IT'S ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT, NOT WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS FROM YOU
What is it to be a woman who wants things in a world that does not belong to her. What is it to want when you are only supposed to give. It is to realize that you were lied to when the world told you who you are. The lie of what a woman is.
“It's about what you want, not what the world needs from you.” A mothers hope for a daughter's future.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” The condition we are condemned with.
“Women as Other.” The core of dehumanization in patriarchy.
Freedom, Sacrifice, Absurdity. Ideas that summarize the ahces of womanhood.
“Women only go to law school to find a lawyer husband.” an old idea I recently heard from a young man's mouth.
A sentiment that was thought to be outdated and outgrown has been reignited through the resurgence of contemporary misogyny.
The popularity of Andrew Tate and newfound palatability young men have found in misogyny serve as an unsurprising yet nevertheless concerning reminder: The popularization of Feminism has not yet saved women from being the “other” in the minds of men and the patriarchy. The idea that a womens ambitions are a means to further her ability to fill the gendered role she's been given by society is still an overwhelming one. Reflecting into the minds of young men who adamantly believe women can only want certain things; to find a husband and have kids. The expectation of devoting your life to either children, a home, or a husband to the point of relinquishing yourself relies on dehumanizing women. Sacrificing some part of yourself is a priori to accepting that subjugated position. This is why women are not supposed to want, or at least not supposed to want anything other than motherhood and domestication. Ambition is looked down on because an ambitious woman asks why not? And the answer is always because you're not supposed to. But that boat only holds water if patriarchal norms are accepted as having authority over what we are supposed to want, and what we cannot have. The nature of this relationship means rejection of these expectations is a radical act of nonconformity. This is why Men and Women have a different relationship with ambition; for Women, ambition is synonymous with abnormalization.
This is why people, despite the fact that women represent more than half of the labor force in the United States, still resist the idea of women choosing professional endeavors over domestic ones and argue that even ambitious women will eventually give in to the role of wife and mother and regret their self-sufficiency and drive. This is why the loudest defenders of patriarchy will argue that the only possible reason behind an ambitious woman is the inescapable expectation of marriage. With titles from the Atlantic like “how much ambition can a marriage sustain” or “when a promotion leads to divorce,” and “the ambition-marriage trade off” from Harvard business, it is clear that ambition and traditionally feminine roles are still considered mutually exclusive. It is implied that one destroys the other. Something about ambition in a woman destroys the role she was born to fulfill. But this is not because an ambitious woman is destructive, but because the role is fragile and was never meant to encompass a fully actualized human being. Womanhood is a condition of sacrifice of which ambition is the cure.
Bouvoire wrote, “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” It is in the bones of how we raise our children and the bedrock of our ideas and morals.
Women are taught so young that they have responsibilities. Marriage and Childrearing might not seem like enforceable obligations but when laid out in front of you as if it is your destiny, it can feel prophetic and be hard to reject. All of these responsibilities are positioned against our individuality. In fact, they almost always are seen as a choice in society that women must make, one or the other. And many women do make this false choice. A choice that only strengthens and reinforces the legitimacy of the patriarchy.
I want to emphasize the use of women as a modified existence made to morph around the needs of others, particularly men. A secondary existence that simone de beauvoir identifies. This existence is one that is unnatural and, without the pressures of society, would melt away. It is learned, reinforced, and reflective of larger socio economic conditions which would need to be addressed in an entirely different essay. But it is not something we are born as, it is something we become and can choose not to become. To un-become. It does not have to be an inevitable choice forced upon us. Or a metamorphosis from which there is no return. Ambition can coexist with any plethora of other experiences because they are all part of the human condition and the idea that we have to choose between what we will be and divorce it from anything outside of that is false.
“It's about what you want, not what the world needs from you.” Ambition and sacrifice.
Why is hiding necessary
A type of Alienation occurs under this internal contradiction that I think is worth exploring in terms of woman's relationship to “mankind”. This alienation from the self manifests as either the aforementioned sacrifices undertaken to fulfill a prescribed role or internalization where we learn to hide it from others and sometimes even ourselves.
Ambition in women, as shown by the examples of popular media, is attributed to a selfishness that only men are meant to display. The hunger for more. To want. When women display ambition, not only is it discouraged because of its implicit challenge to the impending sacrifices of womanhood, but it is also misidentified as a false alienation. The alienation from gender. This is inherently false, gender as a construct reflects a deeper material condition simply manifesting in the social. in order to reinforce the alienation caused by patriarchy and felt by women.
We intentionally suppress or even lie about intrinsic parts of our humanity to validate a divisionary framework that will never satisfy us. Our desires were never considered in the construction of the patriarchy and gendered norms and that's exactly why they pose such a threat.
Filling these roles and alienating ourselves from our desires is often a matter of survival. There is very little if any room made for women who challenge the status quo, and even less room made if those women are also members of other marginalized identities. My privilege as a white and cis passing woman has given me power to resist that others are not so lucky to be afforded. However, rejecting these roles is equally self-preserving.
My mom, who came to the United States from a very poor country without speaking any English, described her ambition and the relationship she had with it as a young woman as a matter of survival. She was too poor to eat, confining herself to a role of dependence would be a death sentence. Ambition as a response to “Get out” reflects a participation in social mobility and financial independence. And while women have been accepted more or less into the workforce for some time now, I again bring up the sacrifice they are expected to make of their position in that same workforce. Womens ambition is always seen as a means to an end. It is accepted so long as it is relinquished once you “find a husband” or settle down to procreate.
Even within that acceptability of a women’s ambition there is the implication of desperation and future dependence. Even if a woman's ambition is tolerated, it is never meant to last. The longer she is ambitious the more likely her ambition is to be twisted into aggression.