Looking around in college or grad school, it’s easy to believe that, in the United States at least, gender equality has largely been achieved. …Women enroll in and finish college at higher rates than men. And these days, no one tells you to give up on your dreams of medical school, find a husband, and settle down.

These dynamics can be a rude awakening for young women who have excelled all their lives, often at institutions that have invested resources, time, and attention into recruiting promising women. They’re experiencing something we call “late-breaking sexism.” It’s the sudden realization that you don’t have the same opportunities as a man, that you will struggle to have both a family and a career, that your participation in the public sphere will always be caveated by your gender.

In short, that although latter-day feminist icons encourage women to “lean in,” they will be met at every step of the way by someone telling them, implicitly or explicitly, to “get back.”

Women in their late 20s and early 30s face a double reckoning — they’re confronted with gendered expectations about family on the one hand, and sexist barriers to their career advancement on the other.

“Late-breaking sexism”: why younger women aren’t excited about electing a woman president – Vox

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