" She has a great job, her teams love her, her children are well behaved, she is always impeccable from the hairline to the shoes ; with that, she is a good comrade. Oh yes, and also, she managed to keep the flame alive in her relationship... And you want me to tell you the last straw : she never looks tired. This woman is superwoman ! Such are the heroines of modern times... Who still give a few complexes to " normal " women...

In the footsteps of the " perfect woman"... Or the perfectionist woman?

Double day and big guilt

The concept of the " superwoman complex" originated in an article by the American columnist Judith Serrin published in 1976.  A " new female disease," she says, is spreading with the generalization of women's work. Symptom : double day.  Parasitic agent: feeling guilty. Prognosis : programmed exhaustion. After-effects : loss of self-confidence ... The diagnosis is made : the " superwoman complex" prevents women from fully enjoying the satisfactions of professional life and the independence that must go with it because wherever they are, they feel that they are not where they should be and they feel like they are only doing things halfway.

Always do better, because you don't think you're good enough

A decade after Serrin, Colette Dowling (to whom we already owe the notion of the " Cinderella complex"), took up the idea. It is in her book Perfect Women : Hidden Fears of Inadequacy And The Drive To Perform (1988) that the psychoanalyst who is an expert in internalized brakes highlights the tendency of women to perfectionism and the effects this has on their well-being, their personal career and their professional destiny.

For Dowling, women have an insatiable narcissistic desire to improve themselves, both by constantly seeking to improve their physical appearance and by imposing themselves on themselves to outperform in all their activities.

This narcissistic drive is said to be driven by women's compensation for a social undervaluation of femininity. In other words, there is a generalized inferiority complex among women, integrated from childhood through an education of girls insufficiently oriented towards self-esteem, and maintained in collective mentalities by the " differential valence of the sexes ". Understand : it's because being a woman wouldn't be good enough that women always strive to make themselves better...

Superheroine... Multitasking ?

But what were the Supers and other Wonders doing in this mess ?

If the case posed by Serrin and Dowling is well understood (and speaks to a large number of women), there is still a curiosity to be noted : the association with the figure of superwoman. Because the comic book heroine, as she was imagined by Jerry Siegel (or for Wonder Woman by William M. Marston) has practically nothing to do with the overwhelmed-and-guilt-ridden-working-mother. In the guise of Lois Lane, Luma Lynai, Kristin Wells, Diana Dearden or Lana Lang, the superwoman of the comics has no family home to manage, no to-do-list to go through and no superman shirt to iron either! Her double day is to be an ordinary human during the day and save the world after dark.

Superstar of invisible and undervalued work...

Hasn't superwoman been betrayed by equating her with a gifted trivial multitasker? And by the same token, don't we reduce our horizon of ambition by assuming that for a woman, being a superheroine means ensuring daily life to perfection ? Of course, it takes a sense of organization, courage, resilience, patience, cunning to manage everything, while keeping a smile please ; And it is quite legitimate that we expect recognition for this really big job requiring real great talents.

But, in this tight agenda, crowded with a succession of tasks as demanding as they are undervalued, when are we going to fit the mission of actively participating in the march of the world, by accomplishing a great project that brings great progress for all humanity ? Who will enter the history books and inspire the collective imagination of future generations for having spread the laundry so wellwhile answering with the same care the emails of his/her boss, his/her (in)parents (who want to know how you organize yourself for the holidays and if you come for lunch on Sunday – remember to buy a cake before going), the bank (for the business of the joint account), the school cash register (it is urgent to pay the canteen bill) etc. ?

The effects of the superwoman complex on women's social projection.

Guilt, unattainable demands and self-censorship

Not content with consuming women's time and energy, the pressing myth of the multitasking woman constitutes a powerful agent of self-censorship on the part of women, who only allow themselves to achieve their personal fulfillment if they have fulfilled the obligations induced by an alleged feminine function of managing daily life.

The corpus of these obligations being a bottomless pit, it is a one-way ticket to the feeling of guilt : everything is never done, and nothing that is done is done perfectly.

This fantasy of perfectionism that Dowling identified in the 1980s is a factory of unattainable demands. By the same token, there is an industry of discouragement dressed up in inclination : since in any case, I won't be able to live up to what I want to do, I might as well postpone it until later, or even give it up altogether, by classifying what could have been a project to be accomplished in the great album of unrealized dreams.

What if we became supersisters  ?

An instrument of women's social control... By women ?

Observing what the contemporary " superwoman " arouses in terms of admiring fascination or aggressive reaction, it is permissible to wonder whether, like the " queen bee " or the " bossy woman ", the " perfect woman" is not above all a useful figuration of the social control of women by women themselves. Isn't she a stereotypical, if not caricatured, incarnation of what just femininity should be (neatness, morality, elegance...), but not too much either (so as not to overshadow) and that women are responsible for validating or invalidating without men needing to get involved?

Men are also subject to the social control of masculinity by their own gender. What makes the difference, however, is that their myth of the superhero goes to hunt down the signs of weakness and thus pulls them up socially ; when the myth of the superheroine as we interpret it today tends to reduce femininity to trivialities while feeding a suspicious or even critical look at successful women.

Sisterhood to highlight the diversity of femininity and the uniqueness of each woman

Men will not be complacent with any of them who might give them the impression of dominating them. However, they will not exclude it from masculinity. This is a good understanding of what fraternity means : in no case does it require conceding to indulgence, refraining from any criticism or forbidding any balance of power in the name of " gender solidarity". What fraternity wants is acceptance in the group despite the diversity (of style, behavior, opinions, etc.) of the individuals who make it up. This is what allows the expression of each person's singularities.

In other words, sisterhood means accepting that women are as different from each other as all the individuals who make up the song.  Accepting it for others is probably giving yourself the chance to accept yourself, in all its complexity, and allowing yourself many more things than when you fear that you won't conform properly to what you imagine of femininity.