"What Will Tomorrow Bring?...": A Study of the Aspirations of Adolescent Women

Margaret Conrad is a history professor at Acadia University and editor
of They Planted Well: New England Planters in Maritime Canada.

In 1984, sociologist Maureen Baker organized interviews with 150 adolescent Canadians about their future aspirations. The object of the exercise was to examine the world view of young women. The findings were both clear and sobering. Notwithstanding socioeconomic status, ethnic origin, regional identity, rural/urban location, and the dismal state of the world in which they are growing up, women between the ages of 15 an 19 view their future through rose-colored glasses. While adolescent men also tend to put a rosy glow on events, their expectations were more in keeping with what the world will probably offer them. A majority of the females interviewed expected to have both a family and a career, to live with a loving husband and trouble-free children, and to escape the ravages of unemployment and poverty. Workforce discrimination would not affect them unduly, even though many expected to withdraw from paid labour while their children were young. They would cope successfully with whatever life brought, including unwanted pregnancies, financial difficulties, and exclusive responsibility for household chores.

Unless the present trends are radically altered, few adolescent women of the 1980s can hope to have a life that meets such expectations. A significant proportion of the women interviewed will experience divorce, single parenthood, and poverty. Dr. Baker indicates that the reasons for the great gulf separating aspiration from reality are the mismatched cues provided by parents, the media, guidance counsellors, and society. It is little wonder, when the media (adolescent girls spend more time watching television than do boys) serve up a world of soap opera divas, rock star wonders, and pampered royalty as models, that a significant number of women have unrealistic expectations for their lives. And until there are realistic public goals for a majority of women that reach beyond “pink-collar ghettos,” they can perhaps be forgiven for their domestic idealism. Baker’s findings indicate that young women from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, urban settings, and unconventional families are more practical in their future projections. Ultimately, parents, school counsellors, government bureaucrats, and society as a whole need a clearer vision of what handicaps women in Canadian society. Only then, Baker notes, will tomorrow bring better options for all adolescent women.