Can women have it all?

Can one bake the best chocolate chip cookies on the block, wear the “big girl pants” and equally compete in the boardroom simultaneously?

It’s not that I think all women need to be completely independent, nor men for that matter, but I do believe that a sense of autonomy, being self-sufficient and the ability to hold your own in a variety of situations gives women merit and credibility in the business world, which previous generations reserved only for men.

Over spring break, I began reading “Bitch” by Elizabeth Wurtzel-yes I know, it got my attention too. I am only on page 26 and I already know Wurtzel is on to something. She addresses difficult women and praises their ability to captivate and maintain interest throughout history; it seems the more confusing and controversial you are during life, the more infamous you become posthumously!

Take Marilyn Monroe and Cleopatra for example: They spent their whole lives breaking boundaries, infuriating others, marching to their own drum and had their fair share of problems to go along with it. Yet, through death their lives have become legend and we can’t get enough — a Google search for “Marilyn Monroe” returned with 17,800,000 Web sites and “Cleopatra” in a close second with 16,800,000!

Claiming difficult women are “trouble, trouble and more trouble-but worth every minute of hell!” Wurtzel describes individuals such as Gertrude Stein, Patti Smith, Bette Davis, Eva “Evita” Peron and Judy Garland not as bitches, but as women who blazed their own paths.

In our day, one cannot even think about powerful women without mentioning the unimaginable success of Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. Millions of television sets turn to NBC at 4 p.m. to watch Oprah Winfrey-an Emmy award-winning talk show host-as well as buy her self-titled magazine, O and tune into her own radio station on XM Satellite Radio called Oprah & Friends. Forbes magazine ranked her as the most powerful celebrity, and I have witnessed the power of her influence over everything from skyrocketing book sales to the fall of the cattle industry in the late 1990s. Yet, this very influence constantly puts Oprah in the media attracting both criticism and praise.

Martha Stewart catapulted into a complete domination as a lifestyle tour guide through all aspects of the homemaking-arts and crafts, garden, kitchen and etiquette. But she suffered after a slight infraction with the law from a premature “yard sale” of her ImClone stock.

However, neither Oprah nor Stewart is currently married. Only one is a mother, and both obtained fame and fortune through immense hard work and a little scandal.

So do women have to be bad sometimes in order to be successful? Is marriage, motherhood and a career actually possible? I find myself wondering exactly what role women are now expected to take on compared to the role they want to enlist in.

As a junior majoring in corporate communications and public affairs, I spend countless late nights striving to further my education and obtain a vocation that I will be able to support myself on, take pride in and succeed in. Yet, as I take each step closer to the real world, I find myself wondering where I’ll end up. In addition to my career, I want marriage, children, autonomy and success. Is this actually possible in one woman’s lifetime? Can I wear my “big girl pants” in the boardroom, be happy in a functioning marriage, bake the best chocolate chip cookies on the block, be active in my kids’ school and PTA and still be a woman in tandem? Ha, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it!

I have learned from experience that you have to sacrifice to succeed, and history shows that a little deviance can equal success business-wise. Yet, where do motherhood and domesticity fit into the picture? The mystery of the supermom sometimes seems unattainable in today’s progressive, over-scheduled, demanding, CRAZY world. But somehow women do it. I have no clue how, but I plan on figuring it out because I want it all. I want to work my butt off, compete with the big dogs, know my way around the kitchen, strike fear into the competition, be an involved mother and still have time to paint my toes apple red while drinking a martini by the pool on a warm summer day.

So I end my ramblings with the same question I began with: Can one bake the best chocolate chip cookies on the block, wear the “big girl pants” and equally compete in the boardroom simultaneously? Honestly, who knows?!

I do know, however, that right now, my plate is full, focusing on nailing down a summer internship, studying, doing the best I can in school and somehow finding time for me in an already overbooked life.

I don’t have all the answers or directions to follow on “having it all.” What I do have is much more valuable-determination, drive and a solid foundation. As they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Well, you better believe when I go after what I want, I will find the way, the means and time to make some sweet tea inbetween; after all I am from South Carolina ya know.

Perrin White is a junior CCPA major. She can be reached at [email protected].