In Other News
Mar. 8th, 2009 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_samtyrI thought this might be of interest to some of my sibs. It's under the cut in case the link doesn't work.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5838347.ece
From The Sunday Times
March 8, 2009
Why do women feel useless?
High-flying career? Tick. Baby? Tick. World travel? Tick? But crazy benchmarks and checklists won't make us happy
Shane Watson
It starts early. You have a part-time job in the university holidays, but some of your friends are travelling and working, or signed up as film extras. Then you get a full-time job, but a few of your contemporaries have set up businesses, moved in with boyfriends and started writing on the side. You get a promotion; they get a promotion and they get pregnant. Meanwhile, they get a half share in a weekend cottage by the sea and a film deal. You are 35 and you feel the low hum of anxiety, because you still have six significant achievement boxes to tick before you hit 40.
There’s a lot of talk about women’s ticking clocks, but the biological one is just the tip of the iceberg. We have hundreds, all timed to go off in groups, starting with a small section alarmed for our twenties and more for the ensuing decades. There are a few labelled “Where I should have got to in my career by now”, one named “Owning a place of my own” and lots of little individual clocks called things like “Earning enough to live like a grown-up”, “Having own office”, “Serious travel” and “Doing something charitable, possibly abroad”. After 40, we relax a bit and are less obsessed with notching up the credits, but we never get over that feeling that everything we do is only worth something if you get there on, or before, the deadline, and ahead of (or at least not far behind) the women we most admire.
This is why so many women are dissatisfied, despite seeming to have it all — because they can’t see how much they have achieved, only the missed deadlines and other women’s superior capability.
If you compliment a woman who has just cooked you a three-course dinner, complete with handmade chocolates, she might say: “But I only work four days a week.” The dinner doesn’t count, because she had time to do it. If you congratulate the publisher and mother of three on her latest chart-topping bestseller, her reaction will probably be: “But I’m such a mess — your life is so organised! Your flat is so lovely!”
* What should I have achieved by 25?
By your mid-twenties women typically want to have:
- Achieved party notoriety/a groovy look — like Alice Dellal
- Traveling stripes (outside Europe)
- A tattoo or nonregulation piercing
- Have talked to a genuine celebrity
- Have DJed, gone out with a DJ or sung backing vocals
- Had at least one serious boyfriend
- Worked as a waitress/in a bar
- Proficiency in an instrument or sport
- Discovered your best feature
- Got serious about photography
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY: “You’ve done an incredible amount for your age”
* What should I have achieved by 35?
By their mid-thirties, women typically want to have:
- Been head-hunted for a new job
- Been taken to lunch by your boss
- Been on a business trip abroad
- Lived abroad
- Bought your own flat
- Been bought jewellery by a man
- Socialised outside your age group
- Hatched a plan for your own business
- Successfully negotiated a pay rise
- Discovered your signature style
- Discovered the importance of women
- Established a shoe collection
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY: “You could do anything you set your mind to”
* What should I have achieved by 45?
By their mid-forties most women want to have:
- Children (or godchildren)
- Your own office
- Your own team
- Your own decorative style
- Bought yourself some serious jewelry
- Bought a painting you couldn’t afford
- Developed an interest in gardening/cooking
- Discovered your special subject
- Started classes in something
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY “I don’t know how you do it all”
It sounds like a meaningless social reflex, the equivalent of air-kissing, but the truth is that most women are genuinely panicked by how they rate on the lifetime-achievement chart, including the ones who seem to fit more into a week than you fit into a year. When a woman says, “I’m useless, you’re the extraordinary one”, it’s because that’s exactly how she feels. And she feels it more than ever now because anything and everything seems possible.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5838347.ece
From The Sunday Times
March 8, 2009
Why do women feel useless?
High-flying career? Tick. Baby? Tick. World travel? Tick? But crazy benchmarks and checklists won't make us happy
Shane Watson
It starts early. You have a part-time job in the university holidays, but some of your friends are travelling and working, or signed up as film extras. Then you get a full-time job, but a few of your contemporaries have set up businesses, moved in with boyfriends and started writing on the side. You get a promotion; they get a promotion and they get pregnant. Meanwhile, they get a half share in a weekend cottage by the sea and a film deal. You are 35 and you feel the low hum of anxiety, because you still have six significant achievement boxes to tick before you hit 40.
There’s a lot of talk about women’s ticking clocks, but the biological one is just the tip of the iceberg. We have hundreds, all timed to go off in groups, starting with a small section alarmed for our twenties and more for the ensuing decades. There are a few labelled “Where I should have got to in my career by now”, one named “Owning a place of my own” and lots of little individual clocks called things like “Earning enough to live like a grown-up”, “Having own office”, “Serious travel” and “Doing something charitable, possibly abroad”. After 40, we relax a bit and are less obsessed with notching up the credits, but we never get over that feeling that everything we do is only worth something if you get there on, or before, the deadline, and ahead of (or at least not far behind) the women we most admire.
This is why so many women are dissatisfied, despite seeming to have it all — because they can’t see how much they have achieved, only the missed deadlines and other women’s superior capability.
If you compliment a woman who has just cooked you a three-course dinner, complete with handmade chocolates, she might say: “But I only work four days a week.” The dinner doesn’t count, because she had time to do it. If you congratulate the publisher and mother of three on her latest chart-topping bestseller, her reaction will probably be: “But I’m such a mess — your life is so organised! Your flat is so lovely!”
* What should I have achieved by 25?
By your mid-twenties women typically want to have:
- Achieved party notoriety/a groovy look — like Alice Dellal
- Traveling stripes (outside Europe)
- A tattoo or nonregulation piercing
- Have talked to a genuine celebrity
- Have DJed, gone out with a DJ or sung backing vocals
- Had at least one serious boyfriend
- Worked as a waitress/in a bar
- Proficiency in an instrument or sport
- Discovered your best feature
- Got serious about photography
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY: “You’ve done an incredible amount for your age”
* What should I have achieved by 35?
By their mid-thirties, women typically want to have:
- Been head-hunted for a new job
- Been taken to lunch by your boss
- Been on a business trip abroad
- Lived abroad
- Bought your own flat
- Been bought jewellery by a man
- Socialised outside your age group
- Hatched a plan for your own business
- Successfully negotiated a pay rise
- Discovered your signature style
- Discovered the importance of women
- Established a shoe collection
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY: “You could do anything you set your mind to”
* What should I have achieved by 45?
By their mid-forties most women want to have:
- Children (or godchildren)
- Your own office
- Your own team
- Your own decorative style
- Bought yourself some serious jewelry
- Bought a painting you couldn’t afford
- Developed an interest in gardening/cooking
- Discovered your special subject
- Started classes in something
WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY “I don’t know how you do it all”
It sounds like a meaningless social reflex, the equivalent of air-kissing, but the truth is that most women are genuinely panicked by how they rate on the lifetime-achievement chart, including the ones who seem to fit more into a week than you fit into a year. When a woman says, “I’m useless, you’re the extraordinary one”, it’s because that’s exactly how she feels. And she feels it more than ever now because anything and everything seems possible.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 03:17 pm (UTC)