Modern women trapped between feminist ambition, traditional inclination

Recently, I watched the Oscar-nominated film The Help. While I could have easily focused on the picture's stellar cast or the strong anti-racism themes, I kept coming back to the same question the film presents: what sort of woman lets someone else raise her children?

As my sophomore year begins to fade into summer, I feel more and more hard-pressed to figure out what I want to do with my life; in mere months, I will be halfway finished with college and that much closer to being a penniless, unemployed "adult" with only a Bachelor's degree in English to my name.

In an effort to gain control of my employment situation, I attended a meeting for the Pre-Law Society and listened as Loyola alum bleakly remarked on the current job market and the rising tuition costs. They warned me not to decide willy-nilly because I could leave law school jobless and even more destitute than I was before. Needless to say, those stereotypes about lawyers being a grim bunch are just poppycock.

Disconcerted by more than fiscal concerns, I felt troubled as I pictured my future. I have always been very ambitious, and I am capable academically. I would probably make a fine lawyer. In fact, once invested, I would probably want to be the best lawyer.

Yet, what would happen if one day a boy gets hoodwinked into marrying me? What if, just as I'm about to make partner, we want to start a family? Yes, there are laws about protecting the employment rights of pregnant females, but do those laws really protect how people would perceive me—or how I would perceive myself—if I allowed my kids to be raised by someone else?

Betty Freidan, the author of The Feminine Mystique, once said, "A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, ‘Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children."

On one hand, I feel I ought to establish myself in the professional world; it's as though I have a duty to all those women before me who lacked the same opportunity to work in the public sphere. Moreover, I want to work for myself—and prove that I left college with more than an MRS degree.

However, excelling professionally comes at a cost. Even though I am not a 1960s housewife from The Help, I still do not feel entirely comfortable with the thought that my children will not have their mom to watch them when they come home from school. I do not want my children to be more attached to a nanny than they are to me.

It's different for men. Most guys I know do not think about choosing their career path based on the future desire to have children. Sure, some may consider going into business or another well-paying field to be "providers," but most do not stay up at night thinking about having to leave their jobs and stay home for a few years if they get pregnant—and the repercussions that will have on their employment status afterwards.

I am trapped by feminism. Either I am letting down other females by submitting to the domestic cage males have designed, or I am failing as a mother as I abandon my children to foster care and selfishly pursue my own professional aspirations. One might tell me to try to be both professional and mother, but can I really count on my future husband to do laundry, cook dinner and clean the house when years of Disney movies have indoctrinated our generation into believing that woodland creatures help women do chores?

This past week, my mom went to a job interview after spending 25 years at home raising six children. A caring, strong woman, my mother is the most capable person I know. Yet, even though she does not let on, I sometimes sense that she feels embarrassed when she admits that she is a housewife. It pains me that she feels this way; nothing about what my mother has done in the past 25 years is shameful. How perverse is feminism if it makes women feel ashamed rather than empowered?

When French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the early 19th century, he stated that the strongest aspect of American society was the superiority of its women. He wrote in his book Democracy in America, "Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men." Tocqueville believed that the decision women made to stay home and rear children was a noble one that laid down the strong foundations upon which American society could prosper.

Yet, feminism strips away the honor there once was in raising children and running a household. There is such a pressure for women to prove themselves in a male-dominated society that females demand their fellows to leave the home and their children. In planning my future, I do not fear the ridicule of men—only the scorn of my own gender.