Can Women Really Have it all?

Women would like to believe that they can have it all – that they can get an education, pursue a successful career and raise a family – but often something has to give. Whether you're male or female it can be very difficult to juggle everything at the same time and give equal attention to every area of your life and so some aspects of your life are bound to suffer. It is even worse when you're a woman, though, because there is a certain pressure to have and raise children; to look after the house and keep everything in order; at the same time as having a career.

This kind of pressure doesn't seem to affect men to the same degree. In some families it is still the man who is considered to be the main bread winner, but there are an increasing number of dual income families and families where women are the main earners. Yet, although women are expected to contribute financially to the household, domestic duties still seem to fall on their shoulders. Not only do they have to spend hours in an office or shop, they then have to clean the house, cook the meals, wash the dishes and do everything else that their partners won't do.

As a woman, you may be able to go to university, get a degree, establish a decent career and find the love of your life, before settling down and having a family, but it isn't always easy. When you spend most of your time building up a reputation in order to further your career, you may not have much opportunity to socialise and meet men. When your child-bearing years are limited you could find your biological clock ticking, something which you either act upon or try to ignore. If you are single into your late thirties or forties you could discover that having a child becomes a challenge.

If you dedicate yourself to your career, you may have no room in your life for a man or a child. Just because you live on your own and are single doesn't mean that you cannot be fulfilled, but when you are led to believe that the only way to be content is to have it all, it can be a challenge to be entirely satisfied with your life. You start to compare your life to that of other women you know and wonder whether you would be happier with a husband and child. The chances are that all your married friends with children sometimes consider your situation with a degree of envy, too.

It is therefore clear that very few women are completely happy with their lot. There is a notion that women can have it all, but the truth is that even when you have it all, you can still find reasons to be dissatisfied. You may have a successful career and a family, but spend so much time at work that you never get to read your child a bedtime story and find that the relationship you have with your partner is strained. On the other hand, you might find that your career reaches a dead-end once you have children, which can be rather frustrating when it is something you have worked so hard on.

Whatever your priorities in life, you always find yourself comparing your own situation to others', which leaves you questioning whether you're in the right relationship and whether you've taken the right path. In the end, it doesn't really matter whether you can have it all if you are not particularly happy with your life. As a woman, though, you have so much to contend with that it is difficult not to want more than you have and to believe you have to be everything to everyone, which just leaves you dissatisfied and miserable when you really should be grateful for all the opportunities you have.