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Focus only on your own growth.
GapYear is a time for growth and happiness.
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30s, woman, adult.I have become.
I have become a woman in my thirties — something that, when I was young, I thought would never happen... (Congratulations!!) I love my current age. I'm not as anxious as I was in my twenties, I know myself a little better, and I'm still at an age with many opportunities. However, as with anyone, the concerns society places on women at this stage can feel heavier and more burdensome than expected.
Someone might think my worries are pointless, but we know how desperately important those worries are to the person experiencing them. So, deliberately as a woman in her thirties 'Women's worries that haunt them for a lifetime'I'm going to talk about it.
* For convenience, this article dichotomizes gender into male and female. If you are of another gender, please read this with that in mind. |
1. Concerns that feel more serious because you're a woman: relationships
* Here, 'relationships' includes everything such as romantic love, friendship, and family.
Women do tend to be more sensitive about relationships. From an evolutionary perspective, many scholarsgenerally say that women are more 'relationship-oriented'They say this originates from the idea that, since primitive times, men hunted animals or fish with superior spatial perception abilities, while women gathered fruits and crops relying on memory. Gathering required building communities and sharing ideas and information, so women inevitably developed the ability and sensitivity to form and maintain relationships. Perhaps because of that, women's concerns about relationships tend to feel somewhat persistent and detailed.
What a woman considers most important in a 'relationship' is 'one anotherbeing sufficiently connected and how much satisfaction they feel'That's why. So, even if a female friend agonizes and vents about her boyfriend's flaws, after exchanging plenty of affection with him the next day, the person who had harshly swore with her the day before becomes the biggest jerk. So, even if it's not always logical, if a woman feels satisfied in the relationship, she gains the strength and hope to keep the relationship going and move forward.
So,Empathize rather than trying to fix the problemThat's why the age-old advice works.
Well, concerns about building healthy relationships are truly important. We spend most of our lives meeting someone, doing things together, and sometimes parting ways. However,the point where problems arise iswhen you try to validate yourself excessively through relationships.For example, when you constantly check with others who you are and only feel relieved when others acknowledge you. When this happens, you make too many mistakes before properly examining your inner self or viewing the situation objectively.
Being overly conscious of others,
blaming yourself for the relationship's distortions,
investing in relationships so excessively that it overwhelms you,
being overly suspicious,
becoming too impatient in relationships,
unable to let go of a wrong relationship,
obsessing over a single person or one relationship...
In fact, the biggest victim of these mistakes is 'my heart,' which is why it's problematic. When depression, anxiety, frustration, sadness, and pain all hit at once, my heart crumbles like a cookie. We especially experience this in our early twenties, because at that time we are clumsy at forming and maintaining relationships and haven't yet established what we want from them. Through these failures we should listen more to the existence called 'me,' but seeing older sisters or friends who, having been so deeply hurt by those failures, firmly shut the door to their hearts after their twenties because they don't want to be hurt again, I can understand that feeling and sometimes it's sad. Of course, that's their life so I respect it, but as someone who tends to meddle,the potential we have to become richer through relationshipsI feel like they're shutting that down a bit...
But one thing we must address: will a good relationship now necessarily be good for life? Conversely, will a bad relationship now remain bad forever? Both are absolutely not. Absolutely not!! Whether you prefer a limited social circle or a broader one,creating healthy relationships is ultimately a lifelong endeavorAnd relationships are not just one thing but come in various forms, and even these change from time to time.
So closing off your heart doesn't solve it, and holding on tightly telling someone 'don't change' won't fix everything. Instead, more fiercely...What I should be thinking about in my relationshipsIt is.
'What kind of relationship I want,'
'What kind of relationship allows 'me' and the other person to grow,'
'How to create a relationship where I can be happy just as I am,'
'What makes 'me' feel uncomfortable...'
EspeciallyIf you feel like you're becoming too attached to a relationship, you should pause it for a while and look at it from a distance.Whether by being physically apart, becoming mentally independent, or other means. There was even a case where a junior who had a bad relationship with their parents improved things simply by going abroad for three months of language study and taking a gap year. During that time they could think more objectively about what was wrong and what they were hoping for from the relationship, and through that period both the junior and the parents developed independence from each other.
To give detailed counseling about relationship issues, the cases are so varied that even staying up all night wouldn't be enough.
So, to summarize the core points,Be sure to check the 'direction' of your relationshipsThat's it!
People feel happiest when their relationships are satisfying. So this means we should be grateful for the precious people beside us now, form various kinds of relationships, and give enough thought to building healthy relationships.
2. An inevitable worry because of being a woman: aging
I stopped reading because I felt like I couldn't breathe. (I brought this feeling because I couldn't be the only one to experience it, hah) Fortunately, there isn't a single person around me who would label me an old maid, and my parents still tell me that women lose out by marrying and that I should marry late. So this stress, which shouldn't even exist in this world... suddenly made me depressed while writing.
PersonallyFor women, all worries about aging begin with 'Menstruation (period)I think they begin with it.I do. Because all concerns are closely related to the role of the uterus.
When I first got my period, my worry was 'Oh shit. How do I even talk about this?' These days awareness has changed a lot (it should have!!) but when I was young, having breasts and getting your period felt less like a blessing and more like a femininity that had to be hidden and was shameful if revealed. I fretted about whether I would grow into a brazen adult woman until I could say the word 'sex' without flinching.
So when you reach an age where you can confidently discuss your femininity, you realize there are so many issues related to the uterus: late periods, severe cramps, contraception, too heavy or too light menstrual flow, infertility, and even pregnancy... Now you're at an age where you must seriously consider uterine health. At this time the stark comparison that media and prejudice create between young, beautiful (able to 'produce' children) women and older women who can't have children... ultimately the (age) pressure around marriage and pregnancy gives women a 'social role as a womanit instills the fear that this 'social role as a woman' might come to an end.
As you get older, you then begin to worry that your periods will stop. The so-called When I was of childbearing age, I used to wish my monthly period would stop quickly, butmenopause (complete cessation of menstruation*)When it approaches, I anxiously wait each month, wondering if my period will really stop.Having often heard stories about mothers' menopausal depression from people around me, I have worried in advance about my mother's menopause as well.
*These days menopause is sometimes called the completion of menstruation (the end of periods). It can be seen as a movement to change perceptions so that menopause is accepted more positively.
Menopause (the completion of menstruation) is, for women, 'death's experience. If previously women feared their social roles would be cut off, menopause becomes a biological 'confirmation' that they are no longer considered women. So how agonizing it must be to have to accept while alive that the body is dying. In Park Beom-shin's novel Eun-gyo there is a depiction of the complex emotions of a man who cannot get an erection. In that passage I felt the fear and loneliness of women in menopause (the completion of menstruation). Of course, a woman is not ceasing to be a woman simply because she has reached menopause. Rather, it is that some bodily function disappears according to the order of nature, and having laughed and cried with menstruation for about thirty years, it is hard to let it go peacefully as one might wish.
So if I have one wish,
I hope society views women's reactions not simply as 'spinster hysteria' born of jealousy of youth and beauty, but as an instinctive refusal to accept death,and would accept it a bit more philosophically.
And
we who have female bodiesmust contemplate life and death in advance,and
aside from women's biological functions,we must realize how important it is to find a beautiful and authentic self.
Knowing how beautiful this very moment is and how joyful it is to be oneself is something we can begin doing now. So don't wait—start finding your true self now.
3. Today's Issue for Women: Gender Discrimination
In the 1960s a wind of freedom blew across Europe. This wave of change, called the '68 movement', was a movement of European youth opposing the old order. Through it, minorities who previously could not speak—women, homosexuals, and people with disabilities—had the chance to come into society. The '68 movement' may be dismissed in Europe as a story from over fifty years ago, but seeing minority rights for women, homosexuals, and people with disabilities being discussed in our society, it seems that in Korea the '68 movement' is only just beginning.
If you ask why I brought this up,I want to talk about gender discrimination,but it's such a difficult subject that I find it hard to speak.
To begin with my own story... Igrew up hearingthat opportunities are equal for everyone.was what teachers and adults told me as I was growing up.So I thought that if I worked hard I would be recognized. Butwhen I entered society, opportunities were not as fair as I had thought.
I once worked at a public institution. The place I worked was large and long-established, so like elsewhere, 97% of executives and directors above the section chief level were men. (That was already five years ago... I wonder if it's improved now?) Still, there were quite a lot of women among the staff at the section chief level and below, so I thought it was a fairly female-friendly organization. However, because I was the youngest woman there, I had to do errands that my male colleagues didn't do—making coffee, copying, welcoming guests, pouring drinks at company dinners, and so on. Even then, I didn't even know that these were forms of gender discrimination.
Once, a male employee gossiped about a female boss he disliked. The shocking part was that he mixed in severe sexual harassment remarks and the person being talked about heard it. At that time, the mood among the senior figures in the company (strictly speaking, those with clearer authority and responsibility at the manager level and above) was'It's fine for a man to sexually 'trash-talk' someone, but you can't insult your boss!'That was the reaction. Even though the senior's tears were caused more by sexual shame than by being insulted. It was the first moment I felt that the world I lived in was very strange. And this odd moment felt real to me when one day a male section chief saidabout a female employee who wanted to take leave for pregnancy: 'she's taking leave and because the company is so busy we can't even replace her with someone else' He was calling that female employee selfish.
Ah, no matter how well I work, the moment I get pregnant I become a traitor to the company..
By that manager's logic, you should either quit your job for a happy family or, for your career, not have children. Honestly (sigh), it makes me choke up that as a woman you have to choose only one between a happy family and a successful career. They don't force men to choose only one of a happy family or a successful career!!
These days a lot of sensational articles about sexism and sexual harassment are being posted... My experience would probably be considered a very ordinary(?) level of sexism. What worries me is that countless incidents that weren't recognized as sexism may have passed by without my knowing, and that I may fail to notice them in the future as well.
But the good thing is that things are clearly gradually improving. The fact that issues of misogyny and sexism are being consumed sensationally is a sign that we are in a transitional period. Sohow we live our lives nowdetermines what our lives will be like 10 or 20 years from now.That is, we must remember that our lives now are really, really important.
So if there's one thing I really want to say to all women, including myself...
Don't give up living freely as a woman.
Don't get tired.
Keep moving forward.
Even if it's hard, get back up.
Let's believe more that our tomorrow will be brighter. In fact, the 1990s were better than the 1970s, and isn't today better than the 1990s? If we enjoy today by inheriting our predecessors' legacies, then through our efforts our daughters and the next generation will be able to live lives they can be proud of as women.
'There's no one answer to life~ The way you're living right now is the right answer~'
It was what my mother always told me whenever I complained that life was hard. Because my current self is the result of my own intense reflection and deliberation, and because it's the best way for me, she meant that I should accept myself with joy. Of course, it probably also includes the advice to respect and encourage other people's lives to the same extent.
So to everyone reading thisI hope that before any worry you won't be too afraid, won't hesitate, will confidently trust your own choices, and will love yourself.That's my final message!
By Editor Orangju
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