vision issues, eye ticks, and at times, crippling lower back spasms. I recall recoiling in pain while on a call, while my back spasmed uncontrollably. I yelled for Eric, my now-husband-then-boyfriend, to come into my office to help me get on the hardwood floor so I could lay flat. I threw back a few ibuprofen, strapped on a heating pad, and laid as straight as possible for the next few hours until my bladder forced me to crawl to the bathroom down the hall.
All of that, to be laid off the following year.
The silver lining of interviewing during a pandemic was the opportunity to reflect on my priorities and build my own business. At first, I wanted the corporate world back. But then I realized I had another set of competing goals that I previously never had the space to acknowledge.
As I reflect on the past decade, the years I spent chasing this very narrowly defined version of success left me feeling as though my choices were limited. And with all honesty, without my husband’s encouragement and support (emotionally and financially), I’d probably still be grinding in that never-ending cycle.
I’m genuinely happier today but also struggling with how to align career and money-making goals with wanting to be a mom and raise a family and making the latter two my priority.
Honestly, it’s been a challenging realization to reach. Without a doubt, there is a veil of judgment cast upon women who choose to follow the unconventional path and focus on family over career. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I fully accepted how my goals and focus have shifted and I believe that judgment is part of the reason why.
Real feminism is zero judgment for whatever a woman decides is her path: a traditional career, no career, homeschooled kids, no kids. To each their own, the beauty is in the choice. However, I worry many women have been unconsciously conditioned by these cultural forces that discourage pausing to consider what makes them happy or brings them purpose — particularly in relation to family and children.
And I say this as a woman who lost sight of that very thing.
As my husband and I try to conceive, and as I share that here, it feels vulnerable and exciting at the same time. However, I know, to my core, that having kids will be the most rewarding experience of our lives.
Raising babies, our next generation, is the most important and selfless thing anyone can do. And women are legitimately wired for it; it’s in our DNA. Let’s stop acting like that is a bad thing or less than anything else, especially an 80-hour-a-week job to pay down the student loan debt for the degree you never wanted in the first place.
Olivia Hutchins is a Philadelphia native, Realtor, and freelance writer based in Denver.
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Given my career, I have seen variations on Olivia’s experiences dozens of times.
I would submit that not having children/family being seen as “the conventional path” just might be the single biggest issue.
Thank you for sharing.
I will pray for your success with having kids.
Wow – outstanding story! I’m sorry for the pain you suffered, but this story can be a wake up call to so many. I’m of that generation that got those wheels turning, and saw life the way you have. My older cousins were also conditioned 10-15 years before me. Equal pay, fairness in the workplace, etc. was legitimate. But there was this battle of the sexes since things changed so rapidly, and everyone went to extremes. I look at your generation and still see the same things – yet there seems to be less respect among men and women, (when there should be more by now), like there’s fear in any kind of real commitment and very high expectations. Maybe our generation was too free-spirited to make family life a priority, so moms (and society in general) push their girls too hard. I always loved that movie Baby Boom with Diane Keaton – it seemed to hit the nail on the head even back then.
I hope more young women find that balance – you are a role model here!
Good luck to you in figuring out the balance you want.
My advice: start framing that as “if” you have kids. This is another great lie that feminism has been preaching for decades: that medical science has cured infertility and conceiving in one’s thirties and forties is no big deal. It’s equally wrong and equally pernicious as the notion that living life SITC style is fulfilling.
You may get lucky. You may sneak between the 50% chance of conception within a year for a woman at 35 Scylla and the 25% miscarriage rate for a woman of the same age Charybdis. But you also may find yourself depleting all your financial assets with endless shots and procedures that have no better than a coin flip’s chance of success. Accept that now, because people who will go against the narrative and tell you that are rarer than hen’s teeth.
Oh, and if you don’t catch a silver bullet, prepare for people to suggest adoption when said people think it still works the way it did when Matthew Cuthbert brought home Anne of Green Gables because the orphanage was out of teenage boys that day. There are no healthy white babies out there ready to adopt that you can pretend are your biological children, and the system will do everything in its power to avoid placing a non-white baby with white parents.
I’m more resigned to my barren fate as a victim of these lies than my tone might suggest. But that doesn’t cool my anger at the people who lied to me and continue to spread these lies.
What a brutally honest and well told story of one woman’s life in Corporate America.
I have never envied the women your age, despite the notion that somehow your age group has it easier than those who paved the road. (A supposition I am not sure I believe.)
For me, the stiletto heels that seem de rigeur as part of the female uniform, 2005 to now, suggests a precarious footing would be all that is offered for many women so earnestly focused on climbing up the ladder to the top of the business world.
The upside is the challenge figuring out how to make it in the business world with your own business. For which you now have a great deal of experience. Best of luck to you in your future.
What a tough story. I am sorry, and I pray that you are blessed with young’uns of your own.
I meet young fire-breathing career women, and I always find an excuse to mention how every woman I have ever met who had kids older than 30 have said they regret not having had kids earlier.
I second this.
Welcome to Ricochet, Olivia. Thanks for an eye-opening and astonishingly honest first post. Please write more.
May your dreams appear, and then come true.
Bob Hope famously said that he left California when gay relationships were legalized because he didn’t want to be there when they became mandatory.
I’ve said elsewhere that one of the weird things about women is that “what they want” is spoken of as though it is knowable and universal, a one-size-fits-all solution that is uniquely female. It used to be babies in the bad old days, but Feminism Saved The Day.
It is an odd tendency of the left to insist on there being a choice and then proceeding to make the new option the default.
Making something of yourself is to be admired of course, but making something of children is irreplaceable.
btw women mostly want the same stuff men want, but in slightly different modes; self- and other-esteem, safety, comfort, mental stimulation, a sense of accomplishment.
Basic human being-type stuff.
Weird.
Marxism consists in insisting everyone is equal. Few people suspected that Corporate America could have Marxist underpinnings.
As a wise person has observed, under capitalism the wealthy get powerful and under communism the powerful get wealthy.
Besides motherhood, feminism seems to have eliminated another option for women: the well-rounded life. Women who follow the feminist ideal of climbing professional hights don’t have much time to engage in hobbies, domestic pleasures, deep friendships, and other activities that can give them joy and meaning. These activities don’t bring money or fame. They don’t prove some ideological point (e.g., that women are as capable as men). But they are fufilling, broadening, useful, and fun.
I encourage you to consider them. You might like to become active in local government, join a book club, learn to paint, volunteer at a food bank, deepen your spiritual life, improve your cooking skills, or spend more time with loved ones. Regardless of whether you conceive (and I earnestly hope you do), please consider some of the nonprofessional ways to contribute to the world and enjoy life.
Cats are great too. For relaxation and a lot more. Rescues of course. Best to get a pair, especially if they’re young. Or a bonded pair if local shelters have trouble placing them, since they really shouldn’t be split up.
A heart of cat tails:
Main Feed on the first go!
I feel the need to depart somewhat from the affirming comments above.
The title of this post is incorrect. Feminism isn’t a lie, or rather it is, but that isn’t the problem. Feminists are liars — that’s the problem.
“Feminism is a lie” is the sort of dispassionate, non-judgmental, lifeless phrasing that lets one grumble without truly getting to the crux of the issue: Feminists lie. Perhaps some believe the lie, or perhaps they believe it’s OK to lie “for the greater good,” or maybe they’re just sociopaths watching the world burn. It doesn’t really matter why — they lie.
Then there are all the non-feminist women who nevertheless go along with the lie due to social pressure, who lie so as not to loose social status or whatever.
Which brings me to the other problem with “Feminism is a lie.” It absolves women, writ large, of any blame. This is a common trope among women. If there’s something that can be blamed on men, however tenuously, it will be. However, if something is the fault of women, it’ll be blamed on “society” or some such nebulous thing (“feminism” in this case). For example, women blame society for the pressure that they feel to measure up to super models in fashion magazines. News flash ladies: Those magazines are written for women, largely by women, after decades of market research into what appeals to women. “Society” didn’t do this, the female half of society — women — did.
So don’t blame Feminism. Blame the women, feminist or otherwise, who lied. Ask your mothers, aunts, college professors, etc., for an apology. Without some accountability, nothing will change.
Good points.
Some of the problems for today’s young women started in their grandmothers’ and mothers’ generation.
The truth is that men find accomplished, confident, and financially independent women very attractive. All of the negative stereotypes about married middle-aged women came about for a reason. And they were often abandoned by their husbands and children. It doesn’t matter whose fault that was–their own, perhaps, for letting their looks go and not building up a life filled with achievements outside a workplace–the fact was that they were caricatured and disparaged. Their granddaughters and daughters did not want to experience that kind of social rejection.
For people without secure assets, college looked like a way to acquire skills and a resume and ultimately independent wealth.
Feminism as a drive to help women achieve financial independence came about for good reasons.
We need to fix a lot of things now. I don’t see a solution. For women to have the kind of financial security men have, it takes years women don’t have and debt they can’t afford.
If we could remove romance from the life-planning calculations, it would be easy to fix these problems. The intense love between a man and a woman that is needed to form a family that will last fifty years cannot be contrived. :-)
That’s because they require no commitment from men, unlike women who are dependent. It’s like men being supporters of abortion.
Being a CEO isn’t financial security. If it’s only supporting one person, it’s financial gluttony. A steady and modest income is secure. No one needs to break glass ceilings for that.
I am not trying to be critical of women who choose that lifestyle, but let’s be honest here… if feminism is about survival, independence, and security, it didn’t need to push women into such high ambition areas.
Were they pushed or seduced into it? I think most of them enjoyed the prestige of being a CEO. :-) There are very few young women who do not want to be smart, beautiful, rich, and accomplished–that is, respected and honored by all and not dependent on anyone.
It takes too much effort to reach the C suite or to even become a doctor or lawyer for me to believe that it wasn’t a choice the women made for themselves to achieve something they wanted.
Men wanted those achievements and a family too. That’s why they so often married their younger secretary, had children, and supported that wife and family. :-) That way they could have both.
As I said, it remains complicated for women. They don’t want financial dependence. And they can’t make some accomplished and wealthy guy fall in love in with them at just the right time.
Some truth to that. However, looking at the bigger picture, I don’t see anything wrong with statements such as “communism is a lie,” or “socialism is a lie.” Ideologically, there are always leaders and followers. Leaders of cults–of whatever sort–are liars. Sometimes, their followers are just deluded fools who, if they are lucky, wake up at some point.
Lots of the folks who think that feminism, or socialism, or communism, are ideologies to praise are just clueless.
OK.
I’m not sure how anything in this post, or in any of the comments on this post can be viewed as “blaming men” for anything.
IMHO, seeking to assign “blame” and “fault” for every single thing in life is a fruitless pursuit.
So, you’re “blaming” women? LOL.
LOL.
N.B: Nothing in the above should be construed to excuse the stupidity or blameworthiness of many in the human race, both men and women, who’ve brought us to the current pass.
Only for the novelty. Speaking at the same level of generalizaton here, men don’t care about your accomplishments or your money, and confidence just makes the chase a better quality of game.
Men want young, chaste, agreeable women. It’s genetic, it’s not going to change, and it is right and proper to want these things. Feminism lied to men as well, and tries to dictate to men the nature of men. It just ain’t so.
It is the narrow definition of “accomplished” that has failed. Seduced or pushed, I think both.
Maybe the issue was lower class women with heritages in constant work suddenly having so much free time from technological advances that they had no idea what to do with the free time. Their parents and grandparents only knew constant work to keep the home clean, kids fed, and a roof over the head… to suddenly not need to work so hard?
The upper classes had already developed their own idea or concept of “accomplished” for women – charity and the arts.
Lower class had to invent a new way, and I suppose if accomplishment was defined by hard work, that’s what you did. But how is it we excised raising a family from the accomplishments?
And maybe we should push for a new ideal of “accomplished” that includes recreational arts and household maintenance (beyond cleaning it)!
I’m spending my week changing faucets on all my sinks. I like plumbing (weird) but not enough to make a living off it. Just enough to want to save us money on this or that repair or project.
By the way, Great Post! And I presume that those are references to the Sex and the City propaganda feed?
Glad you found a path you like, and I wish you great things in your current efforts!
I’m kind of laughing here. There’s one other aspect of this debate that has not been touched upon.
The mass media, Dead Poets’ Society image of obedient children who do whatever their parents tell them to do and choose careers according to what their parents want them to do always makes us laugh. Who are these kids? We have never met these obedient children.
Granted, we live in Massachusetts, and we wonder if there’s something in the water here that makes all children argumentative. But in all of the families we know and our own kids, the kids have been influenced by their friends, their teachers, and the media they read or watch. Not their parents.
We couldn’t have pushed our kids into a particular college or career if our lives depended on it.
We think this is a myth of some kind being promulgated by the television producers and teenage literature publishers. :-)
That’s very sweet. I hope that’s true. It doesn’t seem true. When I see the women that men fawn over, those women are all those good things–accomplished, confident, and independent.
In my own life experience, I had a foot in both worlds. I was a freelance editor for a couple of major publishers, and I was also a mother of three kids. When I would introduce myself as a mom, the reaction was a big nothing. When I would introduce myself as an editor, then people would want to get to know me. :-)
It’s sad. I happen to think being a mom bringing up self-sufficient kids is a huge achievement. I am so grateful my husband values the work I’ve done. He is still supporting me. :-)
But in my experience, no one else does. It’s wishful thinking to imagine otherwise, at least from my experience.