We all know that men are the more confident sex. We're always being told how much better they are at asking for pay rises, winning an argument and generic shouting than we are (to be fair, being told this does nothing for ones' confidence). And it's no great surprise, as anyone who's ever sat in a meeting with a group of alpha blokes, trying and failing to make themselves heard, will attest to. But according to a new book women’s lack of self-doubt is inherent and genetic.
Journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman are the ultimate alpha females. Both hugely successful in their fields, with stellar backgrounds as foreign correspondents, they realised that they were both paralysed by the same ‘imposter syndrome’ most women face - playing down their achievements and telling people they’d ‘got lucky’ when asked how they’d got into journalism. When they compared notes they also realised that even the most incredible and powerful women they’d interviewed over the years suffered from the same self-doubt. ‘If they are feeling all that,’ they write in their book, ‘imagine what it is like for the rest of us.’
Using interviews, scientific research and even genetic testing, Kay and Shipman’s book The Confidence Codedemonstrates how women persistently do themselves down and talk themselves out of their own achievements. Writing for the Atlantic, the pair said: ‘A vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology.’
The pair cite factors from our differing hormone levels to the differing structures of our brains as reasons why women are so much less confident than men. So does this mean our confidence (or lack thereof) is something we can never change? How depressing.
It's certainly true that the book has already received some stick for downplaying the insitutional and structural sexism that most women face in the work place - and making it women's problem they're not getting ahead.
Yet Kay and Shipman refer to themselves as ‘self doubters in recovery,' so insist that all hope isn't lost. According to the pair, the best way to get more confidence is to JFDI - accept that you don’t have as much confidence as you’d like or need, and then just do it anyway. ‘To become more confident, women need to stop thinking so much and just act. And yet, there is something very powerful about this prescription, aligning as it does with everything research tells us about the sources of female reticence.
‘Almost daily, new evidence emerges of just how much our brains can change over the course of our lives, in response to shifting thought patterns and behavior. If we keep at it, if we channel our talent for hard work, we can make our brains more confidence-prone. What the neuroscientists call plasticity, we call hope.’
So in layman’s terms, next time you’re in a meeting and you can't make your mind up whether to speak up over that gobby bloke from accounts who's shouting all over your Power Point presentation, Just Fucking Do It. It might be the most terrifying thing you've ever done, but soon it will become second nature. And eventually, you won't need to shout any more.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
Picture: Li Hui
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.