Self- Critical Perfectionism: A South Indian’s Experience

The persistence of gender inequality is the harsh outline of our society. This study examines self-critical perfectionism in undergraduate male and female students of South India. The sample comprises of 214 undergraduate students including 103 males and 111 females. Big Three Perfectionism Scale (BTPS) was used to evaluate higher order global factors in perfectionism. Snowball method of data collection was used and the collected data were analysed using independent sample T-test. The result shows that there is a significant difference between male and female students with respect to their self-critical perfectionism. The existence of gender bias in our society implicates females to be self-critical and they become obsessive over the idea of being perfect. As a developed society, there must be some structural and cultural changes to increase gender neutrality. Further implications can be to increase the sense of equality with emphasis on opportunities in education, employment, and political participation and these changes may reduce the impact of patriarchal ideologies in our society. The scope for future research may be an attempt to explore rigid perfectionism and narcissistic perfectionism which may be an adaptive and transformative factor in changing people’s beliefs and cultural practices.