My inspiration for this post actually began at an "after party" of sorts in the early hours of Sunday morning. This "after party" was at the flat that I used to live in actually, and consisted of a lot of heavy drinking and partying, followed by a LOT of deep and meaningfuls in the kitchen... Classic... And it was one of these deep and meaningful conversations in particular that got me thinking...
Topic of conversation: Aspirations, or lack of them in young people today (covered for approximately 2 hours of kitchen-time).
Verbatim quote from a girl I met last week: "I just think it's too difficult for girls to find jobs these days, and I think I'm ready to admit defeat and embrace a house-wife role."
Bascially, I seem to be meeting more and more young people who don't really aspire to do anything. This lack of ambition is seemingly more prevalent in the young women of today- so that's what I am focussing on.
Girls I meet these days seem to just be working in bars, or have just finished uni and don't really know what they want to do with their lives. To top it all off, the job market at the moment is savage for young people- and I think it's really disheartening. My friends joke that they'll marry rich and it'll all be fine, but surely that's just a lack of self-esteem? I think it's important for girls to be more proactive about being independent.
I think a lot of what it comes down to is that we seem to have come full circle in our values. Everything used to be so traditional- women kept homes and men brought home the bacon. Then there was that feminist revolution which paved the way for women to have more professional careers; and now it seems like that hype has died down a bit, and women want to get back into the traditional role of having a man look after them? Anyone else picking up on this?
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone's values have changed. I think it's just convenience. I don't even think it's necessarily their fault- I think that this attitude is probably facilitated and encouraged by the ridiculous increases in university fees, and also, as I mentioned before, the state of the job market. I think sometimes girls just go after finding guys with money now. Seeking another's financial security instead of creating their own. Forgive me for being so disgustingly stereotypical.
Speaking of disgustingly stereotypical...
Our conversation on Saturday night reminded me of this hilarious EU Commission campaign I've been meaning to share with you guys for a while- aimed to get women into the field of science, called "Science: It's a girl thing". Take a look:
Oh, yeah girls will love science, because bunsen burners look a little like lipstick and fiber-optic cables are sort of like powder brushes. Also, because a tube of lipstick can stand in for the "i" in "science.". Add a bit of grindy euro-techno, and we're on to a winner!
Needless to say I think it's ridiculous, and is more likely to a) put the backs up of any women working in science who want to be taken on their intellectual merits; and b) throughly mislead anyone gullible enough to get into science because they think bunsen burners are like lipstick.
Come on European Commission, I thought you were dull?! I didn't have you down as sexist...
Anyway, this campaign has sort of been recreated in America where a group of former NFL and NBA dancers who work in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math have taken up suggestively dancing in the name of science. Science Cheerleaders, they are calling themselves...
I love this. "It's ok girls, you can totally choose science as a career if you want, because pretty girls can do it too!!". I know it's all in a bid to bring society out of the "Princess Culture", but I just think it's ironic, and kind of tragic that it's taking these Disney princess stand-ins to give girls permission to take up science!?
And yeeeeeaaahhhh, I'm probably just bitter because I wish I'd realised how cool science was at school, then I could have been the scientist I wish I was now... But this isn't about me... ;)
Anyway, things aren't looking that much more hopeful in terms of raising girls' career aspirations. I read some horrific stats that made me want to die a bit:
A UK Survey asked girls aged 15-19 what their ideal careers were, to which 63% said glamour model and 25% said lap dancer, compared to just 4% lawyer, 3% Doctor, 3% teacher and 2% nurse.
Serious.
This isn't really relevant, but I came across this as well... a new academic study on girls ages 6 to 9 in America shows the overwhelming majority “are thinking of themselves as sex objects.” In the study, the girls were presented with two dolls, one “sexy” and one “non-sexy.”
Researchers then asked the girls to say which doll “represented how they themselves wanted to look” and which doll they thought would be more popular. And a masisve 68% percent wanted to look like the “sexy” doll, while 72% said the “sexy” doll would be more popular than the “non-sexy” doll. THESE GIRLS ARE AGED 6 TO 9.
Seems young girs are overly concerned with the way they're going to look when they're older....
Personally I think this is down to the ever increasing prominance of sex culture in Western society and hideous role models like Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Jordan. But don't even get me started on that...
Getting back to the point... when it comes to female aspirations I am completely not against the traditional family roles, at all. And if I am to have children in the future (another difficult moral debate for me! Might cover that soon...), I would want to be in a financial position where I could stay at home and look after them during their early years. But it also is really important to me to have my career and to be independent. I definitely don't want to float through life on the back of someone else, and am worried that this is an ever increasing aspiration of girls today?! That, or just taking their clothes off for money so they don't actually have to properly work.
Anyone care to disagree and give me a bit of hope....? Fingers crossed I'm just being cynical.
L.
