It Was Capitalism All Along: Imposter Syndrome is Bullshit (and That’s Even More Clear During a Pandemic)
It’s been about two months since the coronavirus pandemic has kept most of us inside and, unsurprisingly, shit has changed. We’ve all had so much more time to think about what’s important to us, who’s important to us, and what just doesn’t sit right with us when it comes to the ways in which our little worlds operate. Pre-pandemic, feeling inadequate as a self-employed woman felt like a hilarious, evil rollercoaster that went from “I am an Independent Woman and I can do this!” to “Why didn’t anyone tell me I am a moron for attempting to make money on my own oh my god I need a Real Job.” I’ve written about Imposter Syndrome before — pieces that provided tips on pushing back against it, how to manage it, and, eventually, calling it out for the BS that it is. But honestly, there’s nothing like the world as we know it screeching to a halt to really shine a light on how capitalism is truly designed to screw us all.
If you’ve ever attended a workshop, webinar, or networking event or even just scrolled Instagram’s litany of life coaches and business mentors, you’ll inevitably hear about how exhausting it can be to deal with Imposter Syndrome — the feeling that you are inadequate, not smart enough, have somehow faked your way into any success you’ve had and, worst of all, it’s only a matter of time before everyone finds out you’re a phony.
Feelings of inadequacy or insecurity are certainly not specific to any particular subset of the population, but Imposter Syndrome is something that is more often associated with women. While men, too, can certainly feel like they don’t measure up, it’s perhaps not a huge shock to read articles that suggest women are more likely to feel insecure about their successes or feel that they don’t deserve to be advancing up the corporate ladder given that, you know, patriarchy is alive and well. A 2016 study from the International Journal of Medical Education found that, among medical students, 25% of men and 50% of women suffered from Imposter Syndrome. We’ve heard it from successful women, like Michelle Obama or Sheryl Sandberg, which can sometimes be a relief (it’s not just me!), but also can serve to fuel the idea that if a woman feels like she doesn’t measure up, it’s her fault.
“Every time I didn’t embarrass myself — or even excelled — I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day soon, the jig would be up.”
— Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013)
Working as a freelance writer and editor, I know well how easily you can start to feel like you’re simply orchestrating an elaborate show of smoke and mirrors. Especially now, when we’re feeling the pressure to try to keep a business going (and our emotions in check) when everything is, for lack of a better phrase, a complete and utter gong show. Articles tell us to write down achievements or journal about insecurities as a means of combating Imposter Syndrome. But that advice suggests that combating an ingrained pattern of negative thoughts is as simple as making a list or thinking your way out of it. I don’t know about you, but a list of achievements is no match for my brain (she’s ruthless, folks). And if so many of us are suffering from the same feelings of inadequacy, perhaps it’s worthwhile to start questioning why that is and look a little deeper. Shall we?
In 1978, academics Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes published their five-year study of 150 highly successful women in order to examine what they called “imposter phenomenon.” They found that, “Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” Clance and Imes were not surprised that women were feeling this way, explaining that this was due to the fact that women’s success was counter to both societal expectations and their own “internalized self-evaluations.” Other studies at the time showed that women were less likely than men to believe in their ability to accomplish a variety of tasks. It makes sense, then, that women needed to find a way to explain their success beyond simply I am intelligent so that’s why I am succeeding.
“…women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.”
— Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes
They noted that overcoming these feelings is especially hard for four main reasons:
First, when you worry that your inadequacy will eventually be discovered, you work feverishly to succeed in order to hide that you’re not worthy of your achievements. When you do end up succeeding, you’re only temporarily elated because that underlying feeling of “I’m a phony” still exists. However, this teaches your brain that this pattern — worry, work frantically, succeed, temporary elation — works. So, you repeat it. Brains are funny that way: they tend to gravitate toward what has worked in the past.
Second, women are often socialized to be peacemakers, which can lead us to sometimes staying silent when our opinions or viewpoints are counter to those of the people we look up to. We then start to believe that if we were to actually share our opinions, they would be shot down, so we avoid actually speaking our minds, which serves to continue the cycle of feeling like an imposter.
Third, in seeking approval from our peers, we can get stuck in a cycle of working to attain that approval by impressing those we look up to. We start to see that if we were truly capable, we wouldn’t need outside approval, so our efforts to gain approval actually validate that we are phonies.
Finally, many women are motivated to avoid success because success has traditionally been seen as a masculine trait. So, when women are successful, a way to mitigate seeming unfeminine is to conceptualize that success as being a total fluke.
Now, keep in mind this study was published in 1978. However, I think it’s still really helpful for understanding why Imposter Syndrome is so closely tied to women’s experiences today and, beyond that, why it’s, in my opinion, a sham.
The problem is that this isn’t actually a “syndrome” — it’s not a medical diagnosis, it’s a response to the society that we live in. And the problem with naming it as a syndrome and providing tips for us to “cure” our Imposter Syndrome is that it treats this issue as an individual deficiency. You are afraid of both success and failure! If only you believed in yourself! Such a shame that you’re suffering from this affliction, ma’am. It also then suggests that those people who have had success in their lives have done so entirely of their own volition, which, by extension, suggests that if you struggle with success it’s because of your own personal failings. But, let’s be clear here, the responsibility for your success doesn’t really lie solely on your shoulders. We don’t all begin at the same starting line, we don’t have access to the same opportunities, and we don’t share the same lived experiences. Our success isn’t simply a matter of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. In combination with that is the notion that intelligence is a static, inherent trait.
Some call it “genius culture” — the idea that intelligence is something we are born with, not something that is teachable. Legitimate success, then, requires innate talent, rather than simply persistent effort. So, because we all have the same capacity for effort — that is, each of us has the ability put in effort — it stands to reason that the more effort you have to put into something to succeed, the less innate intelligence or “genius” you possess. TLDR: success should be effortless. Showing how much effort you’ve put into your success then suggests you don’t actually possess this genius, so we hide those efforts. When you don’t see the effort made by successful people, you start to think it doesn’t exist, thus fuelling this wacky notion of a genius culture that perpetuates our own feelings of inadequacy.
Are you exhausted yet? I am. So, we can feel like we don’t deserve success and eventually everyone is going to find out we’re phonies because of the ways in which society sees intelligence and success (it’s effortless, you dummy), and the remnants of a culture that sees women as not only less likely to be successful, but less attractive when they are successful. You may be thinking “WTF, there are tons of successful women!” Of course there are. But societal structures take an incredibly long time to evolve and grow with us. That’s why we still hear powerful women like Oprah Winfrey or Tina Fey explain how they have a hard time owning their success.
So, what now? I think the key to dealing with these feelings is to really understand where they’re coming from. They’re inherent in a society where our worth is measured by our output (*ahem* capitalism). The only way we can move beyond this is to begin to talk openly about and normalize work, effort, failure, and the ebbs and flows of our creative output. This requires that we redefine success to some extent and think of it more holistically — success involves pride, contentment, conscious rest, and prioritizing things beyond promotions or financial success. And especially now, when we’ve essentially been forced to reassess our lives and how we spend our time, it’s perhaps a little easier to rethink what “success” might mean to us once we’re able to re-enter the world.
We also need to recognize that our ability to grow out of this pattern of thinking rests on pushing through it, as shitty as that sounds. And if we truly are inadequate in some area, the only way to solve that is to work to get better — not just at a project, but at our thought processes and how we think of and talk to ourselves. This also means consciously reframing how we see ourselves and our work: we train our brains that what has worked in the past will work in the future. Breaking this pattern involves giving your brain a new option that doesn’t involve a cycle of panic, fear, and anxiety.
And when we run up against anxiety, it’s important to recognize that it is likely based in fear: the fear of failure, of embarrassment, of letting people down. Often, those fears are unsubstantiated, so look for the evidence and you will likely find that there is none. As every life coach on Instagram says, you don’t have to believe everything you think. Sometimes simply talking about our fears is enough to release the stranglehold they have on our brains.
While we certainly can’t expect a major societal overhaul overnight or simply remove ourselves from society and go live in the woods (or, you know, make social distancing a lifelong project), I think the answer lies in pushing back against the drive for constant productivity and moving instead toward incorporating rest as a part of a balanced, healthy, and successful life. Working ourselves to the bone in the face of fears over an inability to succeed simply becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. While those fears are not unique to you, it’s normalizing a new concept of success and recognizing the factors at play in society’s power dynamics that hold some hope in alleviating those feelings. And just maybe, with the mirror to our lives that this current situation has provided many of us, we can now more easily recognize that there are perhaps more important things than working ourselves raw just to win the Best Worker Award (that has no cash prize and takes a lifetime to achieve).
