A Sad Truth
Have you ever been in a conversation with a friend, sister, mentor, or kind acquaintance and you know how amazing they are, but all you hear from them is how they could have done something better or put in more effort in a particular area? And all you can think is, She’s killing it. What is she talking about? If I could have a gold coin for every conversation like this, I would be rich. Like, the kind of rich that has a net worth that is in the black and not in the red. I’d own an island. I’d vacation with all my people and pay their way. I know I’m being a little over the top, but I can’t stress enough how many conversations I walk away from shaking my head, saddened at how that person doesn’t see her own shine, how she can’t see her own wins.
Love of self might be the single hardest kind of love out there. I am surrounded by amazing women (and those identifying as women) in my life, and yet there is a constant self-loathing (or a lack of self-love) that is a recurring theme, sadly.
When I began this journey of writing, I knew some topics were near and dear to my heart, and speaking to women and encouraging them to celebrate their wins and to love themselves were definite “must-haves” if I found myself fortunate to be on a platform such as this.
I have put countless hours of thought into why women are so hard on themselves – why I’ve been so hard on myself. There are a few reasons that I realized led to this issue, to this sad truth.
Traditions With Repercussions
Women traditionally are the caretakers, the nucleus of the family; they are the encouragers and the motivators; the cheerleaders even when they have very little cheer left, especially for themselves. Caring for others is a full-time, underpaid, underappreciated, and often unrecognized job that many women continue to take on with the full force and full faith that their efforts will be worth it in the end. Worth the anxiety, worth the sleepless nights, worth the postponing of self-care, worth the sacrifices that might include a smaller wardrobe or personal items which are second-hand or purchased based solely on a budgeted price. And it will be worth it in the end. But what robs much of that worth are the effects of doing this incredible job without the love of self.
And don’t misconstrue anything: I am talking about all women and those identifying as women who are mothers, sisters, friends, teachers, doctors, cooks, bus drivers, aunts, engineers, CEOs, and warehouse workers. I’m talking about parents and non-parents alike: women take care of others oftentimes ahead of themselves, if they even get around to taking care of themselves.
Who Made These Expectations?
As I reflect on my early years as a wife and mother, I can recall many moments when my family came first. Whether it was my time, my energy, the food being cooked and served, or even the quality and quantity of clothes I bought the kids – I was certain they deserved the best. And they did. But so did I.
It’s often hard to reflect on my early years as a wife and mother since they were tainted with the reality of being in an abusive marriage. I pause when I reflect because I sometimes ask myself, “Did I do what I did because I had to, or because I wanted to? Did I prepare homemade food because it was expected of me, or because it was in me? Did I put myself last because that’s my nature, or because I had no other choice?” It’s taken years of searching within myself and observing my actions post-abuse, contemplating how I am now that I am out of my abusive marriage, to know that I did it because it was in me! It is in me.
What I wish had been in me during those early years was the consideration that I mattered. I matter. Then and now. And abusive marriage aside (which feels impossible to simply disregard), when thinking of healthier relationships, I noticed expectations I felt within my home and marriage which were both unspoken and spoken, not only by my abusive ex-husband but by society at large.
Our society in America has created some unrealistic ideas about almost every people group on the face of this earth. No surprise there, but unpacking the ideas and countering them is the tough part. Recognizing some of these false ideas for what they are and not internalizing them or trying to live up to them can be completely overwhelming
One of the many unrealistic ideas society has of women as a whole is that women are supposed to “just figure it out.” What are they supposed to figure out? They are supposed to figure out how to be beautiful by someone else’s standards, not necessarily their own. They are supposed to figure out how to balance home and work (if working outside of the home) and not complain about it when it gets tough. Women are supposed to figure out how to manage the many personalities in the home if they are a parent and/or partner and do it unwaveringly and skillfully 100% of the time. Women aren't supposed to be too emotional and definitely not too "masculine." Depending on the household, a woman might be expected to be the primary keeper of the home, which could include children or aging parents, even when they have full-time jobs just like their significant other.
Other homes might have a single woman, or two women who are partners, yet the expectation to care for others might still be with extended family or those at work. No matter the makeup of the home, the notion that women should, and will, just "figure it out" leaves little room for grace-especially for the women expected to shoulder the majority of the tasks.
The belief that women should want to, and be able to "do it all" still seems to be alive and well. Maybe at different times in history, it appeared the female population asked to have it all. But asking for respect, equal pay, to be considered for a job when qualified, to be respected for contributions to all spaces, for rights that reflect female humanness – these requests should not inherently mean women want to "do it all." It should indicate women want what is fair and right, access to be who they want to be, but in a larger sense.
Women continue to vocalize the need for equal rights in all spaces, yet women continue to be viewed as not being built for leadership. According to the Pew Research Center article, "The Data on Women Leadership," in 2021 women made up 26% of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, an all-time high for this role (which stayed below 6% from 1965-1991); to date of the article in January 2021, 44 women had served as governor in only 30 of the country's states, with the first woman being elected on her own in 1975; by 2020 women serving as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies had reached 7.4%, a record high.
Additionally, the article "The Women's Leadership Gap" continues to display other areas of leadership in which women are underrepresented despite their achievements in education. For example, although women made up 50.8% of the U.S. population in 2018, earned more than 57% of the undergraduate degrees and 59% of all master's degrees, in medicine women represented 40% of all physician and surgeon roles with only 16% being permanent medical school deans. In the same year, while women earned the majority of doctorates in education eight years in a row, they only filled 32% of full professor roles and only 30% of college presidents.
These disparities and gaps demonstrate how women are not viewed as equal to their male counterparts in roles of leadership – we still have yet to have a female president 234 years after our first president took his oath of office. How is that possible??
Women are capable of leading, they lead every day in multiple ways.
Whether training co-workers, volunteering as a coach for a local soccer team or basketball club, or leading a webinar on best practices for investments, women make amazing leaders and need to be included in these roles – we are in the 21st century for goodness sake! A stay-at-home mom is as powerful as a female truck driver. The school principal who is a woman is as capable as a female rocket scientist who is changing our very future. The grocery store clerk who identifies as non-binary but has experience with femaleness is as beautiful as the supermodel who might be fighting to be seen beyond her outer shell.
Sadly, our patriarchal society has shaped the understanding of the female experience, resulting in skewed viewpoints and expectations of women. Who can define a woman other than herself? Who can determine what she wants better than herself? Who can tell her what she is capable of better than herself? Whether your pronouns are she/hers/her or they/their/them, if you possess feminine essence, who better to know what you are about than yourself? Definitely not society!
Being Who Women Want To Be
Let’s give ourselves permission to be who we want to be, in the larger sense of who we are when existing outside of social norms or societal expectations, and outside of cultural and historical expectations. We must recognize that others have placed expectations on women and these arbitrary expectations only reflect the ideas of the ones who placed them there. That these ideas leave women internalizing their ability or inability to meet these imposed expectations. This doesn’t seem very fair and leaves women feeling the imbalance of working to live up to the expectations of others who haven’t walked a day in her shoes.
Why do others get to tell women what they want, how they feel, and what is worthy of their time and attention?
When will we silence society's biased voice and say what we want, what we think, and what we need?
The more we learn about self-care, trauma-informed care, and societal pressures on underrepresented people groups, the more we are understanding the damage done to the very psyche of these groups both centuries before us, and hopefully far less in number as we move into the future.
It doesn’t matter if you were born a woman, identity as a woman, or simply love a woman – can we all agree that being a woman in our society isn't always easy? Can we agree that womanhood in 21st Century America could use an upgrade? And that upgrade can start with women!
Love Yo' Self!
Where do we start with an upgrade? Let’s take better care of ourselves. Let’s speak up when we are hurting. Let’s accept help when it’s offered, and ask for help when we need it. Let’s rest and not feel a mountain of guilt for not doing more from our list of “to-do’s.” Let’s enjoy a song in the car a little longer, and have an extra dollop of ice cream. Let’s come home a little later so we can have five more minutes of meaningful conversation. Let’s give ourselves grace when we lose our cool with our friends, our pets, the car that cut us off in rush hour traffic, our loved ones, and ourselves. Let’s love ourselves more and genuinely forgive ourselves for whatever shortcomings we have or areas we still seek improvement.
We might not be able to change how society views us. We might not be able to immediately foster change in the minds of those considering us for a job when they see our gender vs our abilities. We might be slow to correct the misnomers out there about what women want and are working hard to achieve. But what we CAN do is love ourselves. LOVE OURSELVES.
Love of self might be the single hardest form of love – but you deserve it. I deserve it. We deserve it. So let's give it – take time today, tomorrow, and every tomorrow to love yo' self!
