Today's women find themselves at an odd historical juncture. Our liberties include the ability to vote, own property, pursue further education, work in any field, and manage our own reproduction—things that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers could only imagine. However, in spite of these hard-won triumphs, contemporary women also experience a new kind of oppression: the oppressive burden of social norms that appear to negate the same choices that these liberties were intended to safeguard.

"When will you get married?" is one of the intrusive and unrelenting queries. "Are you dating someone?" "You don't want kids?" "Doesn't your biological clock worry you?" These cross-cultural and cross-continental questions highlight how little our perception of women's value and role has actually evolved.

What our ancestors fought for

We must keep in mind the sacrifices made by women of the past generation to ensure our liberties in order to comprehend the sorrow of our current circumstance. These were personal struggles fought by women for women because they believed that future generations should have a say. They weren't just theoretical political triumphs.

The right to education

The struggle for women's education was lengthy and intense. Oberlin College was the first institution in the US to award bachelor's degrees to female students in 1847. It wasn't until 1948, over a century later, that women in Britain were permitted to get degrees from Cambridge University. The radical notion that women's ideas were valuable was the reason the suffragettes shackled themselves to railings in addition to demanding the right to vote.

Today, universities all over the world are teeming with bright young women who are thriving in a wide range of fields, including business, engineering, medicine, law, and more. What transpires after graduation, however, is another matter. Even while women outperform males in the classroom, they nevertheless encounter many obstacles at employment.The gender pay gap still exists, with women making 16% less than males, albeit the exact number varies by nation1.

In her 1792 work "A Vindication of the Right of Women," Mary Wollstonecraft made the case that women should have access to education in order to become better mothers and wives as well as to become more intelligent individuals. These women recognised that education was the foundation for all other liberties, and that we still fight to be compensated on par with males in today's culture.

Economic independence

It was revolutionary to have the freedom to work and make money on your own. Many nations had laws prohibiting women from working in specific professions or from continuing to work after marriage until the middle of the 20th century. In the UK civil service, the "marriage bar" wasn't removed until 1946. Women were not allowed to apply for credit cards in the US without a male co-signer until 1974.

Women like Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to hold a pilot's license; Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize; and Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, not only broke down barriers but also dispelled the idea that women's contributions were less important than men's. The radical notion that women might be economically independent was what they battled for.

Reproductive rights

Reproductive autonomy was arguably the most difficult freedom to achieve. Margaret Sanger was arrested several times for distributing contraceptive information. When the birth control pill was released in 1960, it was hailed as a medical and social revolution since it helped women regulate their menstrual problems and allowed them to arrange their lives around their own objectives rather than the timing of pregnancies.

The United States' legal right to an abortion was established in 1973 by Roe v. Wade. Similar struggles were waged all over the world, and nations like Canada, Australia, and a large portion of Europe eventually acknowledged women's autonomy over reproduction. These were not only court rulings; they were acknowledgements of women's autonomy in choosing their own trajectories.

Unfortunately, on June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was regrettably reversed, increasing the danger of unsafe abortions, increasing mortality rates, and limiting access to essential life-saving medical treatment for women.

Modern betrayal

The continuance of invasive enquiries about women's private life is a grave violation of the hard-won liberties that women have battled for throughout history. In essence, we are asking a woman to defend her use of the liberties that earlier generations fought for when we ask her, "When will you settle down?"

Although the nature of these questions has changed in tandem with shifting societal standards, their enduring character is nonetheless concerning. Unmarried women were simply viewed as "spinsters" in earlier centuries, a situation that was considered pitiable. The problems of today are more nuanced but no less troubling; they frequently take the form of helpful advice or friendly curiosity.

"You're so successful in your career, surely you want someone to share it with?"

"Have you used any dating applications? Nowadays, everyone is on them.”

"You're not getting any younger, you know."

These questions and statements expose a basic ignorance of the choices and objectives of contemporary women. They disregard the fact that people have wildly diverse objectives, schedules, and definitions of fulfilment and instead presume that all women have the same desires at the same moment.

Questions that diminish

The issue is made clear by the questions themselves. We make a number of detrimental assumptions when we inquire about a woman's relationship status or plans for procreation:

  • For women to be whole, they must have a love relationship.

  • That the main goal of women is to become mothers.

  • That connection with others comes before professional success.

  • Women's life decisions are publicly owned and subject to criticism.

  • That all women should adhere to the same timeframe.

These assumptions reduce complex, intellectual individuals to their relationship status and capacity for reproduction. These questions' fundamental presumption that all women have similar desires is their most troubling feature. They disregard the increasing number of women who are opting to stay unmarried, concentrate on their jobs, travel, engage in artistic pursuits, or make contributions to society outside of conventional family arrangements.

Some women are asexual or aromantic. Others are unable to follow typical timetables because of reproductive problems, marital stress, or familial obligations. Others have made deliberate decisions about how they choose to conduct their life and simply have different priorities.

The mental health impact

The mental health of young women suffers greatly as a result of the continuous interrogation and implicit criticism. According to research, women who feel under pressure to fit in with society's deadlines are more likely to suffer from anxiety and sadness. Making hasty judgements, choosing inappropriate relationships, or sacrificing professional objectives might result from the dread of "missing out" on customary milestones.

Many women say that having to defend or explain their decisions all the time wears them out. Although it is rarely recognised, this emotional labour—the effort to control the expectations and responses of others—represents a heavy weight that males never experience to the same extent.

The economic reality

It is especially strange that these expectations still exist in light of the economic realities that women encounter across the world. After repentance, women are advised to put finding a husband and starting a family first, but they also have to deal with gender wage disparities that make it difficult for them to become financially independent.

  • Absence of reasonably priced daycare.

  • Workplace cultures that challenge individuals without children while punishing women for having them.

  • Housing expenses that make it more and more difficult for young people to finance typical family setups.

In economic systems that penalise them for these decisions, women are supposed to desire marriage and children. This is a societal control mechanism that keeps women economically reliant and fragile, therefore it's not an accident.

The need for new narratives

The way these questions perpetuate binary thinking about women's life is arguably the most concerning. It is assumed that women must follow a straight line from school to work to marriage to motherhood, and that they must choose between a profession and a family. This disregards the fact that contemporary life is far more diversified and complex.

Some women start their jobs later and have children early. Others have families in their forties and prioritise their professions. Others explore adoption, form mixed families, or find satisfaction in mentoring jobs that do not entail biological children.

Building companies, doing scientific research, creating art, teaching, travelling, performing community work, or pursuing spiritual interests are all areas where some women find great fulfilment. On their own terms and schedule, some women do desire marriage and children. Some people just prioritise different things.

This variety was recognised by the women who battled for our liberties. The right to individuality was what they were fighting for, not the right to be the same.

In light of this, we should teach the next generation how to follow their own path, how to deviate from social expectations and make their own choices, and how to stop thinking that they are running out of time. In fact, they should take as much time as they like to travel, try new hobbies, do the things they love, and most importantly, learn about themselves.

A call for respect

In the end, it comes down to respect: respect for women's independence, intelligence, and freedom to make their own life decisions. It's about realising that women are whole human beings regardless of whether they are in a relationship or not, and that their value isn't based on how well they follow conventional schedules.

"When will you settle down?" and "Don't you want children?" are seemingly innocuous queries that reveal a deeper unease with women who don't fit into preconceived notions. They are a reflection of society's difficulty adjusting to the fact that women now have options that were unavailable to earlier generations.

Conclusion: embracing individual paths

The world is reaching a turning point. We can keep pressuring young women to adhere to timeframes that are out of date or would not be compatible with future social, economic, or personal realities.

Alternatively, we may celebrate the variety of routes women are taking and foster a culture that encourages personal fulfilment instead of adhering to antiquated standards that don't work in our changing contemporary world.

The decision we make will either result in a society that really honours women's contributions in all of their diverse forms or in a generation of worn-out, worried women striving to live up to unrealistic expectations.

Reference

1 The gender pay gap.