Daughters of Patriarchy & Origins of Perfectionism

When love felt like something you had to earn, you may have become extraordinarily good at being good: kind, loyal, polite, and wise. Never dropping the ball, showing up for others, anticipating the needs of others, and over-functioning. There is a quiet belief under all of those things… “I must prove that I am acceptable, loved, or enough.”

Perfection is an attempt to prove one’s worthiness - through striving towards an ideal. The intellect is often employed to help achieve that ideal, and thus follows the denial of one’s body and their humanity. 

Perfectionist ideals can arise from: the human longing for belonging + family dynamics + culture + gender expectations + achievement culture + internalized power structures + perfectionistic adaption. 

Perfectionism has roots sinking and twisting down deep within patriarchy. To understand “patriarchy” let's briefly understand the concept of masculine and feminine.

Masculine & Feminine Energies

In the beginning, the earth was wild and untamed, inhabited by native and untamed creatures. Man kind worshiped the earth, calling her Mother. She was ruthless, chaotic, beautiful, and terrifying. As time went on, mankind grew frightened of her. Seeking to control her, they created a male god in the heavens to control her. They also developed their intellect… such as reading, writing, math, and other forms of logic in which to explain and understand her - sometimes to transcend her chaos and other times to control her. 

Some cultures refer to this split as Yin and Yang. Or Masculine and Feminine. Or Holy and Human. In this framework, I refer to the feminine as anything related to earth, nature, matter, and all things related to earth, matter, and the energy & emotion pulsing through her. I refer to the masculine as those things that can transcend her - logic, reason, understanding, and spirituality. An example of the masculine can be found within the monk on a hill who doesn’t need anything - he has transcended his need for food or pleasure and transcended his humanity. 

Both feminine and masculine energies have the capacity to live in harmony and respect with each other… like a man and woman dancing together. You are meant to embody both feminine and masculine energies. But you may have over-developed your masculine… the calm, intellectual, good, moral, and reasonable part of you.

Both feminine and masculine each have the capacity to become oppressive when out of this balance and dance. The masculine - in its most oppressive… becomes a power principle: Patriarchy. Within Patriarchy, the masculine principle is used to control the feminine. This can happen within society, but also within an individual.

Patriarchy divides concepts into black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, heaven and hell. The striving towards good, towards righteousness, towards what is acceptable, towards spirituality and heaven itself… is what we know as “perfectionism.”

Perfectionism kills the chaotic, wild, untamed forces of the feminine - it stifles humanity. It denies intuition. It denies emotion. 

It reduces a rainbow to black and white. It reduces a woman from intuitive, instinctual, intuitive, wild, emotional, wise, and alive… to agreeableness, orderliness, conformity and to a standard that society has placed over her. She becomes a daughter of patriarchy. 

For those that have become daughters of patriarchy, the invitation is to begin to grieve what has died within you. To not rush through the process of grief, but to sit at the gravestone with your tears, your time, and you heart, weeping for the parts of you that have been killed.

Through the change of seasons and this attentiveness to the dead parts deep within… you may one day discover that your tears have watered a tiny seed of wild life within you. 🌱