Thank you for your interesting question. These days we value more the intellectual mind rather than the feeling heart- - the home of our true Self - rediscovering our deeper self is a journey which many do not undertake ...it requires courage and deep listening to learn to live from our heart.
Life is beautiful despite a lot of interventions and contradictory events that make things hard nowadays. Inner peaceful and wisdom make our life easier.
I think it always had been difficult to dare to be oneself. I'm actually translating a 1538 book of Antonio Manutius, that just tried to be himself the best he could. He ended up threaten of heresy and his family had to declare him dead by pest in non-pest times and publish another book with a similar title, from another author. So roughly, we're doing a bit better than in 1538.
And, as women, worst even being yourself. It's only very recent women are allowed to have a self. Code Napoleon transforms the women in an object of his husband, and, even largely remodeled, it's still in the French legal code. Before 1954, women in France could not vote. My grandmother was said a whore because, one of the first female tennis players in France, she was showing publicly her ankle. Still, it have been courageous women that show the way.
There are various pressures from various sources to do work in a manner that pleases them. This is true in university departments, agencies and any workplace. In some organizations they adopt the motto, "it is not what you know, it is whom you know." Thus quite often it is difficult to be oneself unless you are your own boss.