A Good Woman
You know that feeling when you’re scanning a menu at dinner or flipping through movie options on Netflix? That total feeling of overwhelming responsibility in having to choose something? Time is running out. All eyes are on you. What are you going to choose, and what are you going to give up? Silly, but real, right? Now picture this panic over the course of your entire life. Picture yourself having to choose between dreams you have imagined in your mind — dreams that are often contradictory by their nature — and every type of person you want to be and are expected to be. Picture yourself torn: untrusting of your own intuition and uncertain as to the consequences that may come with any decision.
I like to believe it all began when I was 6-years-old. I was a first grader in Damascus, Syria at the time, and the woman who led my class was not only my teacher, but my cousin as well. This made a difference. The person in front of the room was close to me in many ways, and as I watched her lead and teach the class, my eyes followed her with loving admiration and a hunger to be just like her. When I got home, I would slip my tiny feet into my mother’s heels, walk around with notebooks in hand, and give pretend lessons to my siblings and any neighbors who would put up with me. The idea that I could be as smart and able as she was thrilled me, and though I was just a little girl, the idea that as a woman I could be as talented filled me with a determination to do just that.
As the years went on, I fell in love with learning, and the more love I garnered for the absorption of knowledge, the more my fears began to overcome me. As a young woman who happened to be ambitious, I found myself struggling to appeal to the all demanding polarities which pulled me in opposing directions. As I began college and found myself taking on positions of leadership and responsibility, I began to find that I was a walking contradiction. I was a strong woman who played down her competitiveness and confidence in order to be liked by her peers. “Like me, I’m harmless!” I would almost say. In relationships, I had to be careful not to appear self-aggrandizing or overly ambitious as to not lose the attractiveness that comes with being a sweet and perpetually self-sacrificing and servile woman. I wanted so much for myself and feared being a “bad woman” as a result. Every day, I was working hard to create my own self of sense worth, and every day, I was dismantling it all with my every attempt to be accepted.
I had dreams bigger than myself — dreams I often feel are too big for me to honestly accomplish, and the same time, I felt a need to belong and to be loved. I felt guilty for wanting to achieve things for myself. When I chose to be confident and resolute, I gave up being sweet and nurturing. When I chose to be a dedicated student, I gave up being the good daughter at home who cooks and cleans and makes time for her family. When I invested time in myself, I was called “selfish,” and when I didn’t, I cringed from my inner core, watching my life and all of its opportunities escape my grasp all because I was a woman who wanted to be every kind of woman: I wanted to change the world while trying to exist neatly in the compartments labeled out for me.
My cousin, who also happened to be my first grade teacher, never married. She loved her job and she did it well, but a part of me can’t help but think if she gave up another type of life in order to have this one. But I don’t want to choose. I don’t think I am asking for much out of life when I say I want to build a career I love and still make time to have a family, but I fear that it will be hard. I fear that even when I give it my all, I am still choosing one over the other.
Perhaps, most of all, I fear that in wanting to become every kind of woman, I become none. There is no way I can make everyone happy, and if I try, I will stretch myself so thin that I will tear. The truth is, women will always have to sacrifice so long as the world asks us to exist in relation to others. When men chase their dreams, we call them go-getters, but when women do the same, they do so while laden with guilt. If I choose to be a woman who reaches her potential academically, intellectually, and socially, then by definition, I will be shaking the world which has been laid out so neatly for me to mold into. I cannot be a “good woman” always, especially when being a “good woman” is not so good of a thing at all…
