By Gabri Provencio

Contributor

As many of you young women reading this may know, being a woman in today’s contemporary American society is difficult. We beat ourselves up frequently because of messages society portrays to us.

Daily, we women face a typical battle when we see the most perfect looking female on TV with long silky hair, perfect bust size, small waist, big lips, clear skin, glamorous makeup, trendy clothes, the list goes on. This image only causes us to compare everything about this obviously photoshopped and unreal adaptation of a woman to ourselves as we sit on our couches and mentally debate whether or not we should have that dessert after all.

Being college students, we also face the decision of completing a degree and dedicating the rest of our lives to our careers or possibly setting that aside one day to raise a family or simply just becoming overwhelmed by the thought of juggling both at the same time. There is so much that we as women deal with, that it can truly become overwhelming. But it does not always have to be this way.

We women can learn from all these pressures by encouraging each other. Society’s expectations add more onto the pressures that we already feel, but it is because we allow it to. We have to encourage each other to not care about what society is telling us, and we need to remind ourselves as well as each other that being happy is enough. We should not have to feel that we have to fit certain expectations to be successful or empowered. If eating that dessert makes us happy, then who cares what anyone says or thinks because we are beautiful no matter how many calories we intake that day. If we want to set our careers aside to be mothers, we should encourage each other because it does not make you a weak woman to nurture your family, just like it does not make you an insensitive woman to decide to choose your career over starting a family.

Our lives as women are hard enough as it is, so why make it harder? If we can remember to live according to what makes us happy, then we will be able to become better examples for future generations of young women.

(Dedicated to my mom: Thank you for always showing me a perfect example of how to be a strong woman of faith and love. You are truly someone I aspire to be.)