Expectations versus Reality: The Hidden Pressures on Women {Guest Post from Anna in Wonderland}

Hello readers!  Today I'm going to turn the blog over to the beautiful Anna of Anna in Wonderland!  She's put together a wonderfully thought provoking blog post for you and I hope you give it a read and leave her some love.  Before I turn it over, a little bit about Anna:  Anna is an intelligent and gorgeous American girl living in the UK.  She's a PhD student, an author, and a beauty blogger who covers a wide range of things.

Find Anna: Blog | Facebook | YouTube | Website

Expectations versus Reality: The Hidden Pressures on Women

When you’re in high school, or maybe even the first couple of years of college, you have your whole life planned out. In ten years, you’ll be working a job you love, not ever wasting a day in your life doing something you hate. You’ll own a cute little three-bedroom apartment or house in the city of your choice, decorated with the latest shabby chic West Elm furniture (you’ll have outgrown Ikea by then). You’ll be married to the partner of your dreams and you’ll likely have at least two kids by then, or at least one and another on the way. You’ll have lived abroad at least once and have all of your student loans paid off. You may even has a masters degree thrown in for good measure.

While dreams are great to have as they motivate you to succeed and steer you toward what it is in life you’re working toward, they rarely all come true at once. It’s not to say that you can’t have it all, but if you set all of your goals to have an expiration date, you’re really just setting yourself up to fail. While financial goals, employment and home ownership (or lack thereof for the Millennial Generation) is a topic that can be explored at great length, this article is specifically about women and their own personal life choices.

Today, 30 seems to be the magic number when you become a grown-up and everything should be in order. You should be married, especially if you are a woman. You should have kids or be thinking about them, especially if you are a woman. You should be financially secure and saving for retirement. You shouldn’t be working low wage jobs. You should, you should, you should….

I just turned 30 last month, and despite my declarations that I’m totally okay with my life choices in one of my previous blog posts, I can’t deny that sometimes doubt creeps in. I’m in a relationship, but I’m not married. My partner is quite a bit younger than I am. And kids aren’t even on my radar for several years to come (although they are there). As a woman, this can bring forth all sorts of problematic uninvited questions into the status of the things in your life that supposedly signify adulthood. Questions as to whether your partner is going to marry you suddenly linger in the air. Conversations on your now apparently waning fertility are the topic du jour among perfect strangers who have literally just learned your name ten minutes before telling you your eggs are rotting.

This kind of judgement gets worse if you peruse websites that discuss the lives of beauty gurus and bloggers, the idea that they are acting immaturely for their age is a pervasive topic. “Can you believe she was barefoot on the street? She’s 25 for heaven’s sake!”, “She’s 24 and she and her boyfriend don’t want to move in together?” or “He’s 32 and dating a girl who is eight years younger than he is? That is so inappropriate,” are just some of the examples of sentiments echoed over and over again. It is clear, especially for women, that there is a very definite pattern your life should be following. If you’re not hitting those milestones with socially acceptable timing, then god help you.

The thing is, I’m a PhD candidate, I’m running a semi-successful blog (getting almost 11,000 or more hits per month after only 10 weeks of running it), have two Masters degrees, have authored two books and have lived in five different countries. Despite this, I have a lingering feeling I have failed as a woman for making it to the ripe old age of 30 with neither a ring nor a baby. If you read horrible misogynistic comments from Reddit’s Red Pill-ers, they will speak about how women like me are now being “punished” for not accepting the love of someone we weren’t excited about in our early 20s and must be doomed to a life of loneliness and childlessness in our 30s (since no men will want us after we’ve “expired”). Nevermind that many women get divorced from the spouse they met in their 20s by their early to mid-30s….

Despite the advancements women have made as a whole, it is still very clear to me (although it may feel less so to women who have followed the “norm”) that our worth is still defined by a partner and our ability to mother. But where does that leave women who have no desire for either? Are they less of women because they are not interested in these things that supposedly make us women? Additionally, it almost becomes that being partnered is a cultural way to signify that you are now an adult—but do those who never partner, either by choice or other reasons, never become adults in the eyes of society?

The funny thing about all of this is that I don’t even look 30. When questioned about my age, people are typically shocked, pinning me for early to mid-20s. Although my partner is in his early 20s (I know, scandal!), our age difference only becomes a topic of conversation when we tell people. This makes me wonder how women who actually look 30 feel and if they are questioned about this topic even more often than I am.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Why do you think there is pressure to reach certain milestones by certain ages? Do you think men feel this pressure as well? Have you ever felt as though you were pressured to do something by a certain age? Let me know here on Angie’s blog or shoot over to my blog or Twitter to give me a shout. I’d love to keep the conversation going.