Why do you think women commonly report a strong social pressure to be perfect, and what would be your proposed solution to alleviate this pressure?

half3mptyhalffull · 2024-07-20T04:55:24+00:00

im not sure how this is going to come across, but what alleviates the pressure is saying "no" to unrealistic expectations.

look perfectly put together and feminine all the time- no. let people be upset. i dont have the energy everyday to do that after taking care of my actual responsibilities.

work full time and do all the cooking and cleaning at home- no. unless im living alone, no. everyone living in the home can contribute to the work that needs to be done in the home.

sure, theres pressure. sure, youre going to piss off some people by saying no. but that doesnt mean you cant. you gotta set boundaries and take care of yourself.

theres all sorts of pressure coming from all directions all the time. we would be crushed by it if we didnt say no when we need to. i cant think of the common term now, but its essentially polite refusal.

Makuta_Servaela · 2024-07-20T02:49:21+00:00

Some notes-

"Balancing having a family with having a career" is not caused by second-wave feminism. Women have been expected to do that for centuries. The only time when women were legitimately expected to be completely out of the workforce in lieu of childrearing was for a few decades in the 1900s, and those decades weren't meant to last anyway.

The issue with "balancing having a family with having a career" is caused by the fact that we are not meant to be a nuclear family species. We're a communal raising species, and in the effort to force women out of power in those few decades, we created this false fantasy of women not needing communal networks for child rearing. The nuclear family model creates a false idea that children can be successfully raised by just one man working and one woman at home, when that has never been a thing that humans do.

operation-spot · 2024-07-20T02:33:54+00:00

While this isn’t answering your question I’d like to add a poem called Perfect by Maia Mayor to the conversation. The poem is essentially her mother asking her what’s wrong with her, why she’s not good enough, and saying that she needs to be better. Looking through the comments, you’ll see that’s a very common experience.

Anything you tell yourself internally is because someone, at some point, told you to feel that way. In the poem that person is her mother and later herself. The things the mother is saying is based on patriarchal ideas which is why deconstructing the negative ideas women have about themselves requires deconstructing patriarchy or at the very least, de centering men. Right now feminism and women in general have been attempting to change the narrative and I’d say it’s working.

Professional_Chair28 · 2024-07-20T03:00:56+00:00

But what was confusing to me is that the system she is describing is in large part due 2nd wave feminism’s own design. The expansion of women’s roles in the workplace instigated a balancing act between having a family, assuming they want one, and advancing one’s career. And since there is only a finite amount of energy any one person can expend, a certain stress on how exactly to expend the limited time and energy you are given to achieve “maximum fulfilment” in those two major areas of one’s life seems almost inevitable.

This is a fair analysis of things but it’s missing a bit of context. Before this second wave of feminism all women were expected to become a wife and have kids with very few exceptions back then (the odd spinster, the clinically insane, and the nuns).

So imagine that as our status quo. Just being wives & mothers, the only direction to shift and stretch in was compromise. ‘Oh I’ll still feed my husband and raise my kids, but I also want to pursue some money on the side.’ This compromise allowed men’s lives to remain the same and they were fine giving their wives & daughters a bit more freedom to be themselves.

Slowly this shifted over time, first there were secretaries and librarians, then colleges started accepting women and slowly we rose up the ranks until we had women finally in corporate board rooms, going head to head with the industry big-wigs. But during all of that, the older generations especially imposed their traditional values on these growing women and many of them took those lies of compromise as a challenge, well if Becky can work full time and be a mom then I can too!

So yeah women were expected to do it all, and in older generations that’s still a pretty normal expectation. Only in the past few decades have women been turning away from marriage, family and kids to fully pursue their careers, and only since the late 2000s has society stopped public outcry against these career women who are ‘too cold to have kids’.

All that to say the pressure ’to do it all’ is an effect of feminism which is a reaction to patriarchal norms.

From this junction foward the only direction to stretch or grow is for men to compromise and start adapting to a gender neutral version of family care. We’re already seeing a ton of this from Millenials, even Gen Z. A more equitable division of household labor and childcare duties. That’s the way forward.

EulenWatcher · 2024-07-20T01:55:52+00:00

To counteract it we have to pay more attention to freeing men from their gender role and to encourage men to be more active fathers and husbands. It’s already been working, considering that modern generation of men performs far more childcare and does more chores than any other generation prior.

Basically we can’t have two workaholics having kids without outsourcing both childcare and housework.

False-Purple3882 · 2024-07-20T03:58:15+00:00

It’s due to the fact that women are generally held to higher expectations in many different aspects. We’re held to a higher standard of morality than men, we’re expected to sacrifice more for our families than men, we’re expected to put far more effort/time & money in our appearances than men, etc.

This dynamic predates second wave feminism so I’m not sure how you’re making that connection. It’s not entirely because of men but it is directly caused by patriarchy and the people who uphold it. As far as those issues being more internal to women, yes and no. Women are generally more self critical than men and more likely to internalize negative feedback. Those are things women can improve on ourselves. But the standards we’re talking about don’t exist because of women, although some women uphold them.

SaBahRub · 2024-07-20T02:31:25+00:00

Because we’re told we need a man and are weak, obviously

Large-Signal-157 · 2024-07-20T13:40:21+00:00

It’s gotta come from inside. I used to feel this pressure too. Then I slowly realized that the only people whose opinions I cared about were my husband and family and they love me. If they’re happy, so am I. Family first. I still have moments of pressure but it’s usually applied by other women and it’s easy to ignore since dumb cunts are easily ignored if you think about who they are. They’re not people to try to mollify.

howdoiw0rkthisthing · 2024-07-20T02:02:27+00:00

It’s probably related to the “women are wonderful” effect everyone complains about

HighestTierMaslow · 2024-07-20T03:01:01+00:00

I love that speech because I've felt pressure in all those areas of life. I don't agree it's all from feminism many are still from the patriarchy.

Funstands4Funger · 2024-07-20T03:10:35+00:00

Because it’s women who are expected to be beautiful and skinny with no skin flaws, have a full time job and help pay half the bills while still doing most of the housework, having as many kids as her husband wants and doing a perfect job of raising them into healthy, well-rounded adults. Where is the time to just relax and enjoy your life in any of this? There’s literally none. Women are just expected to be machines with no thoughts of their own. What’s the equivalent for men? Go to your job, pursue women until you get in a relationship, get a haircut, go to the gym and take care of your kids. It’s no contest which one is better.

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Title	Why do you think women commonly report a strong social pressure to be perfect, and what would be your proposed solution to alleviate this pressure?
Author	No_Mammoth8801
Upvotes	3
Comments	111
Date	July 20, 2024 1:43 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1e7kcr5/why_do_you_think_women_commonly_report_a_strong/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-do-you-think-women-commonly-report-a-strong.1524775 https://theredarchive.com/post/1524775

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