Peeing in the punch bowl

[jere7my]

Several of my friends have linked to, or contributed to, this post. It invites people to claim their awesomeness, and begins:

Too often we put ourselves down. Too often we think we are useless, not good enough, less than perfect and thus less than acceptable. Too often we demur praise, or will not praise ourselves. Often we outright hate ourselves, and much of the dominant media and various cultures around us are determined to make us feel as bad as possible, usually so that we will buy things.

In the comments to this post, I cordially invite you to tell me why you are awesome.

Damn straight, say I. Good points, say I. Well said, say I.

Except the post is only addressed to, and open to, women.

"Gosh," I said. "That's unnecessarily divisive!" And it didn't need to be — the post would have been just as strong, just as awesome, without the exclusivity. It's my assumption (and I admit that I am making an unfounded assumption here) that the author is operating under the widely held belief that women are disproportionately affected by irrational low self-esteem, à la impostor syndrome, and are therefore more in need of spaces to proclaim their accomplishments. That, of course, is common knowledge — I've seen several people repeat it in connection to this post — which happens to be false:

Early on, this phenomenon was associated with women, a belief that persists today. But subsequent studies, including another by Clance [who first described impostor syndrome], have shown that men are affected in equal numbers. [link to highly worthwhile Science article]

Men are just as likely to feel like frauds, to downplay or disbelieve their own achievements, to suffer from irrational low self-esteem. Everything in the post I quoted above applies equally well to men and women. Posts like Claim Your Awesome contribute to the idea that it's a women's problem — okay, maybe some men feel that way sometimes, but it's not systemic, it's not legitimate — when in fact it's a people problem. We put on blinders when we draw a box around it and call it a "feminist" issue or a "women's" issue — which means we look in the wrong places for solutions, place the blame in the wrong places, and that hurts men and women alike. Men, by typically being taciturn about their emotional needs, contribute to the idea as well, and that leads to a vicious cycle.

I would be hard pressed to finish the sentence "I am awesome because...." I don't suffer from impostor syndrome, but that's only because I have no role I could imagine myself to be fraudulent in. I don't have a career; I'm an unsuccessful writer; my physical flaws are numerous; I just turned thirty-eight; and I am more than half convinced that I have wasted my life.

None of that counts, because I have a dick.

#

(That said, the comments section of the Wikipedia article on impostor syndrome includes this line: "I feel like I'm only pretending to edit Wikipedia right now, like inwardly I'm not a Wikipedian." I am awesome because I am the sort of person who would close a self-pitying post like this with an observation of an awesome line like that.)

Comments

[adfamiliares.livejournal.com]

I have several reactions. First, theoretical: Why do you suppose it's so difficult to open the discourse to one set of voices and to affirm the distinctiveness of its experience (the messages women get about competence and beauty in our culture aren't exactly the same as the ones men get) without excluding another, or denying the common features their experience? (Maybe the convolution of that sentence is its own answer?) I cheated and read the article on impostor syndrome instead of the post you're talking about. One of its take-home points was the (obvious but important) observation that finding out that you're not alone in your feelings of inadequacy helps. That seemed relevant to your argument. Sure, it's helpful to learn that other people like you (for me: other women, other junior faculty) struggle with the same worries you do, but might it also help to learn that people you think have it all sewn up (men, senior faculty), and maybe resented for it, also have those feelings? A while ago elysdir inadvertently sparked a big argument about introverts v. extroverts; it wasn't fun, but it did at least teach me that extroverts have their own cross to bear, which I, an introvert, had never considered, and maybe I'm a little less resentful of extroverts now.

In other words, I agree with you (why limit the thread to only women?), partly for the same reasons (struggling with feelings of inadequacy isn't unique to women) and partly for a slightly different one (to the extent that women's and men's experience isn't precisely commensurate, it might be productive for each group to hear the other's perspective).

Second, when do we get to start talking about how awesome we are? I'll start with you: You're awesome because you're a wise, thoughtful, and generous friend. You're awesome because you know your way around a sentence; getting published or not won't change that basic truth. You're awesome because you have an acute, wide-ranging intelligence. You're awesome because you know how to talk to children on exactly the right level. I could go on, but I'll stop there, to leave room for others.

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

hmm, I'd like to read that introvert/extrovert debate; do you happen to recall about when it was?

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

ETA: found it by searching Jed's journal (the future is here!)

An interesting discussion. I'm a mixed introvert/extrovert and the comment that seemed the truest to me was the one that said, introverts go home and kick themselves over the things they *didn't* say, and extroverts go home and kick themselves over the things they *did* say. Uhuh. I have both those experiences pretty much all the time.

My main conclusion is that being a person is hard.