Zosia Mamet has risen to semi-stardom for her role on Girls, which I still haven’t watched. I’m familiar with her brief role as the charismatic lesbian photo editor on Mad Men. I also identify with Zosia’s lack of makeup prowess. This is how I imagine I look when wearing lipstick. I make no excuses for Zosia’s fashion sense, but she is my spirit animal when it comes to awkward makeup application.

Zosia penned a lengthy essay in Glamour about feminism and the freedom to define “success” on an individual level. I’ve cut a few paragraphs, but Zosia’s point is that women should stop picking apart each other’s life choices. Some women define success as running a Fortune 500 company, and others are happy with running a small bakery or whatever. Or working for that bakery. Or not working at all. Zosia uses her own career as an example. She was offered a role in an established hit sitcom (before Girls) but decided to make an indie film with her friends instead. She didn’t understand why her agent pushed her to take the bigger paycheck. Zosia has a better grasp on feminism’s meaning than certain other starlets. Let’s do this:

I have been incredibly blessed with success in my chosen career. I’ve worked my ass off and had the support and encouragement of those around me to keep climbing. But what if tomorrow I decided I was content with the place I’d reached in acting and planned to open a small coffee shop in Vermont? That job wouldn’t necessarily be any easier, but I believe I would be considered less successful. My friends, some of them, would ask me if it was what I really wanted (code for “You’re making a mistake”). My agent would think I was insane, and my family would definitely be confused. And if I didn’t turn my little coffee shop into some world-renowned Magnolia Bakery of the north, if I kept it small and had a happy life, I probably wouldn’t be considered a success at that either, which is ridiculous.

We are so obsessed with “making it” these days we’ve lost sight of what it means to be successful on our own terms. As women we have internalized the idea that every morning we wake up, we have to go for the f—ing gold. You can’t just jog; you have to run a triathlon. Having a cup of coffee, reading the paper, and heading to work isn’t enough–that’s settling, that’s giving in, that’s letting them win. You have to wake up, have a cup of coffee, conquer France, bake a perfect cake, take a boxing class, and figure out how you are going to get that corner office or become district supervisor, while also looking damn sexy-but not too sexy, because cleavage is degrading-all before lunchtime. Who in her right mind would want to do that? And who would even be able to?

I think, unfortunately, some of our need to succeed professionally is a by-product of a good thing: feminism. Feminism was meant to empower us as women, to build us up for fighting on male-dominated battlefields. It did that, but it did some other things as well. It gave us female role models like Hillary and Oprah and Beyonce and in the process implied that mogul-hood should be every woman’s goal. We kept the old male ideas of success: power and money. We need new ones!

I hate that we look at women who choose not to run a country as having given up. I get angry that, when a woman decides to hold off on gunning for a promotion because she wants to have a baby, other women whisper that “she’s throwing away her potential.” That is when we’re not supporting our own. Who are we to put such a limited definition on success? The Merriam-Webster dictionary says success is “the correct or desired result of an attempt.” But you get to decide what you attempt. If you get off running a global hair care empire, more power to you, but if working as a hairdresser somewhere within that empire brings you joy, then that should be just as admirable. You shouldn’t feel like you’re letting down the team.

[From Glamour]

Zosia has a point. Following one’s dreams and personal definition of success is more important than a few extra dollars. I do think Zosia’s a bit sheltered because she grew up with rich and famous parents and never struggled as an actress. Her romantic dreams of starting a small indie bakery remind me of Michelle Willaims’ desire to run away and become a laundress. It’s easy to romanticize the jobs of the little people when one doesn’t have to live on the wages of the little people. Zosia doesn’t have to gun for a corner office in order to live comfortably, but a lot of women do. Not every woman has the freedom to make that choice. Feminism ideally gives us the choice to define success as we please, but financial concerns always muddy the waters.

Zosia received a lot of flack for starting a Kickstarter campaign to finance her $32,000 folk music video last year. The fund failed because people thought it was ridiculous to give money to a successful actress with a vague idea of a dreamy video. So yeah, she’s out of touch with the daily concerns of most working people. I still have to give Zosia props for actually understanding the meaning of feminism and using it as a launching pad for other ideas.

Photos courtesy of WENN