Lana Del Rey has made a point; we won’t always remain young and beautiful.

The day will come that we even want to live up to nearly impossible expectations society puts upon us to be an artifact of awe: a lady in the streets, but a freak in the sheets. Articulate, but not stuck-up. “Chill”, but not boring. Well-liked, but not too reliant on attention-though those Instagram “likes” do give a false sense of fulfillment. This isn’t just for women, either. There will be a day that a man will be comfortable in his skin even though his abs aren’t ripped and he can’t crush a beer can with his forehead. His masculinity will be restored because he has created his own standard of what it means to be a good man.

Society presumes that women are inadequate because we respond with emotion and might have kids. Meanwhile, men’s role as a single father or homemaker, undermine their ability to provide.

The media has finally taken a stance to change the stereotype of feminism. We must embrace a new culture of feminism; this isn’t about women, this is about everyone.  The problem is if we try to change the stereotype, we are deemed a martyr and it’s easy to create frenzy when we give the world a soap opera of complaints.

The media has painted ugly images of feminism and established unrealistic gender roles. We go through life, painting a picture to resemble someone else’s fruit bowl, when deep down we never even liked peaches. Recently, Emma Watson spoke in front of the UN describing her “HeforShe” initiative. The goal is to create a united front amongst all genders and change the paradigm of what it means to be a feminist.

Watson went on to say, “We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive … It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.”

The facts of inequality are alarming. Women still make 70 cents to the dollar compared to men. The women who hold leadership positions only consume 19 percent of the US House of Representatives, while 40 percent of leadership positions are held by women.  Sadly, we are still not bound by the US constitution to the same rights as men.

Society reacts to anti women occurrences that make women appear as entitled to their corporate positions rather than qualified, creating a decline in women’s credibility compared to men.

2 years ago, two agents were fired when a scandal broke about secret service agents abusing Brazilian prostitutes during a vacation. Homeland Security then hired Julia Pierson as the head of the Secret Service, though she wasn’t necessarily the most qualified for the position.

Ray Rice was recently caught on tape assaulting his fiancé in an elevator. This resulted in the NFL creating an all women committee geared at preventing violence against women.

The problem with society’s view on feminism isn’t that we are all talk; its our constant habit of being reactive instead of proactive. By creating these committees after the awful deeds are done, we create change at face value rather than where the core problem resides-in institutions.

In order to actually see progress, there needs to be a cultural shift where society accepts a neutral standard of success for all genders. Our future generations will finally be able to see the goal of feminism when they are raised in a way that guarantees success regardless of their sex.