Perfect Women: Hidden Fears of Inadequacy and the Drive to Perform

Profiles the all-too-common woman of today, one who is self-disparaging and desperate to be perfect, and paints a healthy and reasonable alternative portrait emphasizing self-respect and self-worth

Dowling, who wrote the popular Cinderella Complex , has tackled a large subject in this study of why so many women today seem so driven to succeed in business, to excel in athletics, to dress to perfection, to be model mothers. In an adroit mixture of psychological case histories, stories from newspapers and magazines and her own experience as mother and daughter, she pursues the reasons for this striving. As often in popularly oriented books about women's difficulties, mother turns out to be the villain. Often insecure herself, she fails to give her daughter an appropriate sense of self-worth, and daughter spends the rest of her life in frantic over-compensation. Dowling puts this all together neatly, with a wealth of reference, and her book is useful as a quick guide to current personality theory. But the general effect is superficial; the reader longs for longer, more penetrating interviews, even if fewer bases were touched in the process. BOMC featured a lternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Dowling ( The Cinderella Complex ) here explores the influence of low self-esteem on the contemporary woman's poor body image, need to perform, and desire to be visible and admiredin short, her desire to become perfect. What results is frustrating to read. The writing is insightful yet ephemeral, conscientiously researched yet confessional, lucid but also convoluted. Her analysis of female psychological development is often hard to follow, but the cases she uses to illustrate her views are absolutely compelling. Purchase is recommended because ultimately this will be a popular and much-discussed book. Kathryn Hammell Carpenter, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.