Brave, Not Perfect

Meet Erica. She’s a middle-aged, successful woman who is always extremely friendly, helpful and greets everyone with a dazzling smile. Working from dawn until dusk to impress clients and colleagues doesn’t stop her from constantly looking fresh and ready to go. 

Indeed, no matter the situation, Erica is always projecting perfectionism onto the world around her and trying to please everyone she comes across.

But deep down, Erica wishes she could act differently. In fact, sometimes, she wishes she was brave enough to tell her biggest client that she thinks his business strategies are terrible. Sadly, the inherent drive that so many women feel to please everyone around them and strive towards perfection keeps her locked in a life that she doesn’t want to live.

Erica is a good friend of the author. And, like the author, she’s a victim of a society where women are taught to be afraid of risk, of being bold and choosing the lives they want to lead – independently of what others think. Instead of being brave, young girls are taught how to be perfect for the sake of pleasing those around them. The opposite is true of young boys, who are encouraged to explore, fail and take risks.

The categorization of girls as agreeable people-pleasers starts as soon as they’re born. One study that placed babies without recognizable genders in neutral clothes showed that when they were upset, adults were more likely to think they were boys. But when they were happy, most adults assumed the infants were girls.

And this expectation of girls quickly develops into reality. 

Consider a University of California study involving a simple lemonade stand. The catch? Instead of adding sugar, the researchers added salt, making the beverage less than satisfying. After handing them out to groups of boys and girls, the results of the social conditioning girls go through became clear: boys immediately conveyed how disgusting it tasted, whereas girls politely sipped it.

Only after the researchers pressed the girls on why they kept drinking did the truth come out – the girls said they didn’t want the researchers to feel bad.

This is the society we live in – where boys are bred to be brave, and girls to please via an endless drive toward perfection.