Not all women fit gender role

By Tatiana Sánchez

The very last line of Lady Gaga's interview in the April edition of Cosmopolitan reads, "Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams... If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."

My very first thoughts after reading such a bold statement were, simply, "Thank you, Lady Gaga."

As unconventional as this statement may seem to some, I was excited to finally see a woman express what others are too afraid to say out loud: that it is okay for a woman to dedicate her life to building a strong career and obtaining success, without having a man in the picture.

But it shouldn't just stop at that: in a progressive society where traditions are slowly but surely being broken, it should be acceptable for a woman to renounce the typical lifestyle as wife and mother, without being criticized or shunned for doing so.

Today, women are dedicating much more time to building a successful and fruitful career. In fact, women now comprise 56 percent of graduate school enrollment, according to MarketWatch as presented in the Wall Street Journal.

And according to the New York Times, a report done by the U.S. Census Bureau found that women are waiting longer to have children, and more than ever are opting not to have any at all.

When I tell my friends I don't want to be married or have kids, they look at me as if I'm a Martian and say, "You're crazy, Tati." They say that I'm in denial and that, sooner or later, I will change my mind. They say that I don't really mean it, that one day I'm going to want the nice house, the husband and the kids.

Polly Vernon, deputy editor for the Observer, stated in the Guardian in 2009: "To be a thirtysomething woman in 2009 and not want a child so desperately that you think you might die is simply not allowed."

The truth is that I don't want the cookie-cutter lifestyle that every girl has dreamed of at one point or another. I don't want to come home to a husband and children after work. I'm perfectly content with dedicating an entire lifetime to building a career. But in a society where women are set out to get married and have children, this mentality is simply not welcome. And if it is, it's scary, unusual or sad.

Let me back up a little. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of having the perfect little family. What girl doesn't? I used to tell myself that I would be married and have children by the age of 22, just like my parents.

I played house and even wrote countless lists of possible baby names for my future children. Whether innate or socially-constructed, my dreams were the same as every other little girl who grew up thinking that their life's calling was in the home.

But as I grew up and gained my own perspectives on the world and had my fair share of positive and negative experiences, I came to realize that my calling in life extends far beyond the home.

I have always been a woman ruled by my ambition and my relentless determination to succeed in all that I do. It is in many ways what brought me to Santa Clara and is leading me to pursue a graduate degree after I leave here in June.

My education and my career have always come first in my life, and it is something I embrace freely.

The happiness I would surely obtain from gaining a successful career is the same happiness any other woman would obtain from marrying and starting a family. The fact that I am a woman who would rather make it to the top of her profession than settle down should not be seen as something out of this world.

Surely a man would not be seen as a maniac if he chooses to dedicate his life to building a successful career; he would simply be referred to as a "bachelor" who never quite found the right woman to settle down with.

Most people ask, why can't a woman have both? Why don't I strive to build a career, while building a family at the same time? While that's all well and good, it's simply not what I want. I don't want to get married, and I don't want kids. There is nothing crazy about it, nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing disappointing about it.

In a society where women are practically expected to marry and bear children, it is difficult for career-driven women to break out of this mold.

But it's time that we start accepting the fact that perhaps not all women want to fulfill the domestic roles that society has set out for them since the beginning of time.

Perhaps some women want something more, something different.

Tatiana Sánchez is a senior English major and opinion editor for The Santa Clara.