This is so interesting to think about, and I'm considering how it does and doesn't match with my personal experience.
In school and university, I was often the only female in physics or computer science classes (maths classes were less skewed), and I don't recall being particularly fazed by it: I was pretty good at these things, at those levels, without too much effort, so my underlying belief that I had to be perfect to be adequate wasn't challenged.
It was in graduate school, where there were actually more women around, that I started finding the work actually quite difficult and other people were actually better prepared than I was, where imposter feelings started to hit me hard. (No matter how often I heard from my peers that they had those very same feelings. You still think, yeah, but it's TRUE about me.) So I don't think those issues were straightforwardly gender-related for me.
On the other hand, I have a vivid memory of attending a field-related meeting where I was the only woman, and also senior to most people there, and feeling like everyone knew so much more than I did. Only later did I notice that many of the men would simply say whatever they knew, as long as it was even partially related to the topic at hand, whereas I tended to stay silent unless I was absolutely sure that what I wanted to say was 100% accurate and pertinent.
Thanks for another thought-provoking and humane article!
Such an interesting story. Thank you! This echoes what I've heard from so many women. ("The men would simply say whatever they knew, as long as it was even partially related to the topic at hand, whereas I tended to stay silent unless I was absolutely sure that what I wanted to say was 100% accurate and pertinent" ...)
I'm conscious that, as a man, there's a big dimension of this that I will never experience — I can only hear about and reflect on.
This is so interesting to think about, and I'm considering how it does and doesn't match with my personal experience.
In school and university, I was often the only female in physics or computer science classes (maths classes were less skewed), and I don't recall being particularly fazed by it: I was pretty good at these things, at those levels, without too much effort, so my underlying belief that I had to be perfect to be adequate wasn't challenged.
It was in graduate school, where there were actually more women around, that I started finding the work actually quite difficult and other people were actually better prepared than I was, where imposter feelings started to hit me hard. (No matter how often I heard from my peers that they had those very same feelings. You still think, yeah, but it's TRUE about me.) So I don't think those issues were straightforwardly gender-related for me.
On the other hand, I have a vivid memory of attending a field-related meeting where I was the only woman, and also senior to most people there, and feeling like everyone knew so much more than I did. Only later did I notice that many of the men would simply say whatever they knew, as long as it was even partially related to the topic at hand, whereas I tended to stay silent unless I was absolutely sure that what I wanted to say was 100% accurate and pertinent.
Thanks for another thought-provoking and humane article!
PS I think this is a super common experience of people who grew up labeled "gifted" – poison, in its own way.
Such an interesting story. Thank you! This echoes what I've heard from so many women. ("The men would simply say whatever they knew, as long as it was even partially related to the topic at hand, whereas I tended to stay silent unless I was absolutely sure that what I wanted to say was 100% accurate and pertinent" ...)
I'm conscious that, as a man, there's a big dimension of this that I will never experience — I can only hear about and reflect on.