We don't need to berate ourselves for falling short of our own expectations when so many of them are totally unrealistic in the first place.  In The Good Mother Myth, author Avital Norman Nathman looks at the great divide between the real maternal experience and the messages that barrage us in the media.

While some essays suffer from vague or familiar observations about pregnancy, childbirth, or toddler mishaps, and most lack the long-term perspective gained through parenting teenagers or young adults, this provocative book is valuable simply because it asks us to suspend preconceived judgments and absorb the stories of women whose experiences differ profoundly from one another, and from our own.  It shows us that the best way to battle the barrage of saccharine sound-bites is to arm ourselves with alternative, candid "tales from the trenches" depicting the messy, real dilemmas of real mothers in an imperfect world.

It's 2014, and women are everywhere - presiding over major corporations at GM (Mary Barra), IBM (Ginni Rometty) and Spanx (recent billionaire Sara Blakely).  There are women running Ivy league institutions, like Harvard University (Drew Gilpin Faust), Princeton University (Shirley Tilghman) and the University of Pennsylvania (Amy Guttman).   Women are even big in tech - think Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg.  So is it safe to assume that we've achieved equality, and we can pack it in?  Ummm, no.  There's still plenty of work to do getting rid of persistent yet subtle gender discrimination which holds all of us, men and women, back.  From "The New Soft War on Women":

What holds women back? Deeply entrenched stereotypes that women don't have "the right stuff" to be leaders, that they can't make decisions, that they are too emotional, even irrational. They don't have the drive to succeed. They have good social skills but they're short on toughness. They naturally "take care" but can't "take charge." Women who are or may be mothers are seen by both men and women as less competent and less committed to their careers. Therefore, they are seen as less desirable employees. They pay a huge "motherhood penalty" that can be as high as a million dollars.

Better Hair and a Better Society, Too

Did you see that great Pantene commercial about gender stereotypes that recently went viral?  No?  It's not your usual advertisement, and it plays up both female empowerment and insecurity in a most provocative way.  Finally, the message is that both personal and public perceptions about women need updating.  'Bout damn time, we say.  Watch the video and read more here.