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I feel like one of the things society doesn’t talk about enough is how much pressure is placed on women to always have everything under control.
There’s just so much expectations placed on them. The expectation of being a good daughter, a caring wife, a responsible mother, a supportive friend, and someone who can handle her own problems by herself without making too much noise about them. And when she manages to do all these things, people praise her for being strong. But what happens the day she gets tired? Do we stop to think that maybe at some points she also needs someone to ask her how she’s doing and be there for her?
Sometimes, I feel like we have become so used to seeing women handle difficult situations that we forget that they are humans too and not superheroes.
Imagine a woman taking care of her family, at the same time managing the affairs of the house, having to go work so that she can support the man of the house, and still having to look after the children. When she finally complains about being exhausted, what she might get as a reply is “Be strong. That’s what it means to be a woman.” But why does being a woman mean constantly having to endure things without having support?
In my own opinion, I don’t think strength should be measured by how much suffering or pain someone can withstand. True strength lies in the ability to ask for help when it is needed. A woman should be able to ask for help without her feeling weak for doing so. It’s absolutely okay for her to have bad days, express her frustrations; cry if necessary instead of bottling up her feelings within her. Even great heroes have the days they fall short. It’s perfectly normal and understandable if she doesn’t have everything figured out.
The reason I mentioned that last part is because a lot of us grew up with a particular picture of how we wanted our lives to be like. But often times, we end up with something different from what we had drafted out. That’s just how life is. But does this mean they should consider themselves as failures?
Absolutely not.
A woman should just condition her happiness on how closely her life matches her hopes and dreams she had when she was younger. Most importantly, she should not translate success with the way the society has defined success to be. We live in a society where success is defined by material possessions. But success is a lot more than that.
There are millions of people who acquired the wealth but still fill unfulfilled. How you know you are successful is when you’ve achieved something that comes with peace and happiness. It comes with satisfaction.
This is the reason why a lot of people come to a point in their lives where they begin to take another route because they later on realized that what they were climbing the wrong ladders the whole time.
Whatever responsibilities women have to execute, I think it’s important for them to know that they deserve to be happy. They should also not place themselves at a high esteem. It’s okay to feel vulnerable. If the people around them truly love them, then they would understand.
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