Emerging Issues American Women Face Today
Caring for Aging Parents
Today, people are living to older ages than they did fifty years ago. With a larger elderly population comes the need for more people to care for them. In many instances, this responsibility falls to their children. Caring for an aging parents comes with difficult challenges like the stress that comes with parents with diminishing health, and the financial stress that comes with caring for someone in poor health. Many of these responsibilities can fall on women and it can effect their lives.
Balancing Family and Career
In today's day and age, there are so many options for women that it can be stressful trying to balance it all. It can often be difficult for working mothers to find a balance between managing their career and taking care of their family. The struggle to find this balance can be stressful. Working mothers have a lot on their plate, from driving the kids to school to achieving that deadline at work. Recently, more men are taking a more active role in raising the family and the responsibilities are shared between the parents.
Self-Image and Pressure from Society to Be Thin
In the age of tabloids and obsessions with celebrities, many young girls develop self esteem and body issues. Seeing paper-thin celebrities on the pages of Us Magazine or People or seeing the models on American's Top Model on channel 5 can give young girls unrealistic expectations of what their bodies should look like. The results of this can be that young girls will go and have plastic surgery to try and get that "perfect body" that is not very healthy for them.
Living Farther from Family Support System
Today, more families are spread out across the country. Once a part of a family has moved, the family can become more and more distant. In the past, most people stayed closed to home and didn't live far from mom or dad, meaning they always had that support system. Today many choose to move away from home, and while that may bring great independence, it also comes with the challenges of having no family close by to turn to for help.
More Fear Stemming from Women's Health Issues
Since women are living to older ages, there are more health issues that can present themselves and with new additions of medical discoveries everyday can come more fear of health issues. In the past, more people's cause of death was listed as natural causes and with the new medical discoveries,it is possible to diagnose what a person has died of. Every day in the news women hear about gruesome stories of new diseases.