Leftover Women in America

I found the concept of left over women really interesting in Xiaoxin’s lecture on Wednesday. I think the parallels between that idea in China and in America are really striking. In my opinion, I feel like there is still an unspoken idea in the United States that women who are high-achieving are also undesirable in our culture as well. We see it in the media all the time. There are numerous movies and shows, such as Sex and the City, that depict successful women who are happy in all aspects of their lives except for their dating lives. They agonize over how they could improve themselves in order to attract dating partners rather than appreciating their hard earned achievements. I think this sort of ideology transcends into the lives of everyday women as well. Many highly successful women in our society seem to struggle with reconciling their success in their professional lives with success in their personal lives. It seems that even in America, there is somehow a stigma against successful women- it is thought they either work too much and do not give themselves the opportunity to date, or that their success is somehow intimidating to suitors. Then, much like in China, after a certain point these women seem to reach an age where it is no longer acceptable for them to even pursue dating. I find this strange, because it seems to me that there are plenty of successful men in the world who are able to find significant others, but this seems much harder for successful women. I think this a reflection of how even though we are considered more modern than China, Western nations like the United States can sometimes also be backwards in their beliefs regarding women and success as well.