Core millennial women things...

and the secret ingredient is 'fatigue'

As a millennial woman, born in 1986 to be specific, I have often found myself sandwiched between two vastly different generations. I suppose most generations may have the same view about why their generation had it worst, but this is not about good or bad, this is about very pertinent issues which millennials face, particularly women.

Let me say at the outset, I have spoken to many friends about this observation, and it seems like everyone is experiencing it, perhaps at varying intensity, I get huge nods of agreement, but yet no one has voiced it.

I will speak from the point of view of a cis woman who’s grown up in small towns and big cities, belonging to the middle class .

Stuck in the middle of leaping technological wonders

We’ve seen floppy drives and experienced dial up internet connections. In essence, tech and I were growing together. We hit our teens together. I was irritated by my folks all the time, nothing new there. I wanted to do my own thing, but at the same time understood my limitations, since my folks had mastered the art of side eye, fear eye, dare-you-do-that-thing eye, try-speaking-in-that-tone eye and many such ways. So I knew some things were out of my limit, and I learned to accept that, but of course, I made sure I somehow communicated to them, that I was extremely unhappy with the situation. This did not matter to my folks, at all.

Coming back to the technology point, I was using Facebook only when I was in my early 20s, and then Twitter broke out with hashtags, and tried to rule the world, at least for sometime. I mean, there were videos about hashtag usages, so you know where I am coming from. Tahrir square, the so called revolution in Egypt was very much on Twitter, followed by many hashtag campaigns globally. Instagram originally started as a photo app, where people only posted photos (yeah it’s true), and no one cared how many followers one had. Then the advent of messaging apps happened, more specifically WhatsApp. Before we knew it, the millennials were bombarded with multiple platforms and user interfaces. To be noted: Some Gen Z are tiny little toddlers at this time or in early teens, while some younger Gen Z were not born yet or some of them are on their way, or being conceived by the ever fascinating process of egg meet sperm, leading to a kid, and another kid, and so on.

We also went through a stage where apps like Orkut, My space and Lime Wire were ruling our lives. We also blogged, yes because millennials did not stop writing, they just wanted to be cool and not use paper and pen. WordPress and BlogSpot were out go to writing spaces. In India, the technological boom mostly followed the west, hear me out before you want to start a comment war with me. We were looking at Facebook and Google as tech saviours, everyone wanted to work with them and be part of this tech gang. This is about the time when spaces like Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad started setting up tech hubs to deal with the back end work for Silicon valley start ups and big tech.

While all this was happening, my life was also changing in early 20s, people advanced from cut calls or missed calls to WhatsApp texts. This was huge, I have been part of relationships and friendships (situationships were not named until then) where cut calls had their own language. Allow me to explain

1 cut call means call me back

2 cut calls means no balance, def call me back

SMS used to be chargeable and night calls were either charged less or free.

All the leading mobile service companies were trying to drop their prices to attract customers. The rich and upper class was not happy that their help and drivers, and common junta on the street had a phone now, because psssstt…they like exclusivity. No shit Sherlock. CDMA phone were all over the place, and people were tripping on snake scores.

If you don’t know snake, you have not existed for me.

Flap phones were a thing, and from cassettes, we migrated to CDs, then to MP3 players. It was a time when we had many gadgets, but each doing one thing. CD player will only play CD and not randomly ‘ping’ for a text. A mobile phone was merely for communicating, and not creating content. Wonderful times. But here’s the millennial angst, coming up…

When we entered our late 20s and early 30s, a new batch of people (those Gen Zs who are not teens anymore) were trail blazing with this technology. They grew up with it. Their means of expression was via devices. But it was not just the technology, it’s also what social norms that come along with it. Gen Z has the power in their palms, and they were encouraged to be fearless. To speak their mind, without any guilt or resentment, without any fear. Here’s the catch - without any fear.

Cut to my generation, where especially women, we were told by the generation, which is about 45+ now, that I must not promote myself. Did they personally come and tell me this?

No.

The who stopped me? Well, social norms. The environment which is created by people around you matters a lot. A single woman may work extended hours at work, because the perception is she is single and has no other work. She will be given more tasks compared to married folks. Again, there are exceptions, but we are talking about norms which are unsaid in most spaces.

I was cleaning up after everyone’s mess. I was dousing fires. This is at work place and even in social circles, and the emotional labour reached its peak in dating life too. I was told to be polite and do things with ‘grace’. I am sorry, what does that even mean?

I did not have the luxury of time or bandwidth to express myself on public platforms. I was busy being creative for my workplaces. While I saw men from my generation, happily take lead, speak up, gain power, I did not see a lot of women doing the same. And when I saw women doing it, they were trying to imitate the leadership styles of men, because of course they had to prove it to the patriarchal system, whether it was corporates or NGOs or anywhere with a hierarchy.

I could not express myself as fearlessly using technology, not because I did not know how to use it, because I dwelled on everything too much. Questions I often dwelled on

“Is it okay to give my opinion?

“Should I say something so straight forward and assertive?”

“Will I be perceived rude or impolite?”

And just like that I censored myself, and I still do, it is such a deep conditioning that it takes precedence over other learned behaviours. And hence it is work in progress. So while technology and I grew up together, I did not reap benefits from it like the Gen Z. At the same time, generation which is just one step older than us, they were rigid, and how. They were not listening to us, and till date want to be stuck in their old ways. Of course, some of them were open to changes but that was a very small percentage. This is probably the reason why a lot of millennials also tried their hand at start ups because they were sick of bosses, managers and companies where change was not welcome. I mean, millennials have seen a hell lot of changes in the shortest period of time. They have also put in the most labour in setting up new spaces, for which we do not have a good reference point, because they do not exist. But millennial women, particularly, have not expressed themselves much. They have, and are still fighting battles and they do not even talk about it, forget posting about it on social media. Technology was only given to us for understanding how we can make our lives better by buying things.

Ah yes, we are the biggest audience or what the advertisers call as ‘target audience to buy things’, this is a whole post of its own, with some seriously problematic psychological traps for us millennial women, more on that soon.

The 45+ generation - I have very mixed views about them. Again, this is not about blanket statements or stereotypes, but I do genuinely feel that they peddled this theory of ‘do it all’. The whole idea of liberation also came with massive fatigue, well mainly because the new trend was to ‘do it all’. I am expected to work, earn money, manage the house, manage home, manage kids, husband, in laws, family, societal expectations and what not. This ‘do-it-all’ syndrome exists very strongly in millennial women. We can’t shrug it off, I see gen Z happily drawing boundaries in many cases. While we get dissed by the older generation for not being able to manage things as good as them. Common statement is “if we did it, why can’t you, in fact now you have more freedom and autonomy, you even have better technology, you are out and about, stop complaining”

Meh.

And here’s where I want to say - technology was never peddled to women to make their lives better, on the contrary it was introduced in our lives to keep running the wheel of patriarchy as is. You must have heard in most households, the moment there is a new mixer or washing machine or a vacuum cleaner “Now why are you complaining? Didn’t we just buy new appliances that will help you?”

While the older generation was able to look away from technology and now only using it for specific purposes, mostly WhatsApp and LinkedIn (read senior management creating posts family work balance ), and Gen Z literally live on it, breathe it, we got stuck in it to make our workplace life better, and then spend more money off it. Yeah, yeah it’s not all just cons, technology comes with its good things, but this is an observation of a generation that did not get a chance to adapt, but was always and still is in a flux, because guess what now, the Gen Z is at the forefront, and are being peddled this idea how they will change the world. The sad part is capitalism is using them to exhaust them of their creativity and uniqueness, and unfortunately they do not see through it now. I mentor many younger Gen Z folks and keep reiterating that they must not fall into the trap of what the older generations wants to them to do, especially those placed in conglomerates and corporations, and even the social change sector. It is unfair to put the burden on Gen Z, and it is done with a specific reason, to exhaust them very very quickly.

Where does that leave millennial women, who have built social spaces, work places, block by block, rebelled in silence and taken on so much mental and emotional load, that now we are left with an overwhelming feeling of fatigue.

Talk to any millennial woman, she will tell you how tired she is. Every single day, and no I am not talking about post covid etc. but a general fatigue, which is leading to us disconnecting from many things which are extremely important for us, like politics and physical and mental health. It has costed us our friendships and our peace of mind, and our well being.

And while technology has created communities for online, I do not think it has managed to do it millennial women. If anything, we have been pushed and isolated in our compartments of family, or singlehood or work. Integration has left the building. Our health is suffering. We still do not have access to basic information on womens health like getting a regular paps mear or accessing mental health. Because, again we are driven by the sinister word - perfection.

Millennial burn outs has a core ingredient - fatigue linked to emotional labour. A huge bout of love and solidarity to millennial women, who pull the load, every single day.