New Month Old Post: first posted 26th January 2018
“I have yet to meet a man who has worried he’s not good enough for a job he’s been offered, whereas I have yet to meet a woman who hasn’t.”
Well, I don’t know what circles she moves in, but that is simply wrong, as many of the responses to the online article make clear. Imposter syndrome is not just a female thing.
She finds it impossible to imagine a woman who, like certain men she amusingly identifies, is “perennially mediocre, untouchably arrogant, and eternally gifted by opportunity and protection by the establishment”. You only have to look at some of the women in high political office to see the error in this.
As regards men who worry they are not up to jobs they have been offered, there are lots, myself included. When I got good grades at ‘A’ Levels the second time round in my mid-twenties, and then a good degree, I felt that almost anyone could do it, and still do. When that led to jobs in universities, it felt like unmerited good fortune. When I got research papers into academic journals, I wondered why no one had seen the gaping holes they contained.
This is, of course, both blowing and sucking my own trumpet at the same time, but I just want to say that even for those who invented the concept*, hegemonic masculinity was never assumed to be universal.
* Connell and Messerschmidt.
The cartoon is from startupbros.com - click to link to its source.
Here is another relevant article from The Guardian.
Hadley Freeman is often entertaining and observant, but as likely to make sweeping generalisations as anyone else.
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteThe article is very entertaining.
DeleteBut she didn't say such men didn't exist. She said she'd never met any. You're denying her lived experience.
ReplyDeleteShe’s met them, but was too self absorbed to actually listen to any of them. Probably.
DeleteAnna.
Logical but unlikely.
DeleteI have lived with self doubt all my life. It is often proved to be warranted!
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Blame P.
DeleteI scorn trains of thought in which men and women are seen as two different tribes from opposite sides of the mountain. In reality, the landscape is far more complicated than that and frequently gender realities are so mingled as to be inseparable. This truth may be inconvenient for those who have particular drums to beat - like Hadley Freeman in this instance.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree.
DeleteI was about to say something alone those lines, Neil. The "us" versus "them" mentality - be it between employer and employee, different nationalities, religions or genders - has never been mine, and I find it hard to understand.
DeleteThese days you can be only one thing or another. No more considered balance.
DeleteI don't know many people who haven't struggled with self doubt.
ReplyDeleteI would agree, except for the bastards who want to run everything as a their right.
DeleteI've never had a lot of self-confidence.
ReplyDeleteNor have I, to be honest. I have been able to pretend to, at times.
DeleteWhy I do believe that I have a rather realistic perception of what I am good at and what I can't do well (or not at all), there will always be a difference between self-perception and how others perceive me and my skills and abilities. With 57 1/2 years of experience, I have found to be honest about these things has served me best.
ReplyDeleteI feel I have a good idea of mine, but because I don't shout about it, others don't always realise. Modesty no longer pays.
DeleteSinking into words. Just watched Owen Jones (bad left wing infant supposedly) argue his way out of being a misogynist, which Emily Thornberry called him. Words are so easy, they pay money for a start. So this argument is of course an old tribal one, when in fact blaming one or the other side is fruitless. As a completely insecure person, I think it is being able to write that gives me the freedom to say something. Insults across the gender issue are old hat Hadley Freeman should remember that.
ReplyDeleteShe is a very good writer, and very entertaining, but this was a rather too easy topic for her, a bit beneath her, even if tongue-in-cheek.
Deleteblowing and sucking your own trumpet is a brilliant analogy..... i love it - in fact, that's how you play the digeridoo..... circular breathing!!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds quite a skill.
DeleteI can vouch for your belief that men suffer from imposter syndrome -- I certainly have in my time. I didn't read this column but it sounds a bit too easy. I'm a steadfast liberal but The Guardian makes even me roll my eyes now and then!
ReplyDeleteI did laugh when she said she had spent years over-researching a book while Boris dashed off a few more biographies.
DeleteAnyone who is sensitive to being in an unfamiliar environment has probably suffered the sense of being an imposter at some stage. No one has a unique claim to that.
ReplyDeleteI think some of those she mentions come at least very close to it.
Delete