“No matter what we as individual women want, no matter what our goals, we have to support one another.”
Zosia Mamet, aka Shoshanna from Girls, wrote about the definition of success in her latest column for Glamour, and explained why women should stop being so obsessed with "making it".
While "leaning in" is all about "encouraging women to pursue their ambitions, and changing the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do" – Mamet is asking, "Who are we to put such a limited definition on success? "
Getty / Jamie McCarthy
"We are so obsessed with 'making it' these days," she wrote, "we’ve lost sight of what it means to be successful on our own terms."
"As women we have internalized the idea that every morning we wake up, we have to go for the f--king gold. You can't just jog; you have to run a triathlon.... Who in her right mind would want to do that? And who would even be able to?"
HBO / Via alissaerin.blogspot.co.uk
She explains that with the narrow definition of success, if she wanted to give up acting and "open a small coffee shop in Vermont" everyone would think she was "insane".
But points out that, equally, if she "didn't turn my little coffee shop into some world-renowned Magnolia Bakery of the north, if I kept it small and had a happy life, I probably wouldn't be considered a success at that either, which is ridiculous."
So, basically women can't win.
NBC / Via latenightseth.tumblr.com
She said that women's need to succeed was a by-product of a good thing: feminism. "Feminism was meant to empower us as women, to build us up for fighting on male-dominated battlefields."
Mamet added that despite feminism giving us role models like Beyoncé and Hillary Clinton, "We kept the old male ideas of success: power and money. We need new ones!"
HBO / Via daily.songza.com
