Perfectionism Is A Myth, Unless You’re A Young Woman of Colour

Recently, our society has started having candid conversations about the measurable challenges faced by women of colour – wage gaps, harassment, disenfranchisement – but we rarely talk about the intangible pressures – competition, perfectionism, imposter syndrome. It’s not easy to discuss. As a fiction writer, I’m a sucker for tropes, but it is also my worst fear to become one myself – a teenage Asian robot who stress-eats rice, crams for her SATs, sleeps too little and apologises too much. I turned to writing because I wanted to escape that pressure (and also because I’d failed miserably at math club) but it turns out that when you’re a writer of colour, there isn’t much room for error.