A Womans Identity

A Woman's Identity

Women lose their identity as soon as they get married and
begin a family. Every little girl dreams of getting married and
raising a family, because this is what women are taught to seek
at an early age. When a woman achieves this goal, she loses her
identity due to the many roles that she is now forced to play.
Once married, a woman is expected to be a mother, nurturer,
housekeeper, teacher, doctor, cook, chauffeur, and more
increasingly, a career woman. Women are forced to carry out
these roles because of society's traditional view of the role
women should play, and young women are pressured to follow in
their mother's footsteps. Because a woman's life revolves around
her children and husband, her responsibilities are never far from
thought. Consequently, women lose their identity because they
are so caught up in being a wife and mother that they no longer
have time to pursue their own desires and goals.
Women are increasingly becoming career women, while raising
a family at the same time. Despite the fact that women have the
job of raising their family, many women also have full time
careers because the extra income is often needed in the family.
Some men criticize women for trying to act too much like men, but
women are being forced by society to move between the traditional
definitions of male and female roles, because of the many
different tasks they have to carry out from day to day. For
example, in order for women to enter the "male" world of work,
they have to obtain "masculine" traits and leave their "feminine"
traits at home.
Bearing children is expected in today's society, because
nurturing and child care are viewed as feminine traits. Women
are conditioned at a young age to believe that once they are
adults they will become mothers. If a middle aged, married woman
doesn't have any children, people often assume that there is a
biological reason for her lack of children. Motherhood is
expected by society, but contrary to popular belief, many
psychologists believe that it is not instinct, but a learned
desire. In Betty Rollin's essay, "Motherhood: Who Needs It," one
psychiatrist explains that, "women don't need to be mothers any
more than they need spaghetti." Once a woman has children her
life becomes an extension of her children's life. She has to
provide for and take care of her children and she can no longer
put herself first, because she is expected to always have her
family's best interests in mind.
Most women, if posed with the question, "Are you happy?"
will say that they are, but after some soul searching it is
evident that on the surface they appear to be, while on the
inside they are unhappy and often feel suffocated. It isn't
until things in life are going poorly, that women let themselves
realize that they have feelings. Women have lost touch with who
they are and are many times running away from their feelings,
because they have been busy masking themselves in order to
maintain their family.
Women are imprisoned by the many roles they have to play,
but it is essentially self-imposed. Although, this imprisonment
wouldn't be self-imposed, if it weren't for society's pressure on
women to fit into the traditional female mold. Due to these
expectations that are placed on women, eventually a woman who is
married and has children, will become only a empty and hollow
image of a mother and wife, instead of a living and breathing
person with feelings and a mind of her own.