Andrea Tantaros - Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Wanted Made Women Miserable

C AREFUL WHAT YOU wish for.

Women are supposed to have it together. Females arent supposed to admit that were tied up; not to ourselves, and especially not to each other. Were not supposed to confess that were torn or twisted, stressed or frustrated. But honest women do. We will concede that though weve made a lot of strides, it hasnt been without a downside.

My friend Lynn recently tweeted: All the women. In me. Are tired. Hook any woman over age thirty to a polygraph and shell tell you that shes exhausted. She will tell you that she is under pressure. She is strained, she is conflicted, and she is trying to balance far too much in a newly minted womens world. She could be from any city or state. It doesnt matter, because her worries, her guilt, her fears are all the same.

I am one of those women. I wonder and worry about all the same things that most women do. I try to embrace being a modern femaleone with money, power, and newfound privilege from the rise of feminismwith my feminine biology and my culturally traditional inclinations and values. Im trying to balance my take-charge nature in a fast-paced, competitive workplace and field (that is still riddled with sexism), with a desire for a far more passive role in my personal relationships. No, its not easybut nobody ever told us it would be this hard.

When I was growing up, girls were told that we could do anything. We were the daughters of Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique gave homemakers who wanted more out of life a chance to find their voice. Friedan advocated for more opportunity for her daughter. It was that advocacy, and the feminist movement that followed in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, that led to my generation reaping the real fruits of feminism.

Both my parents were extremely traditional in their own way. My dad was a wonderful man, an amazing manand a very tough father. There was some part of him that didnt want me to go to college. It wasnt that he didnt respect women; it was that he was from old-world Greece, where women focused on their Mrs. degree and baby making, and the man was the one who provided. He planned for me to work in our Allentown, Pennsylvania, restaurant. His little girl leaving home for the big city to pursue a career in politics all by herself wasnt what he had in mind. He quite literally wanted me in the kitchen making sandwiches.

My mother, on the other hand, is an evangelical Christian, traditional and old-fashioned to the core. She still gives me pearls to wear. She has given me solid advice on the importance of maintaining femininity, mystery, vulnerability, and softness. Be wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove, shed say. (Truth be told, Im still working on that whole dove thing.) But it was my mother who insisted that I was going to go to college, that I was going to study in Paris, and that I was going to work in Washington, D.C.whether my father liked it or not. This was rare for a woman who typically let her man lead. When it came to her daughters, she wanted more for us.

Needless to say, my outspoken dad didnt like it. My sister, Thea, wanted to go to D.C. after she finished college, and he forbade her. Ten years later when I was looking to do the same thing, he had the same response: no. But, ever the stubborn child, I was hell-bent on doing it anyway.

I remember packing up my Volkswagen Jetta, preparing to spend a summer interning for Pat Buchanans presidential campaign. My father refused to speak to me. I was so upset I asked my mom if I should rethink my choice and stay home. Absolutely not. You need to go, Andrea, she insisted. And so I did, leaving a divided household to take a big risk for a goal that was uncertain. I would never be where I am without my wise and thoughtful mom, who chose to assert her motherly mojo in this battle with my old-fashioned dad, who was pushing me toward the only life he knew. She may not look like one, in person or on paper, but my mom is a feminist icon in my eyes. She wanted exactly the same opportunity for me as parents wanted for their sons, and she wanted more for me than her father allowed her (as he opted to elevate her brothers). For that, I am forever grateful.

But for feminism, but for female powera female power drawing from the forgotten reality that women and men may be equal but not the sameI would not be where I am today. If contemporary feminism believed in this and only this, wed be a lot better off. But feminists have put forward a package deal, a bait-and-switch, and its made millions of women miserable in the process.

Women nowadays can do just about anything men can do. We have personal and professional freedom, with the option to get married or stay single. We can freeze our eggs and wait to have kids when were ready, and were experiencing more success in the workplace than ever before, which means larger disposable incomes and more control over our lives than our mothers and grandmothers had. It is women who are becoming the breadwinners in many households. While the feminist movement itself has changed from what it was in the days of Gloria Steinem, the feminist message has become the cultural default. Women must dominate, and an all-male or even predominantly male organization of any kind needs to justify its existence. We won.

Feminist doctrine is not a list of wants today, its just the way it is. Its an amorphous but understood societal norm that dictates women should be at the top, even at the expense of men. Weve infiltrated everywhere, from the NFL, with our pink ribbons, to the U.S. Navy SEALs as the government is pushing women into combat roles, as some sort of gender experiment to check a box. Little do they know that women are already serving in these roles. Making it known publicly as some kind of political statement only puts the ones serving in harms way, as our enemy doesnt realize they are there in the first place. So what is supposed to help women is actually hurting the ones currently making history. Men, for their part, have been so feminized that they dare not challenge the new culturally mandated groupthink. If they do, they are labeled sexists. Its girls who run the world; men are just unnecessary sidekicks as the lines between the sexes have increasingly been blurred. In a very real sense, we are all feminists now.

The scales started to tip in my teens. Growing up, the message in movies, music, magazines, from our teachers, professors, and parents was: You go, girl! My generation felt a deluge of motivational messages that encouraged us to capitalize on our newfound female power. When I was in high school and college I thought I could do anything. Doors opened for me. Dreams that used to seem silly were now within reach. I wasnt just told I was equal. I felt equal. I did not feel in any way insignificant or less than the guys. People went out of their way for women. My friends and I were hired at jobs and advanced fairly quickly.

While Im truly thankful for this array of choicesfar more than my mom could have ever imaginednobody told us that there would be consequences. It almost seems like we were duped, or unintentionally misled at best. To be sure, the women who got us into these influential positions of power meant well. Granting us every option the men have isand wasa noble and necessary goal. But I dont think they could have anticipated that advocating for women to put our careers first meant jeopardizing our fertility. Or that pushing women to be financially successful could be intimidating to men, impeding their ability to form relationships. Or that wed still be expected to perform our household duties along with our professional ones because male culture would not adjust as quickly as we ascended.