The limitations of “imposter syndrome”

[firecat]

Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/13/the-dubious-rise-of-impostor-syndrome

The article especially focuses on what some women of color say about how the concept of imposter syndrome doesn’t capture their experience. (Which means the title of thr article is a problem…)

I don’t particularly have imposter syndrome feelings either. I’ve often felt like i was only pretending to know what I was doing, but I don’t fear being found out as a fraud. Rather, because people generally seemed happy with what I was doing anyway, I concluded we all feel like we’re pretending to know what we’re doing.

Tulshyan started hearing the term a decade ago, when she left a job in journalism to work in the Seattle tech industry. She was attending women’s leadership conferences where it seemed that everyone was talking about impostor syndrome and “the confidence gap,” but no one was talking about gender bias and systemic racism. She got tired of hearing women, especially white women—her own heritage is Indian Singaporean—comparing notes on who had the most severe impostor syndrome. It seemed like another version of women sharing worries about their weight, a kind of communal self-deprecation that reiterated oppressive metrics rather than disrupting them.

Comments

[elainegrey]

I had conversations about this with a Black colleague who was looking for work and underselling herself. She'd received so much sexist/racist dismissal that she didn't even imagine she could pursue a more specialized, rarefied job description. "Imposter syndrome" didn't really apply.

[senmut]

Another fine example of the original intent entering pop culture, getting broken along the way, and no longer having true meaning, IMHO.

ETA: The systemic abuses and racism are Separate issues from what Imposter Syndrome was originally addressing, is my meaning.

[firecat]

Another fine example, indeed. (*shifts “mindfulness” on the shelf to make room for it)

[senmut]

The current understanding of mindfulness can take a sheet of paper, fold it until it is all sharp corners, and shove it up the nethers...

LOL.

[firecat]

Indeed it can! “Mind THIS!”

[spark]

Working in the tech industry eventually made me feel that everyone *is* only pretending to know what they're doing. Especially the executives.

[firecat]

I definitely include the executives among my group of people who are making it up as they go along, or carefully watching to see what the other kids do, so they don’t end up doing something Too Weird[tm]

[nocturnus33]

I run into the article a few days ago and like it a lot. I do doubt myself quite a lot; I d feel it's never enough, but I'm in a chauvinistic, type-A industry whose mock motto is "publish or perish"; so feeling an impostor in a setting of unrealistic demands it's to be expected. I like what they say:
“Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”

[firecat]

I doubt myself sometimes but without the “they’re going to discover I’m a fraud!” part.

I like it on the rare occasions people recognize that “fixing women” isn’t the only or best option for many issues.

[nocturnus33]

Yeah, that's the problem with psychologistic reductionism. Everything is explained from pathology or looked at from an individual perspective. The problems caused as a result of the social structure are reframed as psychic issues.

[firecat]

Well said.

[greghousesgf]

I think "everyone" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? I don't have it.

[firecat]

Yeah, the title is very misleading, because the article goes into “not everyone has it” in depth.

[silveradept]

Sure, I run into situations where I'm not actually sure I know what I'm doing, but if you ask me why, I can usually tell you it's because there's no clear policy, or we weren't trained on that, or because it involves figuring out what other people are thinking or are going to do, and that's almost always a giant question mark.

For people who get told from the beginning that they'll never make it to the expectations, there's much less space to worry about whether they're actually living up to them.