Feminism has had the side-effect of fostering the damaging ‘pursuit of it all’

I wonder if there is any girl who truly has  ‘it all’. If there is, I picture her reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ on a tube, about to chair a nondescript board meeting for a charitable organisation, wearing ethically sourced dangly earrings and a colourful, yet tasteful, power suit. She isn’t staring intensely at the dirty map, heart pounding at the thought she might get off at Charing Cross instead of Piccadilly Circus because she knows exactly where she is going. She isn’t discreetly fiddling with the bumps in the back of her hair because she used a bobby pin. She isn’t ready to cry at the prospect of delivering a speech on feminism to a group of 200 people because she made a bullet point list and even remembered to save it. 

Everyone sees this faceless woman differently, but common themes recur. The satisfying and successful career paired with the perfect relationship or family unit is an obvious staple. Once, this was probably all that the woman with it ‘all’ needed.

However, exposure to larger amounts of people and information through advances in global communication have expanded the realms of possibility (for stress). Physical attractiveness has become another paradigm of feminine success, with women needing flawless makeup (or no flaws to cover in the first place) as well as endless snazzy outfits ready to be whipped out at the gym, at work, at parties, at marches, and when on holiday.

Furthermore, social media’s presentation of these aesthetically ‘perfect’ lives has created the strange illusion that perfection doesn’t exist until displayed. After all, if you are out, but not seen out, were you even out at all?

Assuming your own inferiority can make you depersonalise those you admire and minimize their struggles in order to nurse your own poor self-esteem

Of course, it is worth mentioning that this overwhelming social pressure to strive for perfection also exists for males. However, in order to be considered successful, women seem to face a higher number of conditions. Also, not only is each factor important but their distribution disrupts the balance of how one is perceived. For example, women who are physically attractive with average intelligence are more likely to be perceived to have a lower intelligence. Furthermore, those who are intelligent, but not conventionally attractive, are less likely to receive certain opportunities.

Even if the ‘woman who has it all’ exists, superficially judging the perfection of someone’s life is never a good idea. Assuming your own inferiority can make you depersonalise those you admire and minimise their struggles in order to nurse your own poor self-esteem. This complex can create an almost permanent feeling of intimidation that prevents the development of connections with other girls. Alternatively, assuming your own superiority leads to one of the most depressing phenomena in the world: women critiquing the lifestyle choices of other women. There is always going to be a Karen writing a blog on the ‘selfishness’ of choosing a career over children, or a Kaitlyn doing a podcast on the ‘lowly’ choice of being a full-time mother. No matter what you do, it can feel like it will never be enough.

The integration of this simplistic classification of female success with the ever-evolving roles of women in today’s society leads not to productive ambition, but to almost inevitable defeat 

Feminism, like every social movement, moves like the tide; with each new wave that brings progress there is backwash. The fact that the model is now outdated does not undermine the purpose it once served. The pursuit of ‘it all’ expanded the limits of what women believed they could achieve in a time when they had been confined to singularly domestic or career roles. However, the integration of this simplistic classification of female success with the ever-evolving roles of women in today’s society leads not to productive ambition, but to almost inevitable defeat. 

The truth is that the vast majority of us are never going to be women who ‘have it all’. But, maybe we can become women who are happy with ourselves.