Cordelia Casey

Mr. Smith

ELA

16 October 2023

The American Dream, for a Woman The Unforgiving American Standards Against Women

The American Dream is an ideal that must be defined by each person individually,

however, there is a broad understanding of what this ideal means. For example, according to the

Oxford English Dictionary, the American Dream provides that “every citizen of the United States

should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work,

determination, and initiative”. Putting aside the fact that this is not universally true in general, it

has historically not been associated with women and girls at all, and continues to be a dream that

has many roadblocks in place specifically for females in the United States. From a young age,

girls are under-resourced for achievement and not supported in their growth, which can be

detrimental to their attempts to reach the American Dream. From outside hobbies to the

inner-workings of their education, girls often feel like they’re being barred from success. The

lack of representation in many fields does nothing to help— while girls are being treated as

less-than, or feeling undeserving, they’re met with the faces of men in power, even controlling

some of the most feminine based companies.

Historically, women were supposed to want to be a wife and mother. There was no access

at all to the idea that women could “achieve success and prosperity” because that was the role of

their husband. While this has changed somewhat in most areas of the United States, there is still

the expectation that women are secondary in this arena, and that their primary role is still seen as

nurturer and supporter. Of course women are in the workforce more now, “In 1967, only 27% of
mothers were breadwinners or co-breadwinners, but… …in 2010, women were co- or primary

breadwinners in two-thirds of American families”, (Aspen) but much of this is due to the

changing financial landscape of the country and women and girls are still not given the same

support, resources, or opportunities as their male counterparts. For example, in the context of

gender equality, many people like to claim that girls play sports significantly less than boys due

to genetic disadvantages— but there are a few things that combat those arguments, especially

ones that encourage gender specific teams for sports. The Women's Sports Foundation has been

researching this issue for over 25 years and has found that there are several factors that

contribute to the gender disparity in sports, none of them being due to basic biological

differences between men and women. They found that “opportunities, safety concerns, social

stigma, and the pressure to achieve an unrealistic body standard” were the most common reasons

girls weren’t enrolled in sports as often as boys &/or why they dropped out of sports so much

earlier than boys do. In fact, “girls have 1.3 million fewer opportunities to play high school

sports” (“Do you know”), The shortage of media representation for women in sports drives the

idea that women are unwelcome in athletic fields. As little as “3.2% of television news and

highlight shows'' are tailored to women, and “[w]ithout fair media coverage, women’s sports role

models are invisible,’”. People, especially at young ages, find people to look up to, and with such

an unbalanced level of representation, “girls and women may conclude there is little cultural

value assigned to their participation in sport.” (“Study Shows Women”)

There are extra-curricular activities that are stereotypically considered to be female

activities, such as theater, music, dance and the like and one could assume that in these pastimes

women and girls would have more equitable treatment and opportunity, but this is not the case.

However, even in activities that are typically more female-dominated, women are treated
unfairly, which can deter them from pursuing things they enjoy. Performing arts, for example, is

an activity that draws more female participation at the non-professional levels and is perceived at

this level to be a more “typically female” activity, yet commonly perceived as a more equal or

even female-driven field, and while this may be true at the non-professional levels, such as

school and community theater, dance, etc. it generally becomes male-dominated on a

professional level, and even when it isn’t, the men are still paid more, given more lead roles,

recruited more, and generally have more focus put upon the men. Ultimately, because girls and

women may end up feeling treated unfairly, Again, something that girls enjoy while they are

young ends up being something they feel pressure to give up, rather than feeling supported and

encouraged in going after their dreams. Not only are girls There is pay discrepancy in the

performing arts world as there is across the board between men and women, but also In fact,

“roughly fifty percent [of women]... reported leaving the [theater] industry due to

discrimination”. (Rodgers) There are many factors that decrease the amount of female

participation in performing arts as they age, with only and there are quite a few songs that point

this out. Taylor Swift is one singer who commonly speaks about her experiences in the music

industry and does not shy away from implementing her feelings of discrimination into the art she

makes. Swift alludes to the double standards of the music industry in her song "Nothing New”

stating, “They tell you while you're young, ‘girls, go out and have your fun’, then they hunt and

slay the ones who actually do it”. She, like many female artists, has many songs and many lyrics

about the same topic, but these lines specifically display the lack of opportunity for girls due to

social pressures. Swift again discusses the double standards she has encountered in her

profession in her hit song “The Man” when she tells us “[She’s] so sick of running as fast as

[she] can wondering if [she’d] get there quicker if [she were]s a man” and that if she were a man
we would all “say [she] hustled, put in the work, …wouldn’t… question how much of this [she]

deserve[d]” and that “what [she] was wearing [and] if [she was] rude could all be separated from

[her] good ideas and power moves”. Swift is specifically speaking of her own experience in the

world of performing arts, but she is speaking to and for all women who are seeking “success and

prosperity” in their chosen field.

¶Women still have to overcome sexism in their pursuit of the American Dream in

addition to dealing with the continued gender pay gap often alongside the struggle “to balance

children and careers in a country where childcare is not only expensive--but now mostly

inaccessible” (The Representation Project). The inequitable criticism young women face while

growing their careers can be is detrimental to their self-esteem which can harm their ability to

achieve success, and even cause them to lose confidence in themselves altogether.— therefore

giving up or quitting. The importance of representation is often lost to those who have plenty of

it, because they don’t see the psychological impact it has on themself to see people like them in

so many different things. To see yourself— or people like you, associated with powerful ideas is

a privilege, and people within minority groups that are not often a significant part of the media

could take on ideas about “what [their] life should be like or what [they] should aspire to be

like”. (“Why Representation Matters”)

Whether we are discussing hobbies and extracurricular activities that may or may not

lead to professional roles or actual career goals, there continues to be a large disparity in the way

girls and women are supported in these things in our country. The American Dream initially only

truly applied to men, but even now that it is supposed to apply to women as well this is not borne

out in the evidence. Women must fight the pay gap, the “glass ceiling”, sexual harassment, safety

issues, and unfair expectations along with the basic discrimination they are up against from the
time they are little girls playing alongside little boys in sports up to the time they are sitting

alongside men in a board room. There is a joke that basically states that a woman is asked by a

man, “what is it like to be a woman in the workforce?” and a man answers for her and she

replies, “just like that” [source unknown], and this joke alludes to the general experience of

women in the classroom, at work, and just about anywhere they are speaking alongside their

male counterparts. In her “Letter to Society’s Expectations of Women'', Whitney O. Wilson tells

us, “I cannot believe that my worth lies in the cleanliness of my home or in the appearance of my

body. I am not defined by the size of my pants or my bra and my purpose is much greater than

fitting nicely into the shadows of the men around me” (Wilson). Until women are out from under

the shadow of men, they will never truly be represented in the spirit of the American Dream.