For decades, the message has been clear: women can have it all. A meaningful career, motherhood, financial independence, sex appeal, beauty - not one or the other, but everything. Feminism has given us freedoms that women before us didn’t have. We can choose our work, our partners, whether or not to have children.

But culturally, “having it all” has slowly shifted from possibility to expectation.

What once felt like liberation can now feel like multiplication. More roles to inhabit. More standards to meet. More invisible planning. If a woman wants to become a mother, she’s often expected to secure her career first, stabilise her income, build momentum, so that stepping away won’t cost too much. And when she returns, she’s expected to re-enter seamlessly. No gaps. No slowing down.

Progress opened more doors. But it also quietly raised the bar.

Sometimes I wonder if modern women didn’t just inherit opportunity, maybe we also inherited a new kind of pressure.

And I’m still trying to understand whether that feels like freedom, or something heavier.