The Post-Ambition Trap

"Millennial women, raised on Girl Power and rom-coms in which the heroine gets the job and the man, joined the workforce just in time for the girlboss culture of the 2010s, which promised that hard work would lead not only to personal success but also to feminist victory. For many American women, no piece of that promise has come true. And, gender aside, anyone who's gone through two recessions, a pandemic, and the growing precarity of all kinds of careers has reason to side-eye grand dreams of achievement;"

"it's hard enough to just get by. No wonder that cries of protest such as the Canadian writer Amil Niazi's 2022 lament, " Losing My Ambition," in which Niazi declares that she's "abandoned the notion of ambition to chase the absolute middle of the road: mediocrity," have gone viral. Niazi has not given up completely on achievement: She parlayed her hit essay into a new book called Life After Ambition: A "Good Enough" Memoir."

Millennials increasingly view ambition with skepticism after economic instability and unfulfilled cultural promises. Millennial women grew up on Girl Power and rom-coms and entered the workforce during the girlboss era, which tied hard work to personal and feminist success. Many American women have not seen those promises realized. Recessions, a pandemic, and precarious careers have made grand ambitions feel unattainable. A viral lament that claimed abandonment of ambition in favor of mediocrity prompted a memoir titled Life After Ambition. The memoir traces changing aspirations, describes reliance on achievement for self-worth, and recounts a media career culminating in a BBC commissioning role. Motherhood shifted priorities away from work that separates parent and child, and some aspects of parenting experience are noted as underexplained.

Read at The Atlantic