Do you remember the movie Braveheart? If so, I bet you remember the scene where William Wallace makes the speech before the big battle? He finishes the speech with “you can never take our freedom”. I’m not going to debate if in the modern world we are truly free or not as that is somehow pointless. I’ll debate the freedom that we are giving up sometimes, and the ones who mostly give it up are women.
Does the below sound familiar to you?
– You can’t, you’re a woman!
– So?!
– You’re a woman, women don’t do that!
– Yeah… hold my beer and watch
Another quote from Braveheart: Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it. You know how many times I was laughed at, made fun of, teased just because I wanted to do something differently, had a dream or a crazy idea… MANY! What is driving me up the walls is that girls and later women are told, you can be anybody you want but remember you have to get married and have children… Excuse me what?! Have to?! Since when in the 21st century women have to do something… we can but definitely we don’t have to.
As a little girl I’ve never dreamed about living in a white picket fence house and having a lovely family. I’ve dreamed about having an interesting life, a great career and all the blood, sweat and tears you need to put in it to have it. Is that wrong?
Definitely not. Is it wrong if somebody wants something different, also definitely not. Women, similar as men are human beings with their own mind, capable to make their own choices, to decide how they want their life to look like, regardless married or not, with or without children or simply make their own thing. Only why so many of us Ladies give in when family and society pushes us to the stereotype direction? Because we are nice, we don’t wanna hurt anybody or stand out as… exactly the bitch. If you know what you want from life, have your own opinion or god forbid earn more than your partner you are being labelled as a bitch.
Three years ago, when I got the offer to go to Hong Kong for a contract, I didn’t hesitate a second to say YES! Not for a moment did I have thoughts like… oh, what will my partner say, oh will he be OK with it, oh maybe I shouldn’t have taken that offer. NO, NO, NO. That was my freedom to make that decision, my freedom to put my career ahead of my partner, my freedom to do what is right for me. In Hong Kong I often got the question, your partner didn’t come with you or is your partner OK with you being here alone?
Answer was always the same. No, as this is my moment to focus on work and career development, I don’t need any distractions. Furthermore, I don’t really care if he is OK with it, he has to accept my decision of me being here. Generally, in a relationship or not I always did my own thing when it comes to travel and career. uestions like, you going to Borneo alone, what does your partner have to say about it? Yyyyyy nothing as I’m nobody’s property to ask for permission.
Simply, if I wanted to go somewhere and he couldn’t get off from work I went alone. I’m not going to postpone my travel plans just because he can’t manage his leave. Then maybe wait for him to sort out his leave and then go later but together? Yeah, airlines are not very willing to wait with ticket promos for somebody to sort out the leave days. At some point I came to the conclusion that I won’t sacrifice my freedom for somebody else’s sake. Does that make me a bitch? Don’t think so.
In Hong Kong, one of the senior managers told me that men and women are different. No surprises here that they are but basing on an example. Let’s say there is a job advert for a role. The man reads the job description and the requirements. He doesn’t fulfill half of them but applies anyway. A woman sees the same job advert with the same job description and the same requirements. She doesn’t fulfill one requirement from the list, so she doesn’t apply. That is very true as we set very high standards for ourselves which we are desperate to meet. Hearing a NO would crush us. Point is that NO is an answer not an obstacle. We are driven by the idea of being the perfect employee, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect housewife. Thing is that perfect doesn’t exist and accepting our imperfection is kinda cool 🙂 I do my own thing to lead a fulfilled life my way with the freedom to make my own choices, regardless if somebody likes them or not… Simply follow my free heart.
Now, I would like you to reflect on how many times you did something against your personal opinion just because others could be happy or to fit with the society standards or you simply didn’t want to stand out… many right? Now, what did you feel after doing so… dissatisfaction, regret, anger. That’s the point, we women think about the needs of others first before our own, in my opinion it should be the other way round. Just like on the plane, put on your mask first before helping others.
The times where women didn’t have a voice, were considered weak and incapable to make a decision are gone. We Ladies have a voice and freedom of choice to create our lives the way we want to without being dictated what we have to do. If somebody doesn’t like our decision, it’s their problem and we are free to say – go f***k yourself.
Indeed Alice 