The “Perfect Girl Syndrome” is a theory I developed after reading and studying Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and getting involved with Elon’s Feminist Club.

This specific study follows the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines. All subjects were students at Elon University.

Perfect Girl Syndrome

A case study by Xernay Aniwar at Elon University
ANT 215, Fall Semester
December 4th, 201

ABSTRACT

In studies so far, there has been overwhelming evidence that female confidence is low, and pressure and expectations are high. This article will deploy a phenomenological perspective on how females feel a different set of pressures from society than men do, because of their gender. Initially setting out to find how much the pressures of being ‘perfect’ effect female students at Elon University, this article expands upon how perhaps this next generation of females won’t be as closed into the expectations held for generations past. Additionally, findings from this study have highlighted that the pressures to be ‘perfect’ aren’t superimposed primarily to females, but to males as well.

INTRODUCTION

The pressures of being a woman in our society stack up quickly as one grows from a child into adulthood. Media tells women to measure up to a specific esthetic. History suggests that women stay home as caretakers, leaving societal decisions to men. Yet as we strive to become more equal, a woman’s ‘place’ in society is no longer as chained down, and with that comes more obligations and expectations. Women are taught, indirectly or not, by society that they need to be the perfect combination of smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful, popular, all without showing any effort in doing so.

The point of this study was to find out more about female self-esteem and how it relates to feelings of empowerment or disempowerment as a female in our society and as a student at Elon University. Throughout history, women have been taught through agents of socialization, media, family, or institutions such as schools, to act a certain way, look a certain way, and live up to certain gender-based expectations. Many studies have been done on female self-confidence, all generally leaning toward the same result: women are less secure and less confident than men.

Balcetis, Cole and Chelberg (2013; 113) strive to answer whether the awareness of female body ideals affect women’s self-esteem. The study took a group of women and used various tests such as the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to measure how positively each woman regarded herself. Participants were also asked to assess their own appearance, and indicated their level of agreement with statements such as “ In our society, it is important to always look attractive”, using a Likert scale. After initial testing, participants were shown images and statements that catered to the idea standard of western beauty, after which they were once again administered another Rosenberg test for Self-Esteem. Results showed that there was indeed a drop in self-esteem after participants were shown ‘ideal standard’ images of beauty, however, these results were extremely marginal, and barely relevant. There are thousands of messages and images we come across everyday, and hundreds of expectations and ‘ideals’ to live up to. We find ways to ignore some of them over time as we age and grow. The possible downfall of this study could be that the images were not catering specifically enough to the demographic of each participant, hence the insignificant results.

Besides the issue that women can be affected by the retouched and photo-shopped images they see in media; it’s been established that women generally underestimate their skill level, and therefore don’t attempt to reach the same goals that men do (Kay & Shipman, 2014). One study found that women applying for job promotions will only do so if they meet 100 percent of the qualifications; that same study explained that men would apply for the same promotion even if they only met 50 percent of the requirements (Kay & Shipman). Men are much more willing to take risks, so they take advantage of more opportunities and thereby reach higher goals.

In the bestselling book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg brings to mind that females have been conditioned to believe if they don’t know the right thing to say, that they probably shouldn’t say anything at all. This perpetuates a learning environment for females which discourages them from asking questions and participating, leaving them to stay silent and continue doubting themselves, which leads them, in some cases, to fall behind their male counterparts.

A study from the Taylor and Francis Group looked into whether gender is associated with academic achievement. In this study, researchers measured 201 graduate students at the University of Oxford, with a roughly equal amount of male and female participants. Students were categorized into one of two groups: one with exams within the next week, and one with exams further into the future; Students were asked:

1. A) How they felt at that moment (anxious, depressed, excited, calm, etc)
2. B) How they would describe their mood over the last three months
3. C) How anxious they were about failing to achieve a good grade on their upcoming exam
4. D) How anxious they felt about failing in general academia. These questions were rated by students on a scale from 0-100, 0=not at all, to 100=extremely anxious.

It was found that short-term anxiety and feelings of depression were higher for females. Also, long-term anxiety and long-term depression were more prevalent among female students, although this was not necessarily attributed with upcoming test anxiety. Exam anxiety was also higher for females than males, as was grading anxiety. All together it is clear female students worry much more about academics than their male counterparts do. It was also found in this study that males stated they were more likely to participate in conversations or debates even if they weren’t sure of themselves, while females felt the opposite way, and thought carefully before participating if choosing to at all.

Starting in elementary school, girls are encouraged and expected to act like quiet, dutiful workers, while boys are expected to be more rambunctious and loud (Kay & Shipman). This is the beginning of the gendered socialization that turns into what can be referred to as ‘Perfect Girl Syndrome’.

Perfect Girl Syndrome encompasses the stresses that women feel to live up to the impossible standards that society expects of them. This involves every aspect of life from appearance to career achievements. The question attempting to be answered is to what effect Perfect Girl Syndrome influences women at Elon University.

The pressure to be ‘the perfect girl’ can be evident at Elon in everything from a glance at the line preceding the salad bar at the dining hall, to the continuous cycle of girls crowding the cardio machines at the gym. These examples cover the physical expectations of perfection, but there are undoubtedly intellectual and social pressures that also feed into the stress and insecurities of females on campus. Additionally, both the high percentage of women involved in Greek life, and the expectation of participating in extracurricular activities around campus could be used to investigate further if and how women use their surroundings and associations to create a mirage of perfection, happiness, and stability.

Speaking to girls on campus will allow a better in-depth understanding of how the next generation of women in power view themselves and will regard their own self-worth as they enter the work force. Elon’s campus in particular stands out from others, and is known for well-dressed, successful, good-looking women according to message boards and social media across the nation. On websites like College Niche, commenters leave messages like, “It is very difficult to find an unattractive girl on campus,” and “Everyone at Elon is flawlessly beautiful and always put-together.” Female students here are constantly surrounded by physical evidence of perceived ‘perfection,’ and the stress to measure up accordingly. For some, this might be a welcome challenge, while to others a daunting task, depending on ones own self-concept and self-esteem.

With all this information, the hypothesis for this study was that Perfect Girl Syndrome would heavily, and negatively affect female students at Elon University.

METHODS

Data was gathered using mixed methodology. Quantitative data was collected via questionnaire from thirty randomly selected student participants and then counted, coded (through word-number association), and assessed in an Excel document. Questions revolved mainly around confidence in appearance, social interactions, and academia. It was posed how each sex feels in relation (comparatively) to the opposite sex, how confidence has changed since coming to college, and the timing and explanation of the last less than perfect action they participated in. Each questionnaire held thirty questions. Questions consisted of 15 “yes/no” or Likert scale-rated questions, and 15 open-ended short response questions.

After questionnaires were collected and coded, two separate focus group sessions were held, one with 3 male students, and one with 3 female students. Focus groups were held in an empty classroom late at night. The discussion was informal and contained pre-determined semi-structured questions, which were created to answer some of the curiosities left unanswered from the results of the questionnaire. Questions asked during these sessions were in regard to clarifying the answers received on previously distributed questionnaires.

• Participants were told to remain anonymous on the questionnaires, and were assured that their names would not be used in reference to any comments made from the focus group discussions. All participants gave informed consent before choosing to participate in either activity.

Ethnographic research was conducted at a football tailgate on Homecoming weekend, in dormitory common rooms and various other common areas around campus. During research I partook in social participation during the homecoming tailgate by intermingling with the crowd that I was observing. I also approached my key informants/participants at this time to notify them about my observations, to see if they noticed what they were doing.

RESULTS

While results made it clear that both genders felt as though they are constantly being watched and observed by others (for better or worse), women are more likely to jump to the conclusion that the first perception of them will be a negative one:

graph 1.1

As graph 1.1 illustrates, males are more only 20 percent likely to assume that someone is thinking something negative about them upon first impression, while females are 60 percent likely. This leads us to conclude that women are more likely to think of themselves in a negative way, thereby expecting that same negativity from others.

For example, at the tailgate I noticed one participant, Cameron Jackson, was keeping her eyes down on the ground for the majority of the time we were walking together. When I brought this fact to her attention, she claims to not have realized what she was doing, “I literally didn’t even realize that…how long was I doing it? Oh god, do you think people are offended because they think I’m being rude by not looking at them?” she asked. The first thing she thought of was how others thought of her, more importantly, her first thought was anxiety-based, a worry about how she was being perceived negatively by others.

One woman belonging to a sorority on campus admits that she feels judged on a daily basis, “Everyone is so pretty here, and it’s just hard to always look as like, put together as them, you know? It’s all the time!” She is referring to the masses of girls walking around campus in $200 rain boots and $90 LuLu Lemon leggings when they’re ‘dressed down’. Another female freshman student from the focus group discussion admitted that the appearance of her peers on campus has affected the way she dresses, “When I went home for break, I was like, ‘Mom all the girls wear these long sweater things, can we get some?’ So we went and bought a bunch.” When asked what made her want to dress like everyone else, she responded, “People who wore that kind of stuff just seemed more confident. I know confidence is like an inner thing but I figure maybe you can try to mirror it.” How can one see confidence? “They’re outwardly talking to people, they’re never by themselves, they’re happy.” Race plays another role in insecurities on campus; unintentionally, all females I had verbal interviews with were of non-Caucasian heritage. “Most of my insecurities stem from being, like, brown,” said one. Males brought this up in the questionnaires as well, citing the first thing people noticed about them was the color of their skin, “black athlete,” wrote many.

When comparing genders and their questionnaire responses, it was found that girls feel less satisfied or confident in their appearance, unsurprisingly. What was interesting was that when it came to school performance and social interactions, males and females scored equally overall and considered themselves ‘good’ with academia and socializing. Even on questionnaires where females scored themselves extremely low on appearance, these two variables remained equal and higher than expected. One of the participants who had shared a list of appearance-related insecurities with me revealed that the confidence she had with school work was a total 360 from the way she perceived herself esthetically, “I feel confident, especially here, academically anyway…In comparison to the other students.”

Once again, race enters the discussion on the topic of academia, one participant shares that her standing in math is not what is expected of her and her Asian decent; “I’m not even in regular math 110, I’m in math 100…even saying that just now makes me feel like a failure.” She shares that people perceive her as a ‘hard working Asian who doesn’t go out on weekends, and stays in her room’. “People always act all surprised when they see me out at parties, like, ‘oh what are you doing here? I didn’t know you go out!’ and its like, you can’t just assume things about me because of how I look!”

There is a certain divide in the way that women present themselves in familiar and unfamiliar settings. During my ethnographic observations, I found one evening while sitting in on a conversation going on between hall mates in a common room, that the girls sat around dressed in sweatpants, and sweatshirts, donning reading glasses with the day’s makeup wiped away. They sat sprawled out on couches, unashamedly taking up room, and obviously felt very comfortable in their surroundings. This was a big difference compared to the way girls portrayed themselves in public, unfamiliar situations like around campus and at specific events; during which time they take up as little space as possible, cross their arms and legs in very closed body language. Females also tend to walk around in groups of at least two, one of the reasons stated previously as to what confidence ‘looks like’, was when other girls were walking with others instead of by themselves. It is very rare to see a female on Elon’s campus walking on her own and not looking down at her phone. This changes slightly when girls are walking in groups, and changes even more drastically when girls are walking in the company of males. If a woman is seen with a man, she looks around more, smiles more, and barely interacts with her phone at all.

DISCUSSION

It was agreed that the academic and intellectual climate in which this study and conversation was taking place played a great role in the results. Had the same study been conducted at a middle school, a high school, or even a college of less prestige, assuredly the results would be different.

When it came to the negative things that each sex was or could be judged for either by themselves or others, there was a clear gendered difference. Women often conveyed shame for letting others down in social verbal scenarios, they consistently referenced speaking out on a topic when they should have stayed quiet, being perceived as uncaring by their friends, or not sounding smart enough when they spoke. Men shared that their biggest flaw was letting themselves down, by showing up late to class, missing an assignment, or getting into unnecessary physical altercations.

When each sex was asked to come up with a list, as a group, of negative and positive reasons to judge the opposite gender, it acted as a way to pick apart what made up the ‘perfect’ or ‘imperfect’ man or woman to each gendered group. During this exercise something very interesting happened: The men came up with 17 positive attributes for women, and only seven negative; many being personality related. When women were asked to do the same exercise, they came up with 15 positive judgments, and 20 negative reasons to judge a man, mostly appearance related. This is very telling because it allows us to see that women hold higher expectations in general, for both themselves and others. Is it that society hold high standards for women, or that women hold high standards for themselves? Female participants in the study were not overtly affected in comparison to males by societal pressures.

In this study, the listing exercise was the turning point when it became clear that while women generally expect more from themselves, they also expect more from others. But what causes these high standards is still a question of correlation versus causation. Perhaps it is wrapped up in evolution, and the expectation for women to handle the highest responsibility of all, growing and raising a human being. When females were asked whether they felt pressure from society to be perfect, their responses were not expected based on previous research, “I don’t feel there are expectations of other people. I know I can’t be perfect. But I think I have ridiculous standards for myself.” When it does come to these ‘high expectations’, their centered around academia once again. “If I miss a class, I feel horrible the whole day…like there isn’t even an attendance policy, but I still freak out and feel really bad about letting down the professor.”

When it comes to pressures of the future, a shift seems to be occurring at least in the group of participants I worked with, men agreed that if they were female, they would definitely want to wait longer to have children, if at all. One of the female participants admits, “There is pressure to be a superwoman and have kids and be a career woman, and take care of the house. You have to have it all, and that’s really hard to do. You have to make it work,” she says. “But a lot of our generation is growing up with divorced parents, so we’re thinking that’s not something we want to get into. The whole perception of marriage and family will be difference.” Another sat nodding her head and added, “I’ll know if I want kids of not based on the person I love. It’ll be a teamwork thing. It’s gonna be a team effort.” Thus begs the question, what does this new generation think of marriage and family? Do students in college now plan to get married in the next ten years? Will women decide they want more time to pursue their careers before stepping into the traditional mother role, if they ever even do?

From this study, it is clear that there are gendered entrapments for both sexes. If looked at carefully, both are equally disturbing and repressive in very different ways. Women have been more vocal about wanting more options, while it works for men not to speak up or care as much because being a man pays off more in societal success, and especially in our own capitalist society.

However, men are harnessed into some pretty high expectations when it comes to stepping up and being ‘more’ than women, although it can be argued that it’s easier for a man to get to the top, there is still the expectation that he must reach it, be it doctor, lawyer, or business executive. “It’s easier for girls to pursue what they want. There will always be support from somewhere for a girl who wants to be an engineer, but like, my brother told me parents he wanted to be a writer and they completely laughed him off because they expected him to be a doctor,” shared one woman. The others agree, “People talk a lot about the non-traditional woman, but not about the non-traditional man.”

This was evident especially when it came to all three extremely intelligent and articulate, liberal minded women all agreeing that a man had to be “big enough so that if I’m standing behind him, you can’t see me.” There are definitely privileges that women get as well, which men can see more clearly than females do. This is in the same way that it is evident to females the privileges that men enjoy, usually invisible to those who enjoy them.

Although this specific study didn’t match up with the hypothesis originally set, it brought up a host of new questions worth looking into. How is today’s generation of women changing from the last? What sort of new pressures does this generation face that their parent’s generation didn’t? What sort of societal pressures do today’s generation of male’s face? If human nature drives perfection, perhaps the idea at hand could be framed to ‘Perfection Syndrome’, in order to really strive for gender neutrality. “Perfect Girl Syndrome” insinuates that the system is working against women, but perhaps, as Sandberg says, women need to start thinking more like a man and sometimes say, ‘Done is better than perfect.’ (Sandberg, 157)

REFERENCES

1.) Balcetis Emily, Cole Shana, Chelberg Marie B., & Alick Mark (2013). Searching Out the Ideal: Awareness of Ideal Body Standards Predicts Lower Global Self-esteem in Women. Self and Identity, 12:19-113.

2.) Martin Maryanne (1997). Emotional and Cognitive Effects of Examination Proximity in Female and Male Students. Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 23, No. 4 pp. 479-486.

3.) Kay Katty & Shipman Claire (2014). The Confidence Gap. The Atlantic

4) Anonymous (2014). Elon University. College Niche. https://colleges.niche.com/elon-university/guys–and–girls/

5) Sandberg, S. (2013). Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead.