The Failed Quest for Perfection
By Srishti Bali
The notion of ‘perfection’ is the prevailing social benchmark put forward towards women. Either women are perfect or they’re unsuccessful. There are no exceptions.
Perfection is this sense of self-regulation, it is a constant benchmarking of the self, it is a calculation of one’s assets and a fear of possible losses.
However, what I find really interesting is how ‘perfection’ is sold as a choice, a choice where women are categorised into those that ‘work hard’ and those that could have succeeded if they had just ‘put their mind to it’. This choice comes from this overarching neoliberal order that individualises our failures and our successes and deems us as the only actor that can be accountable for our lives and the experiences that we endure.
In 2011, Lauren Berlant published her book Cruel Optimism. Berlant describes the concept of ‘cruel optimism’ as being a longing or a passion that restricts one from flourishing and interlinks it with the ‘good life’, which is all about aesthetic conventions such as the ‘Australian Dream’ narrative. I see these concepts play out in my own life in conversations with my female friends where we all have different set ideas about what we categorise as ‘success’, yet all of them lead us to the ‘good life’ — which is NOT ‘good’ because we are often anxiety ridden because failure can hang over us at any moment.
Because we have internalised this expectation of ‘perfection’, we’re all a textbook version of what society wants us to be. The ‘can-do girl’ who is supposedly flexible, individualised, resilient, self-driven, and self-made, essentially one that looks like a walking Key Selection Criteria.
Although many of us call ourselves feminists, I think often because we are in this ‘progressive’ bubble we forget that a large amount of our structural expectations are built on the social internalisation of post-feminism — the idea that feminism has achieved what it has had to achieve and that we are equals in society now. A key element of this ideal is consumerism. As post-feminism disguises itself as the provider of empowerment, choices and specific freedoms by selling the narrative of achieved equality, many women fall into the trap of viewing consumption as a means of empowerment. This false empowerment leads to the belief that an impressive consumer lifestyle will only enhance their chances to achieve perfection and that it is their choice, when it is actually overarching social expectations forcing them to believe it is their choice.
While as feminists, we understand the detriments of the patriarchy, I think sometimes we struggle to identify subtle nudges from society that feed patriarchy back to us through elements of consumerism, which we participate in without realising that consumer culture re-establishes gender norms through the beauty and fashion industry that act as a substitute authority. It is subtle and unnoticeable to us because these consumer habits are highly promoted and subscribed to as a way of accessing extra avenues of coupling career success with their ‘good life’ and establishing that perfection, yet we have to be critical about the need for ‘perfection’ in the first instance.
As women, society will always pivot to our gender first, but perhaps by starting to understand the structural pressures we face, we can begin a productive dialogue with future generations of women about the detrimental nature of perfection.
