the supergirl dilmena

[theladyrose]

The Supergirl Dilemma: Girls Feel the Pressure to Be Perfect, Accomplished, Thin, and Accommodating

(Many thanks to st_crispins for the link.)

I've posted up before this article on the overlooked psychological detriments of all women's secondary education, but I think it's an appropriate parallel article. And heck, while you're at it, did you know that women are outperforming men at the university level?

What's shocking me is the increasingly younger age at which girls feel the pressure to be perfect. Virtually everyone I knew in elementary school, both male and female, wanted to go to college, but I always assumed that was more a matter of class expectations. Of course girls should go to college; it's practically expected of all middle-class and higher. The trend now seems to be heading off to grad school.

This article is so frighteningly true. As the graduate of seven years of an all-women's school, I've probably witnessed more of my peers in the midst of breakdowns or near-breakdowns than not. (That's what happens when you spend too much time in the senior lounge.) The concept of pleasing others, though, has evolved; a lot of girls (myself included) think of fulfilling our families' and peers' expectations for success in that category while the study seems to imply that pleasing others mostly involves fulfilling others' personal needs.

More simply put, if you can't ace your 5 AP classes, tutor underpriviledged elementary school children, make banners for the graduating seniors on your soccer team and bake brownies for your depressed friend, you fail at life. I know of a fair number classmates who have done all the above and still feel inadequate. To be honest, I can think of relatively few who would say that. There's such a big push, really starting with my generation, to. We expect ourselves to volunteer in the community, pitch in during family crises, comfort friends having a bad week and create the most memorable six-month anniversary gift for our boyfriends (if we still have time to be in the relationship) while maintaining good grades in challenging classes. The group of people we want to please keeps expanding: parents, friends, teachers, mentors...you get the picture. I wouldn't call the expectations placed on girls as passive; it's a more dyanmic evolution of the approval seeker.

With older girls nowadays, there's a sort of perverse pressure to be really good at math and science; it's almost an understood requirement to take at least AP Calc/Stats and/or an AP science course even if you don't plan on dealing with those subjects much in college. I don't know about others, but I feel like I'm perpetuating the 50's housewife stereotype because I am not going into engineering, pre-med, pre-law or business. So many of my friends from high school are going into engineering, the hard sciences or pre-med (melee_melo, are you still considering gynecology?); they easily outnumber those who are studying the humanities and social sciences. The vast majority of my female friends in college now are business majors, some of whom are double-majoring in the humanities. The rest are majoring in bio, engineering, architecture (not known to be a particularly "feminine" discipline), communications or cinema/theater. Friends (you know who you are, *cough* dear eyepiece_simile) often joke that I'm taking a "fuzzy" courseload, and that psychology isn't a real science. Apparently the cognitive science and neurobiological requirements, never mind the prerequisite calc and statistics courses, for the major don't seem to count :P

The article doesn't really touch on the body image issues mentioned in the headline, but they're definitely an issue. It does feel rather simplistic to say that the general obsession with perfection extends to the body, but anorexics tend to be high achievers. eyepiece_simile, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but our old high school hospitalized more female students than any other local high school. Our college admissions counselor told me that the anorexic students she encountered were A students. I could try tying in the article about anorexia I wrote a few months ago, but I don't have a copy, and virtually no one ended up reading it anyway. In simple terms, not only do girls have to perform perfectly, they have to appear flawless and effortless in the process.

I know I'm speaking in vast generalizations here; I'd love to hear any rebuttals or general comments. The post is locked for viewing by female viewers only.

Comments

[one-blankpage.livejournal.com]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha
ahahahhahahhahahahahahaahaha.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm talking about you :P

[one-blankpage.livejournal.com]

me? no. not me.


mazonson, vassar, luskin, swenson, melissa, meredith, but not me.

seriously, you should hear what these girls do.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

I attended a single sex college for women when that type of institution was more common , but it was embedded within a larger male institution (it soon went co-ed). My major was actually male dominated.

In the women's college, classes were smaller and frankly more challenging and the faculty were more open and socialable. This may simply have reflected the size of the school.

I've spent time in both female dominated and male dominated groups and agree the dynamics are different. One isn't better than the other; just different.

But then I grew up in mostly male play groups so I usually did fine with guys.

My parents never understood where I was headed (my mother still thinks I should have been a secretary) so their expectations were actually the reverse of mine. Which, I think, freed me to set my own expectations and goals, something I think girls (and maybe students in general)need to re-learn today.

We baby boomers had to contend with the so-called 'greatest generation' who were tough cookies and many of us simply rebelled and literally walked out on our families. Learning from that experience, we swore we'd be better, more understanding and more accommodating parents ... and I think we are. But that's not entirely a good thing. We've now cushioned, smothered and obligated our children to please us. Maybe there's something positive about hating your parents :)

I do agree about the super-girl expectation because I see it in students I've taught at all levels. One outcome is that women are indeed outperforming guys, at least until they get married and are faced with the having children question (and if they have children, they then shift their super-hood into motherhood). The other is that they're massively stressed.

But then, their parents, particularly their mothers, are stressed too. :)

[malbal55.livejournal.com]

oh my gawd
this is SO true.

wow. im not even considered an overachiever and im stunned at how much this applies to my own life and that of people at casti in general.

i will refrain from providing many examples of such, har har.

But.. wait..

[inkwelling.livejournal.com]

Huh. You've definitely made some interesting points here, and although I felt a vague sense of disagreement on some of them -- mostly the über-supergirl expectations -- although I understand that you've employed your usual excellent writing skills to exaggerate somewhat sarcastically to make a point, I don't know too many people who are that crazy about that many things.

On the other hand, you hit right on the head as far as my personal high school academic experience went. Hell, I went to public school (yeah, yeah, gasp) and I was somewhat embarrassed to only have taken 3 APs over two years.. it's a ridiculous system, but not only female-centric.

Also, I think that you shouldn't lock this post for females exclusively, however; it's genuinely interesting, and I'd be interested to see how male peers (or not) would respond.

[glerf.livejournal.com]

so one of my good friends at MIT actually went to all girls catholic school and she totally agrees that all her friends were overachievers.

and as for the rest of the girls here, I feel like the girls moer than the guys are perfectionists. like all of them look so put together every day, they have their work done, they're at the top of the classes. its the guys who are copying each other's homework and not showing up to class.

[romanticizing.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You know, I tend to think of myself as a slacker, and yet a lot of this stuff applies to me. I took 4 AP classes total in HS (most of my friends took more), I was a tutor, I had an internship my senior year, and I got mostly A's. I guess I feel a little uneasy blaming society, or whatever, for putting pressure on me. I have body issues but they are not major, I guess. I used to be really, really skinny, and I could eat everything and never gain weight.. and when I got to college, that just stopped. I wasn't used to it so I gained a lot of weight. I lost some over the summer, but I still feel I weigh more than I should. It's difficult because I used to be that slim girl. Sometimes I would think, well, I don't have any real talents, I'm not pretty, but at least I am skinny.

I have a lot of overachiever friends. My sister is the clearest example, though. She always gets straight A's, she's in IB, she does soccer (school and recreational) and track, she's busy with college applications now, and then she's in a bunch of clubs. She takes much longer than homework than she should just to get it perfect. She's also recovering from anorexia. She was a little chubby as a kid, and she played soccer.. When she started spending extra time working out, I guess we didn't really notice. My dad is really athletic, so I think he was just glad she was working out. Also, my mom is always trying some new diet, and my sister sort of went along with that. She's getting better, though; she's improved so much in the past couple years. She doesn't talk about it with me, though. My mom says she's embarrassed.

This is TMI, though. I think it is a problem, but I didn't think I was really affected by it until now.

[one-blankpage.livejournal.com]

btw, this might appear on the I&S final. If you come to school, I'll further explain =P