I discovered I was a healthy perfectionist and had fallen prey to a stigmatising myth about women’s hard work

Negative stereotypes of ambitious women flourish in our western society. Is there any truth to these stereotypes or are they just a myth?

I’ve always been called a perfectionist as if it was a bad thing. I love working, and I love hard work, and apparently, that made me a perfectionist (in the demeaning sense of the word). Losing my ability to work is my main source of grief after I became ill. 

The ‘bad perfectionist’ thing was particularly pointed out to me when I moved back to Denmark (from Tanzania and Zambia) and started my political science studies at University of Copenhagen. My study-mate actually complained about me working too hard because it made him look bad (!).

In Denmark, we have a social law, Jante’s Law, that says you shouldn’t think you’re better than other people, which, in my experience, is often interpreted as ‘don't work too hard or show your talents.’

On top of that, in Denmark, the stereotype of the Straight A Girl (in Danish: 12-tals pige) who pushes herself so hard to perform that she gets sick has flourished. The media have been particularly instrumental in perpetuating this negative gendered stereotype, as if ambitious girls were at the crux of teenage angst and stress. 

The whole ‘you're such a perfectionist’ took a morbid turn when both the medical world and alternative practitioners blamed my illness on me being a perfectionist. ME and other ‘medically unexplained illnesses’ (can we please call them ‘underfunded and understudied illnesses that disproportionately affect women’ instead?) have been, and unfortunately still are, thought to be, partly, caused and sustained by a perfectionist personality, because perfectionism causes stress. The Danish Board of Health even writes on their website that certain personality traits are causative factors for ‘medically unexplained illness’ (I still hate that title), despite studies showing the contrary and the science being flawed.

Peter la Cour, Professor and health psychologist, has reviewed the litterature on personality traits and ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (aargh that damn title) in his book about these illnesses and finds that different studies show the presence of very different, often directly opposite, personality traits. He concludes (my translation):

“The personality traits cannot possibly be present at the same time, as there is little or no overlap between them. The widespread assumptions of a connection between illness and personality provide, to put it mildly, inconsistent data when empirically tested.” (pg 89)

He also suggests that there is a ‘chicken or the egg’ (my words, not his) situation going on. Most litterature on personality traits and illness has assumed that the personality trait was the cause of illness, but isn’t it more likely that the individual is affected by illness and the social situation they are brought into because of the illness? He asks.

See, it didn’t sit well with me that my work ethics and love of reading and writing were a negative thing, or were making me sick (especially because I loved it and felt a sense of purpose from it), so I did some research:

I first of all discovered that the stereotype of the Straight A Girl, who makes herself sick is just that — a misogynist stereotype. A Danish study actually found that there was no evidence to suggest that girls who get good grades have more mental problems than others. In fact, it was amongst those with fewer resources and lower grades who frequented mental health services more often.

I also discovered that all perfectionism isn't bad or stressful. A meta-analysis of 43 previous studies on perfectionism concludes this. 

The meta-analysis found a difference between ‘perfectionistic striving’ and 'perfectionistic concern'.

'Perfectionistic striving' can instill a sense of accomplishment and improve self-esteem. But its evil cousin, ‘perfectionistic concerns,’ leads to despair and burnout. 

And the difference between the two? 

‘Perfectionistic strivings’ means being able to set high, but realistic and achievable standards. It also means that you work towards these goals one step at a time.

But ‘perfectionistic concerns’ means worrying about making mistakes and not being good enough. Or that you set impossible-to-reach standards, and get paralysed by a fear of failure.

I’ve used my ‘perfectionistic strivings’ to write several published essays even with a brain that is mush. I can say with certainty that I would never have been able to do that if I had ‘perfectionistic concerns’ — it would take up too much of my energy to get anything done.

I then dug a little deeper and discovered that the issue of ‘ambitious women’ as something negative is a social, economic and political issue as well. There is a cost for women who are ambitious, and it costs them on the social, personal, professional and financial fronts.

Stefanie O’Connel Rodriguez, a journalist who has looked into the research about women and ambition, calls it the ‘ambition penalty’. She discovered that there is a cost to women’s ambition: husbands are more likely to cheat on their wife if she is the breadwinner and men are more stressed if their wives begin to earn more (the cut off point is 40% more) than them.

This is not because ‘men are bad’, but because of patriarchal socially-prescribed gender norms that requires the man to be a provider — if he can’t provide, he is not a ‘real man’, according to these norms. Nevertheless, it puts a damper on women’s ambitions and creates negative stereotypes about women’s work.

On top of that, women who negotiate higher salaries often get penalised for it (as do Black people) because they are viewed as more aggressive or unsocial, while white men often experience getting higher pay when negotiating.

For years, I thought my love of working was a problem, something bad, unattractive and making me sick even, but I finally discovered that I had fallen prey to a stigmatising myth about women’s hard work and ambition. 

What is your experience with these gendered stereotypes? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.

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What I love

When I can’t sleep at night turn on this podcast with Buddhist psychotherapist Tara Brach. Her voice is so calming and loving and I feel like I’m being swept up into a warm blanket. Her Buddhism resonates with me, although I at times also want to scream: “I can’t just f***ing sit here and observe my anxiety! I need to DO something” and then I oddly enough calm down again and turn towards being present.

I love fried rice. But everytime I made it it would clump into a gelatinous mess. I finally figured out why: my rice wasn’t cooked right. This little trick of steaming rice and buying a wok (my dad makes the fried rice, I’m unable to cook) makes for awesome fried rice.

Right now I’m listening to Nina Nastasia’s Just Stay in Bed:

It’s very pertinent to my (and many others’) situation: “Death is a terrible place to stay long”. Yup.