Get pregnant at 25 if you want a high-powered career? ie: be successful. Bullshit!

Penelope Trunk recently wrote a blog post where she outlines how young women can be successful in having a high-powered career:

1) get married by 20-25 years of age
2) education isn't key
3) find a husband, this is key (oh wait, I said that already)
4) have kids
5) get an education after, if you want
6) establish your career.

I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer. I believe it's a choice and what works for one woman may not work for another. What I do have an issue with is Trunk putting women into a box and if they don't follow the order of events as she states them to be correct, success is far from reach. That's bullshit. Point blank.

Read Trunk's Blog Post Here

Then read my thoughts on her post...

I literally almost vomited in my mouth. I respect a woman’s choice to get married in her early twenties and have babies by or around age 25, but this blogger totally put women into a BOX and if you’re not in that box, you’re basically not going to succeed – that was the jest of the blog article. It made me insanely irritated. She blatantly tells Generation Z to spend the years from 20-25 focused on getting married and furthermore states that “there is no evidence that doing well in school during that period of your life will get you worthwhile benefits.” WTF?!?!?!? Get married = success. Getting an education = not worth the trouble? Really? That’s what we want to teach young women these days? I want to slap this woman across the face! Yes, I am a feminist in every sense of the word. No that doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian or anti-men. It doesn’t mean I’m anti anything in fact. It means that I believe strongly that men and women are equally and should be treated as such. This article basically tells women that for them to be successful they A) must get married (because being a single mother = being unsucessful) B) should make sure they get married in their early twenties C) shouldn't focus on getting an education first because it doesn’t help D) then focus on your career.

I mean really?!??!! I have NO problem with someone getting married early, having children early, getting their education last (or not getting one at all) and then establishing a career. I have NO problem with that let me reiterate that again. What I have a problem with is this WOMAN telling other women that if they don’t do those things, in that order they won’t be successful? What a load of crap. There may be evidence that “women who have kids earlier have healthier kids” and evidence that “women who have grown children by age 45 do better at getting to the top of the workforce” but there is also of the contrary as it pertains to sucessfull women. Perhaps they weren’t CEO’s of major corporations, but how many women in our lives are?

My grandmother has always been my inspiration. Growing up in a third world country, she got her college education, was a social activist, and started her teaching career before getting married and having children. Once she did get married and had 4 children, my grandfather and she travelled the world together, literally, she still was an amazing mother, worked hard, and was successful. She may not have become the President of Fiji, but she was an inspiration, God rest her soul.

And Penelope Trunk can shove that in her box.