The American Dream can be largely reduced to a single pursuit, a single word: success. My question, is does that American dream depend on gender? Is the idea of success – or at least the status markers considered necessary in attaining it – subject to the gender of an individual? Does my idea of success have to fall into certain societally imposed categories based on the fact that I sport two matching chromosomes and succumb to the torturous fashion of wanting to look fantastic in a pair of patent leather heels? Is my pursuit of the success necessary to achieve the American dream limited by my gender?
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that a man’s sense of success for a man is encompassed in financial stability – money. This seems to be a fair corollary to the idea of success in America. Just look at the people we respect and admire (and devote entire magazines to): celebrities, athletes, CEOs. All of these people are millionaires. How else did Donald Trump get his own reality TV show? It certainly wasn’t his long flowing locks of carefully wound and quaffed blond hair. So for men, success is characterized by money. Where, then, do women fall?
I won’t argue that Donald has no female counterpart – after all, Oprah is a bit of a phenom, but there are many more Donalds than Oprahs (Bill Gates, LeBron James, George Clooney, etc.). But, why is it the first questions asked of women, specifically young women, at family reunions, are concerned with relationship status? I’m not a man, so I can’t pretend to know if men get the same hideously repetitive questions, but from my eavesdropping and commiserating, this seems not to be the case. Why does Grandma Mary always ask me, “And how’s your fella, dear?” Why doesn’t she ask me how my GPA is doing instead of my boyfriend? Maybe she could show interest in whether I’ve decided upon a career path or where I want to go to grad school or how my student loans are coming along. Why was my Aunt Di more concerned, when my cousin Megan graduated college, that she tragically hadn’t yet found someone to marry rather than that she graduated with honors?
It would appear as though the American Dream for women is inextricably tied to the idea of family. For men, success can mean a career, but for women, ultimately success must entail matrimony and maternity. This offends me, as a somewhat neurotic but hardworking and ambitious woman, deeply. Why is it I must have a family in order to be successful? Can I not pursue the same path of career and financial stability as my male counterparts and be considered just as successful? Not without a relationship and a child, it seems.
What, then, does my future hold? My education is worth roughly $100,000 (damn all of you who pay in-state tuition, damn you!), not to mention the countless hours of studying and classes that have gone into the past three years of establishing my GPA and, oh yeah, learning stuff. What am I to do with all of that? Why have I worked so hard if society will only deem me successful if I have a husband and babies? Hell, I guess I was just wasting time in high school, challenging myself so that I could get into a good college because, after college, I’m just going to sacrifice my career to have a family. Why do men get to define success with a career and I have to do it with a child?
That is, of course, not to say I may not want a family at some point. Who doesn’t want love? Right now, though, my biological clock certainly isn’t ticking. I don’t even think it’s wound yet, so the alarm isn’t going to go off any time soon. In a world that claims equality and professes uniformity among men and women, why am I expected to sacrifice my idea of success for family after my devoted pursuit of education and career, not to mention the investment of time and money. Why can’t I define an American dream that also allows me success through success in career instead of family?
Kara Borbely is a senior English major. She can be reached at kborbely@umd.edu.
