Today's young women are having struggles with career and life decisions, second-guesses on the road not taken, and the belief that they should, would, could, and will have it all: a successful career, a fabulous husband, great sex, beautiful, smart children, and the home of their dreams. They don't want to accept anything less than perfection. And we have our body images to live up to, just like the Barbie Dolls. We just can't be good enough, responsible enough or even polite enough to one another.
Women, as a whole, aim to please. We want to please our men, our children, and our friends. We seem to be hard-wired in that direction, we don't want to let anyone down, so we hang in there not wanting to disappoint. Yet, studies show girls have many more stress-related problems than boys such as depression, eating disorders, and migraines.
Why is this? For the most part, we've been conditioned to please and to take responsibility for everyone's happiness [maybe except our own]. We were inculcated this way, the fulfillment of the 'female binary' awaits us. This notion takes us back to essentialism, which maintains the male/female binary and essentialist view through which women traditionally have been rendered as 'less than'. Our binary dictates we are supposed to be weak, passive, followers. If we are taught we are less than, how can we ever be good enough?
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