Thoughts on feminism, perfectionism and delegation.

I’m new to the Steem community. In fact, this is my first post here (introduction doesn’t count!).
When @techslut told me that I should join, I took my time. A whole lot of it. What finally gave me the motivation to join was an idea I had for something I wanted to write about.
In other words, I couldn’t bring myself to join a community of “interesting-amazing-way-out-of-my league-people” until I had something concrete to show for it.

Does this sound familiar to you?
Are you a woman?

If you’ve answered “YES!” to these questions, you know what I’m getting at. Perfectionism.
“I’m a perfectionist” is the greatest lie one can blurt out during a job interview, thinking to self that this is such a smart way to show off a strength under the pretense of a weakness. If you’re truly a perfectionist, you’d know it can make your life a living hell. You’d never mention this when applying for a job, because you know that being a perfectionist means that you’re never content with what you achieve, that you’re wasting more time and money to complete a task that was already “good enough”, but never for you.

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Even now, trying to write from my own perspective, I have at least a dozen open tabs of my so-called research so as to not appear ignorant, or misleading, or wrong, or offensive.
But this is not a research nor a professional article, so I’m going to lean back, write from my heart and that's good enough for me.

Studies have shown that perfectionism, even though a personality trait and not a disease, is related to multiple disorders, among which you could find depression and anxiety, nutritional problems, obsessive-compulsive personality, social phobia and insomnia.

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Is this gender related? Most probably.

When applying for a job, women will apply only if they’ve met each and every requirement, whereas men will apply with about 50% of the required skill set and make up for the other 50% with charisma. Women will ask for a raise after they are 100% positive they deserve it and the answer is going to be yes, whereas men will just try their luck every once in a while, even if they have nothing to show for it. When something bad happens, women will blame themselves for it. And when something goes right? Oh, the circumstances were just right, or the credit deserves to someone else. And men? You know it. Exactly the opposite.

Women are more likely to become perfectionistic, perhaps because society teaches us from a very young age that our job is to care. For everyone. For everything. It teaches us that if we try harder we will succeed, and that we can do it all by ourselves.
When I was a child, coming back from school with a graded test marked 98, my parents would ask me how could I forfeit 2 points (In israel, tests are graded 0-100 points. The equivalent for an A+ would be above 90). In retrospect, I’m sure this was an honest joke, But being a child I did not find it funny. When I grew up a bit and learned math (at the highest level, of course) I’ve encountered difficulties because I had trouble with my teacher. I took a tutor and eventually graduated with an excellent score, but was still feeling like a failure because I had help, it was not all me.

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When I’ve worked in banking (don’t ask…) I gave everything for the job, as I always have. This resulted in me being promoted up the ladder very quickly, and eventually got a team of 20 bankers to manage. Doesn’t matter that other team managers with much more experience had smaller teams. Doesn’t matter I wasn’t at any point trained to manage. I got very anxious and insecure, but every time I talked to my superiors about it, asking for help, they assured me that I totally got this, that I was so good at what I was doing, that this is easy. The burn out followed shortly.
As women, we are constantly told to keep doing what we do best (aka everything), encouraged to work harder, to be perfect at every aspect, and let’s not forget the big lie of multitasking.

When we’re so socially wired to do everything, to be good at everything and to do it all on our own because otherwise we’re a failure- how can we trust others to help us? We start to actually believe that a job well done could only be achieved by us, and by us alone. When we delegate, we do this reluctantly and with a lot of guilt associated.
Knowing how to effectively delegate is a skill. It’s critical to managerial success, of course, but not only. Delegation helps us in putting our efforts where they’re most needed, while showing others that we trust them and believe in them to take some of the pressure on themselves. Yes, it’s easy to say “But I’ll do this better! Others will mess it up!”, and it might be right, for a while. There’s a learning curve.
Delegation can make a stressful life so much easier. I encourage you, strong women, to delegate more often, not just at work. Teach the kids to do their own laundry. Set a morning routine in which you try and wake them for school only once, and the rest is up to them. Let someone else fold the clothes (even if it’s not exactly like you would have done yourself).

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We don’t have to do it all by ourselves.
We don’t have to be perfect.
Let people in.
Accept help.
It doesn’t make you weak. On the contrary.
It makes you stronger.

I’d love to hear from you how you’re taking some pressure away from yourselves and letting others be there for you for a more relaxed and calm existence.