27, single and childless. In the 1950's I would have been a failure. Today am I a hero?

We were born (we being women in their 20's and 30's) in a time where neither traditional roles nor anti-establishment roles apply. We are not women of the 1940's or 1950's that were bred to bear children, keep up a home and please a husband. We also weren't around in the 1960's or the 1970's when women burnt their bras and shed all their ties to traditional female roles. Women took the work force by storm in the 1980's, asserted themselves as power players, demanding sexual equality in the work place and have been kicking professional ass ever since.

Fast-forward to 2011 and we are neither here nor there.

It's like we've added those 2 movements together and come up with an unfamiliar gray area that isn't quite as defined. An area where a lot gets lost in translation between genders and generations. There is no defined role to fulfill. In the 1950's you had to be the great home maker, raise your children properly, take care of your husband, have dinner on the table when he arrived, keep the children quiet etc. My mother sent me most hilarious email with 11 rules to make your husband happy (picture above). While I can't currently identify and it actually makes me gag, it showed the place of a woman as clear cut and defined. That place was at home.
I have to quote the film Mona Lisa Smile "What will future scholars see when they study us, a portrait of women today? There you are ladies: the perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude, doing exactly what she was trained to do. Slide - a Rhodes Scholar, I wonder if she recites Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts. Slide - hehe, now you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make. Slide - A girdle to set you free. What does that mean? What does that mean? "

On the opposite side, the feminist movement was defined by it's opposition and non-conformist attitude. It was the rebellion... No, I will not bend my life to try to get, please and keep a man. But the backlash to some of the radicals of the feminist movement that alienated many moderate and traditional women has led us to where we are today... Limbo. Hopefully this lack of definition prompts us to seek a balance between these two worlds. A balance, I feel, we struggle to find. I mean I don't want to burn my bra, but I don't want to strap on that girdle either!
With the search for equality I think we also upped the ante. There are so many roles I am expected to execute to perfection. I was raised to be an ambitious and hard working woman, a professional that is not defined by a partner but rather by what is in my head and in my heart. I was also raised to be a nurturing (future) wife and mother. I look around, however, and wonder... how am I supposed to do all of this and do it well? At some point something's got to give, right? Are we being selfish when we try to have it all?
So many expectations are placed on us upon our arrival into this world. The other women in our lives saw us as beacons of hope that would define the future of the Woman's Movement. But what happens if we chose to take on a more traditional role? If we decide to be housewives do we kick back the feminist movement a couple of decades? Would women like Simone de Beauvoir turn in their graves?
I am 27 years old now. I am not married and I don't have children. Instead I have diplomas hanging on my walls. If this were 60 years ago I'd be an annomally.... completely unsuccessful. People would be wondering if I was either a shrew, a lesbian, baren or simply unwanted by the opposite sex. Even in terms of today's science I am unsuccessful because I haven't reproduced. For women like Simone and even women of today I am celebrated for getting this far without a husband or child to "hold me back."
I can't help but think that maybe we've taken on too much. Too many expectations that our spouses, our children, our families and that society places on our shoulders... hoping we keep the "movement" going forward but at the same time don't leave our men behind. When I was in college my friend Alejandra and I used to say... "Ok... I quit!! I'm done! This is too hard.... why can't I just be a uterus... have babies and give my brain a rest!" But this was our passion... so we took a break and went back to hit the books.
I'll leave you with an example:
Since I was 16 years old my step-grandparents would both ask me when I was getting married. For 11 years my step-grandfather has counted the amount of boyfriends I've had, and although supportive about my not settling for the wrong person, has wondered when the time will come when he'll see his oldest granddaughter (and up till a couple years ago the only granddaughter) wed. My step-grandmother, Ama, to this day at 90 years old asks me if I have a boyfriend with a hopeful tone. The twist is that when I tell her that I either don't or that a particular relationship ended she always replies with a strong assertive tone, "Good for you. You have your whole life ahead of you to take care of a man. Have fun and worry about your career for now."
I guess this ambivalence of family vs. career is not something that will be figured out with age. At some point we will find some semblance of balance between home and work, family and career, them and us.