The Impostor Syndrome
Professor Martine Haas, Organizational Behavior, Cornell University, gave an example of a woman named Vignette who was giving presentations and had to monitor herself in a male dominated setting. She avoided raising her voice at certain times in order not to sound too assertive because she is a woman. Vignette hasn't been the only female or woman who has been faced with this situation. Aside from this type of impression management, there have been many circumstances where many successful women hesitate to take full credit for their success and accomplishments. They often feel insecure, attribute their accomplishments to something other than their own efforts such as luck and often get thrown into a state of paranoia that people will doubt their competency. This is known as the "imposter syndrome."
Susan Schenkel, author of “Giving Away Success” says “there are many ways we discount ourselves. Three of the most common patterns are: 1) emphasizing the negative 2) automatically attributing success to something other than ability, and 3) automatically blaming failure on lack of ability” (Schenkel, 6). Schenkel explains how women also end up being susceptible to falling into helplessness as a result of uncontrollability, which is the belief that nothing can be done to rectify their current state of misfortunes. As a result they end up withdrawing, for example, stopping, quitting or escaping from making ardent efforts to deal with their existing problems. A second thing they tend to do is to avoid getting into tough situations. They do this by shying away from confrontation with the difficulty they feel unable or unwilling to handle (Schenkel, 19). As a result of this helplessness disrupts behavior such as undermining motivation, interfering with ability to learn and creating emotional distress (Schenkel, p. 24).
Another aspect of this imposter syndrome is fear of failure, where women sometimes get terrified of being judged and found unqualified (Schenkel, 55). When the fear of failure is combined with other behavioral patterns, a resulting consequence is anxiety. This is where women tend to have “split self-image” which is “an ongoing battle between positive and negative views of our ability” (Schenkel, 63). Secondly there is a superfluous desire and concern to win approval of others. Lastly, they tend to evaluate themselves and their experiences as either good or bad and with nothing in between (Schenkel, 65). In an attempt to prevent experiencing failure, women make cumbersome efforts to establish extremely high standards and goals for themselves and work indefatigably to meet them (Schenkel, 66).
In the article “A Rant About Women” by Clay Shirky he explains how adult males are better at furthering themselves, how females have more pressure about how the world views them. More men are usually the ones lying than women for career purposes. Shirky’s article starts a little sexist to with some tough criticism made towards women entering the job market. The author and I shared similar experiences such as lying to get ahead in our respective lives, as well as differences such as blaming a certain gender for one's wrong doing. and I was fortunate enough to not go through this.
In Adichie Tedtalk she mentions how in a lot of situations she feels the need to prove herself because she is a woman when she in a professional setting. This is similar to what one of the classmates said about her mother who has been working in the same workplace for over 25 years and from the way she described her experience she still needs to prove herself and work harder than everyone else. She has to always be serious or else no one else will. The video also related to how men in many cases do not have to prove themselves in most cases. Men already have the privilege of having respect without having to work for it. The video and the article also made me think of an experience Eileen had with one of her old professors in the engineering department. She mention how her professor would noticeably treat women differently than other men. He would even give her or other girls specific task to complete different from the other guys because he saw that the task would fit them better because of their
Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the best ways to measure how a country’s economy is doing. A main component in figuring the GDP is personal consumption expenditures. Personal consumption expenditures accounts for about two-thirds of domestic
Understanding Gross Domestic product is central for understanding the business cycle and the progression of long-run economic growth (Hubbard & O’Brien, 2011, p. 631). The GDP is defined as the value-added of all goods and services produced in a given period of time within the United States (2008). The GDP is widely used as an gauge economic wellness and health of the country. What the GDP represents has a hefty impact on nearly everyone within our economy. As an example, when the economy is healthy, you will usually see wage increases and low unemployment as businesses demand labor to meet the increasing economy. The government has two types of economic policies used to control and maintain a healthy economy, fiscal policy and monetary policy. When economic growth is healthy it will have a positive on both individuals and businesses.
It is called “glass cliff” and describes women inability of exerting authority the same way that men do (Sabharwal, 2013). The concept was first described by Ryan and Haslam (2005) as a situation in which “woman may be preferentially placed in leadership roles that are associated with an increased risk of negative consequences. As a result, to the extent that they are achieving leadership roles, these may be more precarious that those occupied by men”. Social psychological constructs arising as a form of overt sexism are considered to be the main drivers for this phenomenon. Also social constructs are considered to influence the arise of glass cliffs. These represent a desire to appoint women to high risk positions – setting them up for a failure (Ryan and Haslam, 2005, 2007). By way of explanation, females occupying senior positions are more likely to leave the organization when confronted with glass cliffs. It was found by Stroh et al. (1996) that 26% women left management positions whereas only 14% of men did the same. He also proved that the reason of that is not, as commonly believed, the fact that women have more family commitments, but the sub-optimal career opportunities that were encountered by females. Lyness and Thompson (1997) found that men job satisfaction was considerably higher than women.
...angible aspects and so GDP should be used as an indicator in conjunction with other measures such as the Human Development Index, Genuine Progress Indicator (adjusts GDP figures income distribution) and the European Quality of life survey. This will give a more accurate and complete picture of Standard of Living.
“GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services—that is, those that are bought by the final user- produced in a country in a given period of time (a quarter or a year). It counts all of the output generated within the borders of a country.” (International Monetary Fund. n.d.)
woman may be unable to move past barriers that make it more difficult for her to deal with her
These are some of the barriers that I am facing now and have personally seen other women face as they grow in their careers. I have been tasked with many responsibilities, not all pleasant or things I would have asked for but my position forces me to take a position. I have heard, through the rumor mill, that I am only asked because I am liked by the CEO. And I will never be a good manager because I am “too nice”, and because I do not self-promote but instead praise group efforts. Most recently, considered to be a “bitch” or shown “betrayal” because I did not disclose confidential information to a friend/coworker, at times it feels that walking the line between each of those traits is thinner than a tightrope.
...asized that women "Women feel they have to be aggressive to be promoted."Then they keep it up when they should be collegial and collaborative as leaders." The article offers some reasons as to why women may react to each other in less than a collegial way, when it points out "Some women may sabotage one another because they feel helping their female coworkers could jeopardize their own careers." The article further offers additional reasons why women are not helpful to other women at work and why women are made targets by other women. "One reason women select other women as targets probably are the assumption they will find a less confrontational person or someone less likely to respond to aggression with aggression." Some, including women, perceive women as less tough than men therefore find it appropriate to withhold information that could help them on the job.
Social media although a great tool can become an addiction ultimately affecting our lives and state of mind. That is why we need to limit the amount of time and information we share on social networks. Although the internet is a tool full of good and bad available to everyone, teenagers and young adults are more prone to falling into the traps of the internet. People also abuse social media and overuse it every day because they are concerned with what is happening every hour. Social media is a tool not a necessity and should never be abused or used as a diary because it could result in unwanted consequences that can hurt us in the future.
First of all, there are several reasons as to why social media has the potential to be extremely addictive to users. Many believe that “as in the case of other types of addiction[s], there are
Social media can become very addictive to some and it may cause negative effects on that person’s life. Everyday use of social media can make a person want to get on, to needing to get on the computer. Becoming hooked can affect a person in many ways. Such as, their job, family,
and don’t have to be. Psychology of Women Quarterly. Blackwell Publishing. Printed in the USA.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total market value of in a country’s output. The GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced by factors in within given period of time that located in the country doesn’t matter they are citizens or foreign-owned companies. Hence, the GDP is the best way to measure the country economy.