While scrolling through Facebook recently I’ve come across many shared articles regarding what a 20-year-old girl "should" know how to do. Some of my favorites: apply liquid eyeliner, cook a good meal, parallel park, hold her alcohol. I loved reading those, imagining what it would feel like to be able to do all those seemingly simple tasks. But as my 20th birthday approached, it fully hit me that I actually can’t do most of them.
For awhile, these inadequacies bugged me. I mean, what kind of an adult am I? And what kind of a woman? Ever since I was a little girl I imagined myself as the perfect adult female, I saw myself with a respected and successful position in my career. I would also be a great mom and a fabulous wife, always well-dressed, witty and well-spoken. I would drink coffee out of handmade ceramic mugs and walk my children to school every morning. I would have a nice garden in front of my house, and I’d grow my own vegetables. I’d only cook and eat organic, and I’d love it -- I would never miss Cheetos or peanut butter M&Ms or microwave popcorn. I’d do yoga. I’d go jogging. One day, magically, I would love salads with exotic dressings. My family would be cultured: we’d go to art shows and museums and symphony concerts. I’d be in shape, skinny and sexy and beautiful. I’d make time for it all.
And in a way, all of that is very feminist. Women should be encouraged to do whatever they want. I definitely encourage that. If you want to dedicate yourself to a career, do it! If you want to be a mother, do that! If you want to be both, go for it! This is a huge improvement from only decades earlier when women were blasphemed against for simply wanting a job.
Now, women are encouraged to do everything. They should be able to apply makeup (be beautiful), cook a good meal (be a homemaker), parallel park (fill traditionally masculine roles), and hold their alcohol (be socially successful). Yet somehow, I’ve watched these incredibly positive messages of empowerment morph into the idea, or rather the expectation, that women should do it all and in fact, have to do it all in order to be a modern feminist woman.
Audrey Wollen, an artist and feminist, powerfully sums it up in her interview with Dazed: “The shade of feminism that’s chosen for media attention is always the one most palatable to the powers that be–unthreatening, positive, communal…I felt kind of alienated by contemporary feminism, because it demanded so much of me (self-love, great sex, economic success) that I just couldn’t give.” I agree wholeheartedly; in fact, many women do.
As I sunk further into this rabbit hole of do-it-all feminism, as we'll call it, I became more and more uncomfortable. There is a difference between articles for women based off of career, relationship, and academia experience and articles consisting of ideals girls should meet before they can be “successful women.” This is where the 'Sad Girl Theory,' as Wollen calls it, comes from.
“Girls’ sadness is not passive, self-involved or shallow; it is a gesture of liberation, it is articulate and informed, it is a way of reclaiming agency over our bodies, identities, and lives,” Wollen tells Dazed. “Feminism needs to acknowledge that being a girl in the world right now is one of the hardest things there is–it is unimaginably painful–and that our pain doesn’t need to be discarded in the name of empowerment. It can be used as a material, a weight, a wedge, to jam that machinery and change those patterns.”
The beautiful power of sadness did not hit me until I turned 20 and suddenly did not fit the feminist media’s depiction of a Powerful Woman. As college women we are expected to do well academically, socially and physically. We are expected to do this with a smile on our face.
The fact is, I can’t march around in six-inch heels. I excel as a student but that means other things fall to the wayside -- things that, if I listen to the media, should not: I do not have abs, and I haven't been to the rec in weeks. I don't have a boyfriend. Most mornings I don't give much thought to my appearance. And that’s ok.
Sadness is power. It acknowledges that the world is not a perfect place, for women or for men or for anyone else. It is time for girls to embrace sadness, to acknowledge that sometimes it’s pretty damn hard to be a woman in a world that, under the guise of feminism, expects us to do everything we possibly can.
A world that tells men it’s alright if they focus on their jobs, but condemns women who work and can’t be home when their children get off the bus at the end of the school day.
A world that dismisses women’s successes if their bodies are not perfect.
A world that expects women to pursue positions of power in their careers while simultaneously fulfilling the 1950s pinup housewife ideal. Don’t get me wrong: I am so, so happy that the media is embracing feminism, that it celebrates when a woman can do it all. But where does that leave women who can’t?
There’s a dark side to this modern feminism which must be addressed. It is okay to not know how to apply liquid eyeliner. It is okay to not know how to cook a great meal. It is okay to not know how to parallel park. It is okay not to know how to hold your alcohol. It is okay to be angry sometimes, or sad and to wish you didn't have to deal with sexism. It is okay to not always roll up your sleeves and flex your bicep like Rosie the Riveter. As a woman, despite what the world is telling you, it is okay to be sad.
