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

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

The post you link to also seems to be turning a people issue into a women's issue. I remember reading something by Stephen Fry (I think) in which he talked about his problems with accepting praise from fans — he was always aware of the flaws in whatever he'd done, so he couldn't accept a compliment without pointing them out. (I do exactly the same thing.) The advice he got from John Cleese was, "Just say thank you."

When I read posts like the two we've linked to, I always come away thinking I have unusually feminine emotional patterns. But I don't think that's true — I think feminist blogs are pointing out universal problems, and cloaking them in the label of women's issues. I'm just more aware of, and expressive of, my feelings than many men. The fact that men don't tend to talk about these things contributes to the perception that men don't feel them.