The Perfection Complex - Why Opting-out may be the only solution

 

In today’s cultural imagination, perfectionism is often mistaken for ambition - even though both words are equally fraught battlegrounds for (female) self-optimisation. It has calcified into a form of social hygiene, the invisible labor of presenting a self that is flawless, likable, and always in control. Nowhere is this more pervasive than online, where the boundaries between identity, image, and performance have all but dissolved

In the 21st century, perfectionism has moved beyond personality trait or workplace quirk. It has become a systemic condition, woven into the rhythms of daily life by algorithms, aesthetic norms, and the persistent hum of public visibility. For women in particular, the costs are rising but so is the pushback.

Or as Elise Loehnen, a former high-profile player in the wellness-industrial complex (via Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop), frames it her book "On our best behaviour: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good": female perfectionism not simply a personal struggle but insidious moral conditioning.

A Culture of Visibility

Philosopher Michel Foucault warned, decades ago, that modern power no longer works by overt domination, but by continuous observation. The metaphor he used was the panopticon—a circular prison where inmates internalize the gaze of an unseen observer, learning to regulate their behavior accordingly.

Today, we don’t need a tower. We carry the gaze in our pockets.

Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, operate as sophisticated visibility machines. They reward aesthetics, optimize virality, and turn personal expression into measurable performance. The result is a kind of ambient surveillance in which people, and especially women, learn to curate themselves for public consumption—aestheticizing their daily lives to meet invisible standards shaped by followers, engagement metrics, and algorithmic preference.

This isn’t merely about vanity. Visibility in the digital era is economic and existential: your curated self might land you a job, a brand deal, a date—or it might exclude you from all of the above. “Looking like you have it together” has replaced actually having it together.

The Feminization of Perfectionism

Perfectionism affects all genders, but it doesn’t affect them equally—or in the same way. According to research from Frontiers in Public Health (2025), appearance-based perfectionism is more strongly tied to fear of negative evaluation among women than men. This isn’t surprising: women have long been socialized to value external approval, emotional labor, and bodily presentation.

The modern twist is how that approval is now quantified, recorded, and distributed in real time.

According to Legacy Russell perfectionism isn’t just a trait, it’s a response to social pressure; the demand to present as optimized, emotionally well, and physically attractive is deeply gendered by now and deeply digital.

Russell’s work, particularly in Glitch Feminism, suggests that breaking with perfection can be a political act. To appear unfinished, flawed, or emotionally incoherent in public is, for women, to take a risk. But for some, it’s a necessary one.

Pamela Anderson famously went viral for her going makeup-free to the Paris Fashion show and has ever since become the posterchild for embracing bare-faced-beauty. That, however, does not mean her beauty routine can't be monetised, mediarised and set as an example or a different kind of standard. 

Platforms of Pressure

Instagram’s influence is especially potent because it traffics in imagery: bodies, homes, faces, meals, habits. And while it sells itself as a neutral tool, its structure is far from apolitical.

Studies have shown that Instagram’s default filters lighten skin, smooth texture, and align faces with Eurocentric beauty standards. Its recommendation engines boost content that fits conventional aesthetic codes: whiteness, thinness, wealth. The result is a slow but steady narrowing of what counts as beautiful, aspirational, or “healthy.”

This is not a side effect.

Even efforts to post “authentically” often get caught in a feedback loop. Researcher Jessa Lingel notes that platforms like Instagram turn authenticity into performance: People are encouraged to share vulnerability and imperfection,but only within visually and socially acceptable parameters. In this context, the #unfiltered selfie becomes its own form of soft compliance.

The Mental Health Cost

A growing body of psychological research links perfectionism to anxiety, depression, burnout, and eating disorders. In one large-scale study of adolescents, high social media use, particularly for appearance-focused content, was associated with increased self-objectification and disordered eating patterns—especially among girls.

“The link between performance and identity is getting tighter,” says clinical psychologist Thomas Curran, whose research describes perfectionism as a “hidden epidemic” among Gen Z. “What used to be occasional self-comparison is now a 24/7 internal monologue, fed by constant exposure to idealized images.”

Curran’s work suggests that social media doesn’t create perfectionism out of thin air—it amplifies and accelerates it. What once simmered internally now plays out publicly, in real-time, across curated digital personas.

Resistance in the Feed

Still, cracks are appearing.

Influencers like Jameela Jamil, through her “I Weigh” campaign, are pushing back on aesthetic norms and encouraging women to value themselves beyond appearance. Creators in the “glitch” and “post-aesthetic” movements intentionally post blurry, chaotic, or poorly lit images that disrupt the polished grammar of the feed.

Elsewhere, women are logging off entirely. They’re opting for low-information diets, digital sabbaths, or smaller circles of communication. They’re creating off-platform spaces—zines, newsletters, group chats—where value isn’t tied to visibility.

These aren’t dramatic rejections of technology. They’re quiet refusals of a value system built on constant self-polishing.

What Comes After Perfection?

Perfectionism, in its modern form, is a feature of life lived under continuous exposure. Its metrics are external, its logic is capitalist, and its tools are technological. But it’s also fragile. It depends on our participation, on our willingness to keep up the performance.

Feminist digital theorists suggest an alternative, where imperfection is put into practice. Posting without optimizing. Expressing without curating. Showing up without needing to win.

In the end, the most radical act might be to step out of view because you’ve stopped accepting it.