What is the role of women?

I've written about feminism and how that has changed how women's roles have been seen. However, I'd be naive to believe that we live in a utopia where women can stay home, go to work, do both or neither and not be judged for it.

If you read any famous work of women’s literature or ask your grandparents about it, it’s easy to see how there hasn’t been as much growth in the thought process as we’d like to believe.

Sure, we can vote, drive, go to work, and do all those things we previously weren’t allowed to do, but even with the changes in opportunities for women, the expectations have never changed. If you’re a woman, you have to be it all.

SuperMom. SuperMaid. SuperWife. SuperEmployee.

You have to do it all, be it all and God forbid you ever let those sharks see you cry. It’s not allowed.

So let’s do the math.

Before, you had to be the amazing housewife, who cooked and cleaned, made Halloween costumes from scratch, never missed a PTA meeting and woke up at 7 A.M. so that you could be fully dressed and made up to take your child to the bus stop.

Now, everything said above with the addition of a full-time job.

When does this stop? What does this say about us as a society?

It doesn’t stop. Unfortunately, I don’t think it ever will. Our mother had to do it, so we have to do it. We have to do it, so our children will do it, too.

We’d love to stop, but the truth is, we’re women. The expectations are greater and our losses are higher.

A mom who works full time is labeled a bad mom because she doesn’t get her kid to the bus on time every day, or is prone to order out because she’s too tired to cook.

A woman in her mid-thirties without children is automatically looked down on or seen as a failure, even though she’s part of the relatively minuscule group of women who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned if we don’t.

As women in the 21st century, we’re predestined for the double shift.

This is why I don’t believe women should be shamed for being a stay-at-home mom, for choosing not to have children, for choosing to go into the workforce or any other combination of the three.

They should be supported and, in turn, when it’s time to raise our own daughters, we should make sure they know that any option they choose is perfectly acceptable.