Feminism is at a weird place right now where we have decided to take advantage of the stereotypes and double standards that we have been forced into. During my college search I applied to schools that I had little to no chance of getting into but surprise, I got into them. Most likely this was because I was a woman going into engineering and these schools didn't care if my scores were good enough, they only cared about boasting an 80/20 ratio of male to female students at their engineering school. Going into my second year of college I'm thinking about changing my major to computer science and I am very vocal about being lost, people need to know they aren't alone in not knowing what they want to do. We've all been there.
Recently I had a conversation with a stranger about this transition, she asked what I was majoring in and I told her that honestly I was on track for engineering but that I wasn't happy and I was looking for a change. She told me that I should keep with engineering because there aren't very many women in engineering and that I could have any job I wanted. I had just told her I was unhappy but again I reminded her that I hadn't enjoyed physics and that I found something else I had actually wanted to do. She told me to "suck it up" because it's just one class and I won't have to have a job where I do that. Engineering is applied physics so I would have to "suck it up" for 4 years and just be miserable to eventually get a job. But what kind of a job would I get? An engineering job, where I would be engaging in physics every day. So basically she was telling me to "suck it up" for my entire life just to take advantage of sexism in the STEM world.
You would never tell a man to get a degree in something they are not happy in to get a job in a field they don't want to be in. "Just suck it up and be a nurse, there aren't many men in nursing so you can get whatever job you want." No, you would laugh if someone said this to a man. It's a joke to tell a man to do something they don't want to do because men are in control of their own destiny where women have to make their choices based on how society will accept them.
So yes, while we live in a world of sexism and double standards but we should not take advantage of them just to end up oppressed even more. Use this society to launch yourself into something you want, use the system to get into colleges and get jobs but do not let the system trick you into thinking you have to do something just because you have the chance.
