The term imposter syndrome, or the internal experience of believing you are not as competent as others consider you to be, was coined in the 1970s. Still, it’s become an even more significant part of the conversation over the last ten years. Although it can affect people who identify as any gender, it has always been more associated with women, still relatively new additions to the workforce.
Imposter syndrome is psychological, mainly playing out in the “imposter’s” own head. Outward markers of success, like compensation, titles, or fancy degrees, don’t matter. Imposter syndrome tells the sufferer that she doesn’t deserve what she has. It tells her that she’s a fraud.
Or does it?
Could it be that it’s not imposter syndrome but rather the world we live in, and the culture we work in that makes women feel like we do?
It’s true that many of us are perfectionists and that the expectations we have about how certain milestones of our careers might look or feel are a lot different than the reality. I think that’s normal. It’s a universal human experience to get to a certain place in our lives and feel a little unsure of ourselves, just like how many of us imagined that once we turned a certain age, we would somehow immediately feel like “real adults” who have everything figured out. Sometimes, like in the Wizard of Oz, we pull back the curtain just to find out everyone’s been faking it all along.
But I would argue that the problem isn’t that women, especially women of color, are unprepared. If we’re framing the conversation around a woman’s internal dialogue, we’re playing into a narrative that inevitably puts her at a disadvantage.
Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey capture this idea perfectly in their Harvard Business Review article, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome: “Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”
Let’s go back to when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed: the 1970s. Women only entered the workplace en masse maybe 30 years before World War II. They still had to have their husband’s signatures to get a loan from the bank. The Civil Rights Act was only a decade or so old, and it would take many more until women of color would break the glass ceiling in any meaningful capacity.
In 2022 that all might seem like ancient history, but it’s not that long ago. In the span of our or our parents’ lifetimes, the world looked a lot different then than it does today.
So, we’re not hysterical for feeling out of place even when we know we’ve worked our butts off to get where we are in our professional lives. Many of us look around the conference room or boardroom or partner’s retreat or yoga retreat and don’t see many other people who look like us.
The truth is, we weren’t supposed to be here. We aren’t imposters; we are interlopers in a Eurocentric, masculine, and heteronormative work world. Even as company demographics change, we struggle to live in our competence because our environment makes it hard to feel confident. And confidence seems so easy for those that the system has been built to support.
Self-doubt is normal, learning curves are normal, and it takes time to feel comfortable in positions of power, especially when they’re new. But if you are a woman, person of color, or anyone who has been historically marginalized, I encourage you to acknowledge the extra baggage the system has placed on your shoulders. I want you to know it’s not all in your head.
You don’t have to cure yourself of imposter syndrome. You might not have a syndrome at all. It is the culture at large that is still, even after all these years, trying to purge itself of a history of toxicity and bias.
I encourage you to take what you need as you process your feelings, whatever they may be around this subject. Rest, hydration, prayer, kickboxing…anything to fortify you as you continue to be your badass self. I am here for you if you need support, advice, or just to talk. I see you, and I affirm you.
