While it may not be as clear-cut, I think the fact that many women in this country feel that it’s a big struggle to have both a family and a job becomes a more relevant feminist issue every day. In fact, I find myself thinking about this issue more as I grow up, prepare to leave home, and adjust my goals accordingly.

Recently I read an article in The New York Times called “New Goal for Women? Rising Above Having it All,” by Katrin Bennhold. The article discusses the pressure women put on themselves to have it all—a happy family, a good career, a great body—and argues that setting these impossible-to-reach goals is what’s ultimately holding women back from gaining positions as global power brokers. Bennhold asserts that men are able to achieve high-power positions in part because they are realistic about their goal-setting: they focus on their careers and nothing else.

But what about the gender-biased nature of our society? Bennhold argues that, while flawed systems such as childcare make it more difficult for women to progress in their chosen careers, we can’t hold those systems entirely accountable. Bennhold cites Sweden, where social programs such as the childcare system are greatly advanced and gender-neutral, yet women still aren’t rising to highly powerful positions.

Reading Bennhold’s article got me thinking more about goal-setting, goal achievement, and their possible linkage to women’s progress.

Is it really true that women set more ambitious, and harder to achieve goals than men do? Do we stretch ourselves too thin? Ought we just admit that we can’t have it all?

I don’t know, but I can tell you that unrealistic goal-setting starts early.Ever since elementary school, I’ve heard girls my age call themselves perfectionists, while I’ve never heard a single boy utter those words about himself. As a general rule (and I stress the word general—there are definitely exceptions to this), the girls I know set higher academic standards for themselves than most of the guys I know—something reflected in the growing academic standing of girls all over the country. Apparently some colleges are even being forced to practice a form of “gender affirmative action” for boys, because they have so many overqualified female applicants.

As a general rule, the girls I know also set higher physical standards for themselves. They lament their lack of exercise, make weight-and appearance-related New Year’s Resolutions (something Bennhold mentions as an example of overreaching goal-setting). Perhaps girls are simply more self-evaluative. We certainly are more critical of ourselves. Girls I know criticize their own appearances, regret social decisions, and beat themselves up about their grades more than boys.

So, maybe girls do set unrealistic expectations for themselves. Can you blame them, though? Our society seems to be in a sort of cultural limbo when it comes to portrayals of women. We are bombarded with sexual images of women in provocative positions with unattainable bodies, who seem to indicate that our role in society is to look good, yet we are also told to be strong and smart and reach for the highest career paths we can.

To top it all off, the media loves to tell us that men can’t be caretakers, whether it be through bumbling husband characters in commercials, or sitcom portrayals of working dads who spend their free time watching football on the couch with their buddies, rather than with their kids. This combination of images leaves us with a paradoxical, imagined woman as our role model.

Do I want to be thin, pretty, smart, powerful, and motherly? Of course. Is it time that I come to terms with the fact that it may be impossible to achieve all of that? Maybe. Then again, every bone in my body tells me that doing so would mean giving up in some way. When I interviewed Barnard President Debora Spar in 2010, she told me that she believes the increased choices for women today come at a price.  “All of this choice can create a fair amount of anguish,” she said. “Life for women is better now, but it’s often more complicated. Women in the ‘50s knew what they could or couldn’t do. We’re in a danger zone right now…Girls need to realize you can have it all, but it won’t always work out perfectly.”

So, maybe all us perfectionists need to consider that for a while.

Fiona Lowenstein is a high school senior, weekly guest blogger and Girls Leadership Institute alumna. Read more of her work here.

Two days before Christmas, thousands of people waited on line at a local mall for hours, hoping to score a pair of the coveted Air Jordan XI sneakers, priced at a cool $180 a pair.  About two hours before midnight – when the shoes officially went on sale – a riot ensued, resulting in the arrest of at least two people.  The crowd had to be subdued, and many shoppers complained that the local mall didn’t provide enough crowd control in anticipation of the sale.

Really? The shoppers were worried about crowd control? It seemed to me that, perhaps, the public should have been more concerned (outraged, even!) about thousands of people lining up to buy $180 sneakers when there were so many people out of work and desperately trying to provide the basics for their children.

Reading about all those people fighting – rioting! – to purchase sneakers really bothered me.  I have taught my children since they were born to say “thank you” at every turn, whether someone gave them a glass of water or an expensive gift.  Hearing about so many people willing to physically fight each other to buy sneakers made me wonder if telling my kids to say “thank you” was enough to instill true gratitude.  Would my son be rioting on a line like that one day?  Would my daughter be unkind to some other little girl that didn’t have a name-brand shoe? And how could I prevent either from happening?

Growing up in New York, I can relate to wanting the next “it” item.  After all, I was a child of the 1980s, when legendary stories circulated about mothers throwing punches at each other while trying to grab Cabbage Patch Dolls off delivery trucks before they even hit the shelves.  I wanted one, too. But, somehow, in the midst of all that doll hoopla, my parents taught me to be grateful for what we had – rather than focusing on what I wanted.

As a parent now, I wonder how we, as a society, can effectively teach our kids to be truly grateful – beyond just saying “thank you” – if we habitually give them every latest trend-setting gimmick.  I struggle with this question as a mom trying to raise grounded kids.  I want their childhood to be happy, which – if I’m being honest – means that I don’t want them to get made fun of for not having some cool new “thing.” But, conversely (and more importantly), I want my children to feel gratitude for what they do have, so that they are confident enough to ignore the taunts of some peers who always get that hot item even when my kids don’t.

I guess that’s a lot to ask of a seven and three year-old; I know many adults who can’t handle that kind of peer pressure.  But I refuse to give up, despite the challenges.  Over the holidays, my son’s class collected food for local food pantries that were in dire need of supplies.  I’d like to think this collection raised my son’s awareness about what’s really important.  It certainly made him more grateful for the food we had on our table.  And yet, only days later, he begged me for a certain brand of light-up sneakers that his friend had!  I was enraged; worse, I felt like a total failure.

And yet, I carry on, knowing that he is still a child who likes shiny, new things, and that this was a teachable moment.  I reminded him about the families at the food pantry, and asked whether those kids were worried about something as superficial as sneakers when they didn’t have enough food to eat.  I wanted him to understand that our needs as human beings need to be prioritized, and that having certain name-brand sneakers was pretty low on that must-have list.  Having a roof over his head and food on the table required more than a mere “thank you.” It required true gratitude.

Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It puts our priorities in perspective, and gives us something positive to consider, rather than focusing on “I want,” or worse, “Look at what they have.”  Gratitude can counter those horrible emotions of envy and jealousy, which often lead to negative peer pressure and even bullying.  Being grateful changes the way you look at yourself and the world.  And as a mom, I made a commitment to show gratitude more often so that my kids understand what being grateful means in action, not merely in words.

While I’m fairly sure many of the people on that long line for the Air Jordan sneakers didn’t really need them, I certainly don’t begrudge anyone nice things.  However, I tend to wonder whether a riot would have broken out if even half of those people there were truly grateful for what they had, rather than focusing on what they wanted simply because others might get it before they did.

For now, I will keep teaching my kids to say “thank you,” and try to consistently remind them that they need to be grateful for everything they have, especially the essentials.  I am hopeful that if I keep at it, one day, my kids won’t be on some line, rioting to buy sneakers.

Rosemarie Coppola-Baldwin is a practicing attorney and a dedicated mother of a two children.  A Georgetown University graduate, Rosemarie has practiced law at a major New York City law firm and for the City of New York. Rosemarie has been a guest lecturer on women’s civil rights and related legal issues at St. John’s University (New York), and offers pro bono legal services to a variety of entities.

Remember the movie He’s Just Not That Into You? For those of you who missed it, the basic premise of this highbrow film (read: crappy rom-com) is that women and girls make up all kinds of excuses to rationalize men’s jerky behavior. According to He’s Just Not That Into You, we come up with justifications when a guy doesn’t call us, ignores us, or just treats us generally badly.

Apparently, we all need to realize that, upsetting as it is, he’s just not that into us. I agree. If someone is treating you badly, chances are they aren’t worth your time. But I have one issue.Movies like He’s Just Not That Into You and nearly every other rom-com in existence (save, maybe 500 Days of Summer) tell us that men often act like jerks and sometimes act nice. They usually tell us to find the nice guys, but they never address the fact that women also act like jerks, and sometimes she’s just not that into you.

It’s time to realize that girls and boys can be found on all points of the spectrum. Yes, for many girls a random hook-up is a hopeful entrée into a relationship, however for other girls it is just a random hook-up. Similarly, there exist boys who view random hook-ups as more than a successful attempt to get some. The stereotyping we see in popular culture showing women as desperate for relationships and emotional connections, and men as taking advantage of any chance to get physical isn’t entirely accurate, doesn’t allow for outliers to the formula, and creates misunderstandings.

It’s nearly impossible to escape high school (and from what I hear, college) these days without hearing about, seeing, or participating in immense saliva-sharing (hello, rising herpes rates!).  I have to say, as a senior in high school, what I’ve seen does not follow the rom-com pattern. I have one very close friend who seems to think every random hook up is a possibility for a fully-developed relationship, and finds herself disappointed every time things don’t work out that way.

On the other side of the spectrum, a friend recently hooked up with a guy at a party, not expecting anything, and was approached by him the next day. Apparently the guy wanted to address what he expected to be her dismay that the hook-up didn’t mean anything. He was surprised when she wholeheartedly agreed and was surprised he would have thought anything else. I guess the moral of that story is that boys watch just as many rom-coms as we do.

The fact is, random hook-ups are probably a little confusing for all parties involved, since they don’t generally involve much talking about what it all means before it all happens. As with nearly everything in high school, if people said what they really felt, many more feelings would probably be preserved, but I don’t think anyone sees that changing in the near future. In the meantime, maybe we can just make a couple of movies about her not being into him, and cast Ryan Gosling as the weepy, confused reject instead of Jennifer Connolly.

Fiona Lowenstein is a high school senior, weekly guest blogger and Girls Leadership Institute alumna. Read more of her work here.

During the summer of 2011, I was searching various toy store websites to find a birthday gift for a seven year old girl.  I came across an advertisement for the Breastfeeding Baby doll, which teaches young girls how to breastfeed their dolls by having them simulate nursing using a t-shirt equipped with sensors.  Girls put on the t-shirt, and when they place the Breast Feeding Baby to their breast, the doll mimics a suckling sound.  At the time, the doll was not yet available in America.

But having breastfed both of my children, I was intrigued by this new toy.  I did a quick Internet search, and I stumbled across some articles and editorials that were increasingly critical of the doll.  One author went so far as to accuse the toy makers of “sexualizing” toddlers; the author feared that pedophiles would watch young girls use this toy in the park.

That extreme image creeped me out, too.  But I wasn’t (and am not) opposed to this doll.  What I am opposed to is the accusation that teaching girls how to breastfeed somehow “sexualizes” them too early.  Isn’t giving young girls – toddlers even – a positive, natural reason for the existence of their breasts an important tool in raising them with strong, healthy body images?

We, as a society, are not comfortable with breastfeeding.  We seem to have no problem with scantily clad women modeling barely-there lingerie on super-sized billboards, but we are suddenly squirming in our seats when a woman offers her breast to her baby.

I remember when I was in a large suburban shopping mall, I asked if there was a place I could nurse my infant son in private, as although I had the legal right to nurse publicly, I knew it would make others uncomfortable.  I was told to nurse him in the bathroom.  After asking the sales associate if she, herself, would ever eat in the bathroom, I was directed to a private room.

My experience was a hard lesson in how our society truly feels about our breasts: it’s fine to expose them as sexual objects, but it’s not okay to use them for their intended, natural purpose.  And there is something unnatural about that.

As the mother of a little girl, I want her to understand her body, not be embarrassed by it.  Having her learn the purpose of her breasts will give her confidence and perspective.  What three year old could ever understand that breasts represent something sexual?  These little girls understand feeding their dolls with bottles, nourishing them with milk.  Why should they not be taught this most basic, natural and oldest form of feeding babies?

I think if we don’t share this toy with our girls, we are teaching them that their breasts are primarily sexual objects, or at the very worst, something to be embarrassed about.  We need, as a society, to teach our girls what their bodies are made for so that they grow up with confidence in themselves, and so that society can’t condition them to believe their breasts are solely intended for a sexual purpose.  These girls are worth so much more than that.

Our young girls are worth so much more than that.

Rosemarie Coppola-Baldwin is a practicing attorney and a dedicated mother of a two children.  A Georgetown University graduate, Rosemarie has practiced law at a major New York City law firm and for the City of New York. Rosemarie has been a guest lecturer on women’s civil rights and related legal issues at St. John’s University (New York), and offers pro bono legal services to a variety of entities.

When I was a senior in high school, we got to take a health class. Nowadays, that’s no big deal but back in the 1980s, sitting in a classroom talking about sex and relationships was fairly radical.

Sadly, despite my excitement about the course material, I remember practically nothing from the class. The one thing I do remember is the day we talked about love. No, we didn’t spend forty-five minutes reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets or sharing the songs we liked to cry to after getting our hearts broken.

Instead, the teacher gave us (and I am completely not kidding you here) a set of guidelines that could be used to determine if the emotion you were experiencing was real love or puppy love. These guidelines included such questions as: Does the person return my feelings? Does this person really know me? How long have I been together with this person? and How old am I? Sadly, I did not keep the answer key, but you don’t have to be a relationship expert to figure out that if you answered “No,” “Kind of,” “Twenty-four hours,” and “Fourteen,” that achy feeling in your stomach would be dismissed and you would be informed you were merely experiencing “Puppy Love.”

Every time I think back on that questionnaire, it makes me furious. I wish I could find the people who created it, grab them by their shirt collars and demand, “Why can’t you love someone you’ve only known a week?!” or “How can anyone ‘really’ know another person?” or “How dare you tell me I can’t love someone who doesn’t love me back?!”

Long after my high school boyfriend and I broke up, I still loved him (though he’d moved on within a week of our breakup), and though I fell in love with my husband when we were first dating, I’m still (after almost fifteen years of marriage) learning who he ‘really’ is.

When we call it ‘puppy’ love instead of ‘real’ love, we are telling a person that she has no right to feel what she is feeling. I have no idea why grownups do this. Have they forgotten what it feels like to fall in love? Do they really think teenagers’ emotions are somehow less intense than adults’? Do they not want to deal with the joy (or the pain) kids are feeling, so they tell them, Oh, you’re not really feeling those things…it’s just a crush.

Love, I believe, is love. You can love people who do not love you back and you can love people you do not know very well. You do not have to be eighteen or twenty-one to fall in love, and you do not need a license to do it either.

While love grows and evolves and deepens over time, while it is nurtured by common interests and and shared experiences, it can be born suddenly and inexplicably. Can it last? Am I happy? Will I get my heart broken? These are questions to which it is worth having answers. Is it puppy love? I say: don’t bother asking. There’s no such thing.

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Melissa Kantor is the author of The Darlings in Love, The Breakup Bible, Girlfriend Material and If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince? She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. To read the first chapter of The Darlings in Love, go to www.melissakantor.com.

by Janell Hofmann

I am sitting, cross legged, on the bathroom floor trimming my five year old daughters’ toenails.  My nine year old son showers his muddy body as I lean against the tub.  My three year old daughter wrestles herself into pajamas in her bedroom.  My eleven year old son bursts in from football practice and hollers upstairs about reheating leftovers and having a sore throat.  My husband is out dropping our minivan off for a tune up.  The sun has set and we’re putting another day to rest.  In the confusion of this typical weeknight, I glance up from the floor at my seven year old daughter, standing on the step stool, completely undressed, brushing her teeth.  I don’t like the way she is looking at herself in the mirror.  I don’t like the way she pokes at her belly and frowns at her profile.  I watch her for another minute and step in.

“What’s up, girl?”  I ask.  “I’m fat.”  she responds without hesitation.  I’m instantly weak.  She continues, “My stomach jiggles when I run.  I want to be skinny.  I want my stomach to go flat down.”  I am silent.  I have read the books, the blogs, the research.  I have aced gender studies, mass media, society and culture courses in college.  I have given advice to other mothers.  I run workshops and programming for middle school girls.  I have traveled across the world to empower women and children in poverty.  I am over qualified to handle this comment.  But in reality, my heart just breaks instead.  I am mush.  Not my girl.

I rally some composure and stay cool.  “You are built just perfect – strong and healthy.”  And she is.  But this doesn’t soothe.

I flounder.  This child – my first and wildly celebrated daughter – was breastfed girl power.    I read picture books with only central female characters, I insisted she wrestle her big brothers, demanded family call her words like smart and brave as much as cute and adorable.  I tell her we are all different – straight and thin to round and plump and millions of ways in between.  I tell her it’s what makes us all beautiful.  Unconvinced.

I send all the other kids away.  I shut the door and we sit face to face on the floor.  There is more here and I need to see it through.  I tell her I looked just like her when I was seven.  I tell her she will grow to be tall and strong and fierce, like me.  Not good enough.  I reach and scramble.  I tell her how fast she runs.  Remind her of the goal she scored in soccer.  What an expert she is on her bike and the amazing balance and tricks she does on her scooter.  I remind her of her high level reading, her artwork, her mastery of math facts.  “Fat.”

I grow desperate.  “Child!  What is the first thing everyone tells you when they meet you?”  She sighs, “I’m beautiful.”  Beauty is not helping me here.  I’m failing.  Pleading, I ask her why.  Her blues eyes meet mine.  She tells me on two different occasions friends have called her “kind of fat” when they were talking about bodies this summer in their bathing suits.  And she felt sad.  But she also felt good because finally she confirmed that what she thought about her body was “mostly true”.

I think a few bad thoughts about her peers and their mothers and wonder what messages are being sent.  I am out of tools.  And now twenty minutes later, I’m out of patience too.  I feel powerless to what seems certain to her.  And I cannot understand how she does not see all of life’s perfection in her reflection.

I stand her up on the step stool in front of the mirror.  I strip off my yoga pants, my tee shirt, my bra and underwear.  We are side by side completely naked together.  She laughs.  I start singing a song that I’m making up as I go.  It’s rap meets Raffi with lyrics like “We are perfect, just the way we are.”  It’s wild and silly, but I cannot be stopped.  We’re shaking everything, and she’s belly laughing and totally thrilled.  I pick her up.  We are a ridiculous and magnificent pair.  The other kids hear the commotion and barge in.  They are confused and horrified.  I carry her to the bedroom raving about all the ways we are powerful and naked and women.  We settle into comfy pajamas and read a story together.  Fat is not mentioned again.

On this night, I have no idea if I have succeeded.  I’m not sure if what I said and did had an impact, if I fixed anything, or even if I changed her mind.  But I do know that I must continue to infuse myself and my children with bold confidence.  I must check in, ask questions, take the time.  I must build and undo.  I must be open and genuine.  I must but willing to dance naked in the mirror, resist the urge to see all the ways five babies have changed me, and stare straight into my reflection with love.  Then together, with a twinkle in our eyes, we only see radiance shining back.

Janell Burley Hoffmann is a writer and modern day abolitionist who leads empowerment programs for girls on Cape Cod.   She is a lover of life and enjoys the wild ride with her husband and five children ages 12, 9, 7, 5, and 4.