Good Girl

I certainly didn’t set out to be some kind of culture-busting maverick. Quite the opposite. I was born with the approval-seeking personality of an orphaned lapdog. Whenever my nature and my culture disagreed, I’d sell out my nature, and hard. It worked! I got all kinds of approval! On the other hand, I could barely tolerate things like, you know, b

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I found that you can become everything you’ve ever wanted against your cynical convictions, reach the pinnacle of everything you could (and couldn’t) ever hope for, and still not meet your standards. You also can’t overachieve your way out of this feeling. Aim high, bruise harder. It’s your personhood shipwrecked, claustrophobic bargaining for appr... See more

I have also come to understand that trying to fit into society’s understanding of a “good girl” is a trap, the same way that the “model minority” and the “good gay” and the “good fatty” are all traps. Even when you succeed at it you lose, because these roles are all ultimately means of containment: of circumscribing power by putting exacting, contr... See more

Perfectionism is a mindset that demands we perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person. We conflate our goodness as a person with our performance in areas we care about—academics, our job, our social behavior, fitness, appearance, parenting, home organization, the list goes on.