We Can Be Anything! Except Who We Really Are

Written by Erin O'Neil, LCSW

The Barbie movie was the smash hit of the summer. The visuals are stunning, the characters are fun, and the music is a dance party. However, the pink gingham packaging unwraps a relevant commentary on the harms of our society’s prevailing gender role expectations. As we watch Barbie face her own identity crisis, it is not a stretch to see the harmful impact of society’s expectations on our teenagers' identity formations and mental health, especially on young adolescent girls.

Mom smiles at her two daughters while they walk on a beach together.

Source: kate_sept2004 / iStock

A Constant Contradiction for Women

During the film, America Ferrera’s character succinctly states, “It is literally impossible to be a woman.” Her monologue goes on to detail the many contradictions women today face resulting from prevailing views on everything from beauty standards to careers to motherhood. “You have to be thin, but not too thin… You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass… You’re supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.” This constant state of contradiction is what has become known as the Gender Role Strain Paradigm or Gender Role Discrepancy Strain (Pleck, 1981, 1995), in which we feel constant pressure to adhere to traditional gender roles set by our society, regardless of whether or not they align with who we really are. When we fail to do so, we are caught in a crisis of identity (a conflict between our personal experience and what is expected by the society in which we are trying to find belonging). Our self-esteem is impacted and can result in an increase in mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, self-harming behaviors, and suicidality.

How Teen Girls Are Dealing With an Identity Crisis

Erik Erikson named the teenage developmental stage Role Identity versus Confusion. The central task at this stage is to understand and form the core of our identity so that, as we go through all of life’s changes, we have a confident sense of who we are. During this stage, it is normal to experiment with different roles and identities, activities, and behaviors. However, for our teen girls, their ability to experiment with and try on different identities is hindered by societal pressure and role expectations to be and do everything. They have to be smart, beautiful (according to our society’s beauty standards), funny, athletic, creative, kind, assertive but patient and reserved, as well as fearless and responsible. Psychologists refer to this as “role overload,” or having too many roles for one individual to fulfill. So, our teen girls have the impossible task of trying to play roles that are fundamentally in conflict with one another and/or impossible to measure up to. Role overload results in a persistent belief that we are not and will never be good enough.

In her research, Rachel Simmons, author of Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Happy, Healthy, Fulfilling Lives, reported that girls tell her they feel the pressure to be “Superhuman.” Simmons explains that high school girls, whether they are varsity athletes, club members, or valedictorians of their class, have the lowest levels of self-compassion of any youth group. No matter how much they may have accomplished, this constant pressure to be everything leads many girls to overthink, criticize themselves, and slowly lose their confidence.

What Are the Effects of Role Overload?

The impact of this pressure and the role confusion that ensues has implications for our teens’ mental health, especially for teen girls. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey of teenagers ages 13 to 17 found that about 96 percent of teens reported that anxiety and depression were problems in their age group.

From an early age, many young girls feel they are expected to participate in as many activities as possible, excel in school, make friends, stay physically fit, look “cool” on social media, and, at a certain age, maybe even find a job. Unsurprisingly, in a report released by the CDC, three in five (57 percent) teen girls in the U.S. teen felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021—double that of boys. Furthermore, about one-third of girls surveyed reported considering suicide in 2021, a 60 percent increase from a decade earlier. Teenage girls are trying to navigate different “roles,” and the resulting mental health issues while simultaneously trying to understand their place in society.

Role overload can spill over into early adulthood as well. In 2015, UCLA surveyed 150,000 full-time students at over 200 colleges across the country and reported the highest levels of unhappiness and loneliness ever recorded in female freshmen. In a CNN article, two out of five undergraduate students — including nearly half of female students — say they frequently experience emotional stress while attending college and a growing number have considered dropping out.

As teenage girls transition into young adulthood, those who have not formed a core identity find that the crisis continues, manifesting in their relationships and careers. Women might feel pressure to get ahead in their careers but also to have and raise children and maintain the household. Studies show that women perform far more cognitive and emotional labor than men, mainly due to gendered expectations. For mothers, examples of this type of labor, also called “invisible work,” include organizing playdates, booking medical appointments, and planning family activities. The balancing of all these responsibilities leaves many women in a constant state of role overload, leading to persistent burnout, depression, and anxiety.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Our expectation of women and girls has been ever-increasing. The Barbie movie brought the role overload issue front and center this past summer. But society is slow to change and gender role expectations on a societal level can only change when we shift our own individual way of thinking and behaviors. Those of us in the helping professions need to model this shift in our own lives and offices so that those coming to us for assistance have a place free of unrealistic standards and can have the space to simply be who they are. So, what are the next steps for us as mental healthcare providers?

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1. Awareness: Our growth and improvement as professionals hinge, in large part, on our ability to self-reflect and examine how our own issues may show up in the therapeutic relationship (bias, countertransference, etc.). We need to include our own expectations of clients as a part of that constant self-reflection. As we work with anyone, and particularly teenage girls, let’s notice not just how we expect they might or should show up to sessions, but how we respond when they do or don’t.
2. Acknowledgment: If we’re working with teenage girls, acknowledge the confusion, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues that arise due to how they are expected to be (by caregivers, school, significant others, friend groups, prospective colleges, coaches) versus how they actually feel. Bringing this into session shouldn’t be taboo and will open up a welcoming space for them to be who they are (or at least start to explore who they are), a space that they might not have in their everyday lives.
3. Exploration: Bring family members in (if it is appropriate and safe) to explore their own expectations and how they may be conflicting with who their teenager is actually finding themselves to be. We can work with the client and their loved ones to shift expectations and leave room to explore different roles and identities. For those who may not have safe caregivers in this regard, identify where they may feel the most congruent (i.e., not in a place of constant gender role discrepancy or role overload), and enhance that experience.

Quoting America Ferrera again, “We have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re also always doing it wrong.” This is the message our teen girls receive daily, and regardless of the channel through which it’s received (caregivers, school, social media, etc.), it is impacting their mental health, ability to function, and identity formation at a crucial time in their development. Society may be slow to shift, but we must create comfortable spaces for our teens to just be who they are, regardless of whether they know who they are just yet. The hope is, that in providing these safe spaces, our teen girls can form their identities free of unrealistic expectations and develop into confident, self-assured adults.

About Erin O'Neil

Erin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing International Association-certified clinician, and EMDR Consultant in Training with ample experience in the treatment of addiction and post-traumatic stress. Through modalities such as Motivational Interviewing, IPNB, Ego State Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing, she collaborates with clients who are working toward healing. In her current role, Erin uses a trauma-informed approach to help clients develop coping skills as well as process and resolve the deeper issues that contribute to their addictions.