{"id":18,"date":"2016-03-09T09:01:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T09:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/beverlynlaw\/?p=18"},"modified":"2016-05-07T04:22:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T04:22:13","slug":"down-with-the-patriarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/beverlynlaw\/2016\/03\/09\/down-with-the-patriarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"Down with the Patriarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does being a woman<\/i> change the definition of success?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it shouldn\u2019t. But Western society disagrees with me. <\/span><\/p>\n

As society portrays it, success\u00a0for a man\u00a0<\/em>is being financially well off in order to provide for his family. But <\/span>for a woman, <\/span><\/i>success<\/span>\u00a0mainly revolves around raising a family while also being financially accomplished, having a college degree, looking young and beautiful, maintaining a social life, excelling in cleaning and cooking, attending PTA meetings\u2026 the list goes on. But in short, it\u2019s the expectation for a woman to be able to carry out all these tasks with ease <\/em>while also caring for a family.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But let\u2019s see what Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former professor and director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department, has to say about this. In her essay, \u201cWhy Women Still Can\u2019t Have It All,\u201d Slaughter shares her experience of working in D.C. and how it was difficult to balance both her job and her role as a mother. She concluded that:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018[Women] can have it all\u2019 is simply airbrushing reality\u201d (680).<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Society has placed an unfair expectation for young women of my generation to be powerful leaders while simultaneously caring for a family and <\/span>\u201chaving it all.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

However, there is also a contradictory social expectation that women shouldn\u2019t even be involved in business and that they should just be homemakers.<\/p>\n

But didn\u2019t we just establish that success for a woman meant also being financially successful while\u00a0<\/em>raising a family?\u00a0Seems like society will never be satisfied with women.<\/b><\/p>\n

Sheryl Sandburg, the current chief operating officer of Facebook, explains in her essay, “Lean In: What Would You Do If You Weren\u2019t Afraid?” that:<\/p>\n

\u201cfemale accomplishments come at a cost<\/b>\u2026there is still societal pressure for women to keep an eye on marriage<\/strong> from a young age\u201d (648).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Slaughter also recalls how her parents<\/p>\n

\u201cemphasized marriage even more [than academic achievement]\u201d <\/b>and how they explained to her that \u201cthe most eligible women marry young to get a \u2018good man\u2019<\/strong> before they are all taken\u201d (680).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both Slaughter and Sandburg observed that women need to sacrifice certain aspects of their life in order to be successful in another aspect. To put it in another way, both Slaughter and Sandburg are establishing that success for a woman is nearly impossible to reach because of societal gender roles. For instance, society has established that earning a college degree is a definition of success that both men and women should try to attain. However,\u00a0<\/em>there is also the societal expectation on women<\/em> should carry the responsibility of raising the family, which forces women to choose between her education\/career and her family.\u00a0Women can\u2019t have both; women can\u2019t \u201chave it all.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

So, the <\/span>real <\/span><\/i>questions you should be asking are: <\/span><\/p>\n

Why is success different for a <\/span>man <\/span><\/i>versus for a <\/span>woman<\/span><\/i>? Why can\u2019t <\/span>women <\/span><\/i>do what they want? Why does success<\/span> for a woma<\/span><\/i>n always revolve around family? Why does success <\/span>for a woman<\/span><\/i> mean handling everything all at once?<\/span><\/p>\n

So many questions, and they all share a common answer: <\/span><\/p>\n

Our<\/span> patriarchal <\/span><\/a>society is at fault.<\/span><\/p>\n

Success can be anything <\/i>and gender should not play a role in determining what success looks like. However, it is clear from Slaughter\u2019s quote that success is not a gender-neutral term because of the expectation placed on women to raise the family. This brings us into the discussion of feminism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Some say that women are oppressing themselves and that feminism is a delusional movement. Others say that feminism has become a movement of hating men. But do anti-feminists realize that our societal standards for success, beauty, happiness, and normality are generally determined by straight, older white males.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what is it really?<\/span><\/p>\n

Buzzfeed<\/a>, an internet media based company that shares viral news and other enjoyable themes to viewers, made a short documentary about the definition of feminism.<\/span><\/p>\n