I sit here, swathed in the ambery light of the cat-shaped Tiffany lamp on my desk, fingers hovering over the middle of my keyboard, and I do not even want to start.
This is a feeling that comes to me every time I write an article, and it’s not because I dread deadlines or because I hate doing the work. I love the work, and I love to write. It’s because I want every word on the page to be perfect, and I know that nothing I write will ever be absolutely perfect. But if it’s not going to be flawless, should I even bring it into existence? This sentiment, this doubt that engulfs me, is called imposter syndrome.
Maybe I could call it a personal idiosyncrasy, but it seems to be a problem that affects many women in higher education and high-powered careers. According to findings published by the Survey Center on American Life, 55% of young women ages 18 to 29 report feeling like they are “not good at their job.” However, only 46% of young men report feeling that way, and this gap between men and women continues throughout different age groups, up to men and women ages 65 or older.
There is no logical reason for women to feel this way. An article published by Forbes states that there are millions more women enrolled in institutions of higher education than men, and women are outpacing men in graduation rates. So, if women are proven to have the capabilities, what is it that plagues us with imposter syndrome?
I theorize that the reason women have continuously felt self-doubt and impostor syndrome is that societal and gendered conditioning, as well as historical exclusion in workplaces has made women feel that, in anything we do, we must work twice as hard to prove ourselves as competent as the men in our professions.
From childhood, women are conditioned, by either their parents or by society itself, to be humble and to avoid being too assertive. Most women feel these traits carry into their academic and professional lives, and it causes them to downplay their achievements or not think of their achievements as anything to celebrate. It also causes them to attach little importance to their own capabilities. When a woman begins to feel that her capabilities are of little importance, she also starts to doubt that any capabilities she has are good enough to accomplish her academic or professional goals.
This self-doubt can also be attributed to the exclusion that has plagued women historically. Having women in the workplace was not normalized until the 1970s, and though women have made significant strides since then, they are still the minority in the workplace. We have had to fight so hard and for so long that now, when we should be enjoying the benefits we have gone through so much strife for, we are instead fighting again to prove ourselves. This time we are fighting from the inside of workplaces.
What we do not realize is that we don’t need to. Yes, we should work hard. Yes, there is still much for us to accomplish. But so many of us are caught up in proving ourselves to be smart enough, hard-working enough, that we forget to relish our accomplishments. We let the doubt hold us back, when we can work through it.
To cut through this collective mindset, women must continue to lift each other up and talk about these feelings. Talking about this self-doubt, bringing these feelings into the open, takes away the power they have over us. It means that women can look at new challenges through a fresh lens; challenges are opportunities to demonstrate our abilities and are not there to diminish us.
I have no doubt that any woman reading this might then open Google and look up “how to beat imposter syndrome.” Doing so elicits many responses, including that one should make a “brag file” of their accomplishments to remind themselves of how much they have done.
I have my own version of the “brag file.” As corny as it sounds, whenever I have an article published, I like to cut it out and put it on my bulletin board, alongside pictures of me and my friends. Seeing my own name in print is very rewarding, but I rarely ever read my own articles because my impostor syndrome had led me to believe that I shouldn’t. Every time I write an article, though, I begin to believe that my next one will be better than the last one. I think later, I am going to read this article.