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Addiction to Perfection
Addiction to Perfection
Woodman’s second book, published by Inner City Books in 1982. Broadens the territory opened in Owl from eating disorders to the perfectionism at the root of a wider pattern of addiction. Its thesis: “many of us, both men and women, are addicted in one way or another, because our patriarchal culture emphasizes specialization and perfection. Driven to do our best at school, on the job, in our relationships — in every corner of our lives — we try to make ourselves into works of art. Working so hard to create our own perfection we forget we are human beings” (cited in Woodman 1993, p. 105).
The book investigates “women’s mysteries through case material, dreams, literature and mythology, in food rituals, rape symbolism, Christianity, imagery in the body, sexuality and creativity” (Woodman 1993, p. 105). Its subtitle — The Still Unravished Bride — anticipates the image that will organize her third book, The Pregnant Virgin: the feminine “one-in-herself,” prior to patriarchal projection, the soul that is its own. Addiction to Perfection is the hinge of Woodman’s early period; it moves the analysis from clinical phenomenon (eating disorder) to cultural diagnosis (patriarchal perfectionism as addictive structure) and supplies the vocabulary — conscious-feminine, embodied-consciousness, addiction-as-distorted-religion — that later books elaborate.