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Casey Morris
McCammon
English 111
16 March 2015
Limitless
Often, women feel as if they are limited, but in reality women do not take advantage of the opportunities they are given. The role for women has changed drastically over the last couple centuries. For example, women have new opportunities in the military, workforce, and education. Although women have so many more opportunities, society cannot force those opportunities upon them; women themselves have to be the ones to take action because it is not something that is just handed to them. In the most recent years women have taken up the roles of politicians, military officers/soldiers, and other jobs that would have seemed nearly impossible
50 years ago. When achieving the right to vote in 1920, women made a stride to unleashing themselves and breaking free from the limits society put on them. But today women, even with their many options, still feel limited. It is not the men who are limiting women, but women who are limiting themselves from reaching higher goals.
Since 1775, the foundation of our nation, women have served proudly in our military force, but not on the front lines (Women in the US Army). They have often been seen as nurses helping the wounded, caring for the sick in the hospital, but you would never see a woman firing a gun. Why do they not want to go to the front lines and fight? Recently 4,100 special forces jobs have been opened up for women, and 200,000 jobs have been opened up for women in the
Army and Marine branches, but why do women not fill these positions (Women in the US

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Army)? Researchers have found that when women are put in risky situations that their anxiety skyrockets and causes them to perform less (Risky Situations Increase Women’s Anxiety, Hurt
Their Performance Compared to Men). Women may not want to put themselves in these situations because they are afraid of failure, but then again who is not afraid of failing? These situations, such as being put out into combat, seems to be riskier situations for women because of the pressure put on them to protect the lives of their fellow soldiers. But women are limiting themselves with the fear of failure, and they can achieve great things anywhere, especially in the military. An article from
The Washington Post stated that women bring a sharp sense of “social sensitivity” into the military force that men sometimes do not bring. Women also bring more critical intelligence, which determines whether or not the mission will succeed or fail, and they also helped gain footholds in Afghanistan villages that were previously unreachable (Women in
Combat). All these achievements show that women have no limits when it comes to being in the military; the only limits are their minds. When Cadet Madeline Kenyon ran the obstacle course at West Point Military Academy in 2 minutes and 26 seconds her freshman year, she showed that the barriers women set for themselves on the physical standpoint of the military can to be broken. Women may be reaching their full potential because of the limits they put on themselves due to them being afraid of failure, but women have proven again and again that they can beat these limits and prove they belong anywhere and in any field.
Now, you may be thinking that the military is a great way to show how women have reached some potential and made progress, but what about the rest of the fields where women still limit themselves? In 2008, out of the 10.1 million privately held firms in the US, 50% of those are held by women (The Changing Role of Women in American Society). Women 50

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years ago could only dream about working in huge firms, or even owning businesses. These results came because women did not cower to the way society intended them to act, but rose to the challenge and proved that there are no limits. Now I am not saying there is not gender