women, men and being a con artist

[rm]

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/



I'm pretty good at the sort of stuff Shirky is talking about. Maybe that's because my dad was in advertising, but it's probably not. Maybe it's because I've never been or felt consistently female and therefore am not the sort of person (woman) Shirky is ranting about it, but that's sort of besides the point, as we'll get to below.

The fact is it's probably because my perception of my childhood was that it was frightening and unpredictable and I always had to be ready with a response that would keep me safe or loved. I wasn't hit. I wasn't abused. I wasn't not loved. But my father's temper was unpredictable and spooked me nearly all the time, and the things I could be guilted for by family, teachers and/or peers (getting a cold, not smelling right, playing the wrong type of pretend, not being "cool") had a lot of impact on me.

I'm an only child, so I can't really tell you what of that was a truly difficult environment and what of that is the fact that I've always been pretty sensitive (some of this, I now know, is probably celiac-related) to loud noises, to teasing, to social cues, etc., and like most kids, my main goal was to not cry. As I became a tween (a word we didn't even have then) that goal became, more accurately, to hate myself enough that I could force myself into the forms that would prevent other people from hating me even more.

And that's had a huge impact on me. It's made me ambitious, competitive and deeply insecure. It's made me a catastrophist and a self-aggrandizer.

And while people who tell stories well at parties, who are self-confident, who are even smug (and I am all those things), are sexy... this isn't sexy. It's unpleasant for you and for me. And it's stressful.

Now, is this because I'm female-socialized and do care (as opposed to men, according to what Shirky posits) about the consequences when I get caught? Or is it because I'm not as good at it as I think (again because I'm female-socialized)? Or is it because Skirky isn't acknowledging consciously in his piece how much all of us, regardless of gender, spend so much of our lives feeling like frauds (did this happen before mass media, I wonder -- before mass media the pool with which anyone competed with was smaller and so, arguably, were the stakes) and so live in fear, not just of failure, but of success? There's always a higher mountain to fall from.

I loathe how often I feel this way -- like I'm telling a story to make people like me when I should just shut up, or just that I'm some sort of fraud in general. I loathe many of the reasons I am successful. I loathe the impact what it takes to be even as slightly successful as I am has on others. I loathe the idea of any one else having to feel this way.

And I hear everything Shirky says, much of it while nodding my head (ETA: which doesn't mean I think it's good or that he gets the impact of what he's saying (some of which is victim blaming BS, you bet) but I think a lot of the observations are spot on, even if the conclusions are wonky).

But wow, as a veteran of friendships and relationships with alcoholics, and as a person whose life as been defined by the borders between truth and fiction (my father's career and several of my own have centered on this), it's hard for me to get on board with the idea that more lies are the answer.

That said, I've no idea what the answer is -- for women or anyone else -- and whether the path to it is up. Or down.

Comments

[kadairk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that, and your response.

The bigger thing I come away with from Shirky's rant is a realization of "hey, I SHOULD speak up for myself more." Say I can do something, but only when I believe I actually can do it (which involves silencing my constant critic), instead of waiting for someone to realize just how competent I am. Really, it comes down to believing in myself AND sharing that belief with others.

Again, thank you. I think I needed this today. And I don't think the answer to the situation Shirky describes necessarily means lying. I think there is an ethical way to feel good about ourselves, and to point out to others that we have talents. I don't think gender needs to play a role in this, at all.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I agree there are ethical ways to promote ourselves, but Shirky spends a lot of time highlighting that the ones that are or border on unethical (or are at least linked to other behaviors that are unethical) are the key here, and that really disturbed me, because the price there is high and I think we're all paying it -- even the men he claims don't care about the consequences.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The problem is that this rant is only half the issue (in large part, because IMHO Shirky is an idiot). The problem is that in our sexist society, on average both men and women respond differently to men who attempt to self-promote than they do to women who attempt to do the exact same thing.

The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more. However, a new set of experiments by Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, offers an entirely different explanation.

Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".

"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."

Also, this article.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you just said.

I could get into the more personal reasons why, but it's been a long day...and I'll spare you. :-) But thanks for saying what I was going to say, first.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you and some of our ongoing discussions about the "squeaky wheel" as I read this. :* We should discuss more in person!

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I didn't read beyond a couple or three paragraphs. Shirky doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. I've met several self-aggrandizing, arrogant, anti-social con-artist women, say anything to get what they want women. To some extent my mother is one. And I was thoroughly used and taken advantage of by such a woman, whom I knew from fandom.

Shirky is an idiot for lending his name to a tissue of lies or at least vast overstatement of his former student's qualifications. When the guy turns out not to be what it said in the letter, it's going to reflect just as badly on Shirky as it did on the asshole.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link, and your response.

The thing that I have trouble with is reconciling the idea that women need to be more performatively self-aggrandizing (as men are, at least theoretically), with the fact that women who are more self-aggrandizing are not, necessarily, perceived as generously as men who are, are. In other words: the all too common situation where a man who speaks well of himself is (seen as) confident, but a woman who does exactly the same is (seen as) a bitch.

I guess part of me is tired of the blame-the-victim rhetoric of telling women to just speak up more. For one thing, it's not necessarily accurate: women who speak up will not necessarily get the same benefit that men who speak up will. For another thing, it assumes that shaking off deeply ingrained cultural training is just something you can decide to do—with the implication that, if you don't, it's kinda your own fault that you don't get as far in life as the men.

I don't know. It's complicated and difficult, and I just don't know. I wish I did.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

You distilled exactly what bothered me about that piece far more cogently than I could have.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I read Shirky's piece and throughout it, I was annoyed at his sense of privilege. He totally doesn't get that from the time we pop out of the womb most women are told to sit still, be quiet, and look cute.

He doesn't get that the boys with equal brains get more opportunities, in freaking grade school, when it's the parents who're pushing, and not the kids. He doesn't get that guys get called on more often and thus get more chances to speak up and practicing giving any answers, right or wrong.

He certainly doesn't understand that quirky behaviour that's counted as "boys being boys" and is overlooked in little boys merits phone calls home to the parents because your girl is rowdy in art class.

Some of us women, manage to muddle through enough and either have enough confidence in their skills to not back down or learn to fake it. Being able to fake confidence is a good skill to have; it doesn't mean you're a fraud. Can you deliver with some level of satisfaction what you've been asked to deliver? Then it's all good.

(I'm reminded of library reference studies where people were happy that someone had helped them, even if they hadn't been able to find the exact info they were looking for. Often it was close enough or the reference staff showed them some place else to look. We get points for trying.)

Maybe what he needs to do, is, as he is a teacher, call more on the women in his class than the guys, and be an active mentor to more women. You know, say, "Hey, Melissa, stop by my office during office hours. There's an internship I just found you'd be perfect for." Do that more for the women in his classes than the guys.

He can certainly stop telling us how we need to fix ourselves.

Sorry if this is ranty. I've spent the last few days cleaning the house pretty much by myself and am a bit pissed. Thank goodness we're getting a cleaning service.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

He doesn't get that the boys with equal brains get more opportunities, in freaking grade school, when it's the parents who're pushing, and not the kids. He doesn't get that guys get called on more often and thus get more chances to speak up and practicing giving any answers, right or wrong.

...

Maybe what he needs to do, is, as he is a teacher, call more on the women in his class than the guys, and be an active mentor to more women. You know, say, "Hey, Melissa, stop by my office during office hours. There's an internship I just found you'd be perfect for." Do that more for the women in his classes than the guys.

He can certainly stop telling us how we need to fix ourselves.

This, this, this, this, this. Yes. Thank you.

The cultural training is disproportionate and difficult and often painful to shake off. Just saying, "Centuries of cultural training? Yeah, ignore that," is. Not. Helping.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

So a man is telling us how we're doing everything wrong and totally need to behave like men to be full human beings, because, you know, success in one's career is the only important thing in life.

Yep. It's a typical Saturday. And it's still deeply fucked up for a man to tell women how to behave and how to fix ourselves.

Also, I deeply worry about people who think being a narcissistic con artist is a good thing.

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

It frustrates me into incoherence that there is no consideration, in Shirky's problematic tirade, for the possibility that world doesn't have to work this way, and we don't HAVE to keep rewarding this behavior.

But that's a Clay Shirky essay for you. His way is the only way. He's a smart guy, but his posts tend to be so ... well, tunnel-view certain that He Know How It Works that I find myself writing him off — for the tunnel vision and for the sexist crap that so many of your previous commenters have put much better than I'd be able to.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

It frustrates me into incoherence that there is no consideration, in Shirky's problematic tirade, for the possibility that world doesn't have to work this way, and we don't HAVE to keep rewarding this behavior.

This. It's as if he's saying "don't hate the player, hate the game" without even considering the possibility of a new game :(

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting.

The problem in many cases isn't that women aren't willing to lie/pump up their accomplishments but that they're often unwilling to take credit for the shit they're actually good at doing.

You don't have to act confident if you actually are. It's not about thinking you're awesome and being willing to make things up to make others believe it; it's about being self-aware enough to know what you're good at and what needs work, and not hating yourself for the areas which need work.

Or is it because Skirky isn't acknowledging consciously in his piece how much all of us, regardless of gender, spend so much of our lives feeling like frauds (did this happen before mass media, I wonder -- before mass media the pool with which anyone competed with was smaller and so, arguably, were the stakes) and so live in fear, not just of failure, but of success?

I would be be willing to bet that more women feel that way than men. I can't tell you why that is, however.

Someone's probably going to argue with me here, but... I think men are typically willing to take more risks because getting ahead and being outwardly/materially successful is a larger cultural priority for them. That is internalized because they are judged and judge themselves based upon accomplishments in a way that many women are not/do not.

By this, I mean judged by potential mates, their families, their old school friends, etc.

ETA example: If I quit my job or switched to a less stressful career/downshifted would my family and friends look down on me in some way? Now how would my husband's friends or family react if he did it? Depends on the situation, but I venture that in my case it'd be nifty and if he did it he'd be secretly or even openly excoriated.

(There are always exceptions among women and men, even among those whom I know.)

[kargashina.livejournal.com]

'The problem in many cases isn't that women aren't willing to lie/pump up their accomplishments but that they're often unwilling to take credit for the shit they're actually good at doing.'


yup.. raised to be humble, modest and all that..

and if i quit my job my family would be thrilled.. yes, men are expected to be successful in a way women largely aren't..

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

I loathe how often I feel this way -- like I'm telling a story to make people like me when I should just shut up, or just that I'm some sort of fraud in general.

Lately, I very often feel that way. I sort of feel like that goes hand in hand with being able to navigate social situations well, adapt to your audience, present yourself well, etc. Especially to the point where it stops even being a conscious decision. It frequently makes me question who I actually am when so much of myself is tailored to others' perception. Not that I'm this slave to being what I should be, but because I do have the ability to mirror people and present the correct version of myself for the scenario. And I think it helps me tremendously in business, particularly because I have a high level of interpersonal interaction everyday. But sometimes it leaves me feeling disingenuous.

I'm not sure I agreed with Shirky...to an extent, yes, we should engage in self-promotion and present the best version of ourselves in an interview, etc. But I don't think that taking it to an extreme where you're being a cocky dick pays off in the long run. And even if it does, I want no part of it. I do well enough without having to resort to those kind of tactics. And I also think that kind of behavior coming from a man is more well-received than from a woman. So saying we need to act more like men probably isn't the answer.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it's clear that he has never heard of the concept of the double-bind -- that is, he assumes that women will be perceived the same as men when they start acting 'like men' (in these specific ways), when, in fact, in my experience, this is very much not the case.

As a result, I'm having a very hard time sorting through my own reactions to this piece.

I *can* say that I rarely feel like a fraud, and often feel like a) I am not getting my due, but b) at the same time, there is always someone more qualified than me.

Still chewing. Hm.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I feel like a fraud AND like I'm not getting my due, and I largely blame my own competence at navigating the system, which is probably my socialization in action.

[exbentley]

It worries me a lot that I severely over-identify with this LJ post. But like you I'm self-hating, quick to talk back, and genderqueer. And like you, I don't have any answers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes me feel better ;)

One of my greatest frustrations lately is I don't have a solid, clearly defined, easily understood base from which I am discussing gender. It may, in some cases, make my opinions more informed, but it also makes them harder to contextualize and perhaps less valuable for that.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Women don't need to tell more lies to have an equal chance. Men need to be more honest.

I say I'm good enough because I am. I've obtained the marks and done the work to prove it. So Fuck anyone who has to lie.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I say I'm good enough because I am. I've obtained the marks and done the work to prove it. So Fuck anyone who has to lie.


This.

I have been held back , and laughed at because I don't over sell myself ,but then again I'm always damn good at what I do , and I don't fall on my face because I claimed I was something that I'm not.

You are so very right - fuck 'em.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

Lots of commenters said what needed to be said, so I'll just link you to an interesting story about a female con man (con woman? whatever):

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/31770765/the_girl_who_conned_the_ivy_league/

The headline is misleading, because it's not like she didn't get into the schools on her own merits; she just did it under someone else's identity.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I think this falls under " don't hate the player, hate the game ". I agree with all and many who say that the answer is not more lying - however the point the article makes is that those who do are successful. If you give the average person a choice as to being honest and mediocre or lie and successful ... well... I wouldn't be surprised by the outcome.

I'm not as successful as I could be - but I'm not walking around lying about my capabilities. I usually end up head to head in fights with people who do lie because we both know I can ( and will ) expose them.

It gets worse when you become the faceplate for someone. Imagine a CEO that has very little knowledge of tech, but surrounds themselves with tech savvy people tho feed them information to create the illusion.

Ugh.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm female, genderqueer in ways similar to you, part Sicilian, and mildly famous (if you searched for me right now on Google News you'd get hits). I thought everything Shirky said was exactly right, and I think a lot of your commenters aren't getting it. He's not talking about what it takes to get and keep a good job and have a satisfying career, he's talking about what it (almost always) takes to become Lawrence Lessig or Jonathan Zittrain, Sergey Brin or danah boyd. Lots of people don't necessarily want that and there's no reason they have to. But nearly everyone I know in a comparable position to the people I've listed, and I know quite a few, behaves in the way Shirky is describing. Including me. It doesn't have to mean being a dick, and the people who do it best often are good at being charming at the same time.

I do think it is very relevant to imposter syndrome, to me it feels like a place you get to when you break through and realize imposter syndrome doesn't matter, it's just the sea we all swim in, we all feel it, and you can decide the risk of being wrong is preferable to the risk of never getting out there and taking your best shot.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

It might be that most of the commenters are more concerned about getting and keeping a good job, because you have to have that before you can become a big name.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

You know, I even feel like a fraud for admitting I'm unable. I spend half my time wondering if I'm really "sick enough" to be on the sickness benefit. It's like there's no middle ground where you have exactly the life position you think your abilities are suited for.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
It's a very common thing... part of me thinks there is a human inability to explain fortune. Bad fortune we have invented a plethora of superstitions and blaming strategies to mitigate. Good fortune, well we're at a fucking loss.
Illness is harder because (especially is the illness is non-visible) because you have to establish a status without any basis for comparison aside from what's in your own head. And you have to keep that status to receive treatment to loose it. And no Doctor ever bothers to sit down and say 'Look, your experience is REAL so don't worry about that, you just concentrate on getting better.'

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I think that, like pretty much everything, self aggrandizing is a learned skill. I am not so bad at it either, mostly because I've had advisers who FORCED me to be good at it (one of them was was a soft spoken and supremely confident British woman who claimed to not understand America's obsession with self esteem).

That said, I've gotten a lot of negative comments about being "over confident" from folks (peers and superiors). I don't think that our culture is any good at encouraging women to self promote, even though now I think we see people making the kinds of comments that the blogger that you referenced did.

Women aren't going to take those risks if they've had previous experience being burned for expressing confidence in abilities that they actually HAVE -- expressing confidence in faked abilities is way too much of a stretch.

Frankly, I know that some people assume that I'm inept whenever I step up to the podium to teach a new lecture class. I just don't get the benefit of the doubt as a young and feminine looking person.

No wonder so many female faculty members have impostor syndrome. Instead of being able to fake what we don't know, we don't even get credit for what we do know.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I think Shirky's high. None of the men I know who are creatives magically omit the worry element. They are, one and all, highly aware of it when they've oversold themselves or aggressively self-promoted in order to get a foot in the door.

The difference is social conditioning, but also adult social relationships. Men are both trained to self-promote more and encouraged to continue, whereas women who self-promote or have substantial and visible success get a lot of negativity. People act on professional jealousy a lot faster around women. It's border patrols and status. And I think a lot of it, by adulthood, is intuitive.

Having done a little of both on each side of the gender divide, I can sincerely say that it's easier to walk up to someone and blag my way through now than it was pre-2006, and a fair bit of that is because people let me and expect it of me.

[sethg]

OMG you are going to love this story.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

I know I have annoyed some folks (esp. my dad) with my hesitance to take risks, or to list skills or expertise that I don't feel that I sufficiently mastered. I HATE being in over my head, or feeling that I'm getting pushed into deep water by folks who dismiss my concerns, expecting me to figure things out w/o asking for help.

Or at least I presume that I am being expected to not ask for help.

Just typing that out is making my jaw clench.

Re: underselling one's abilities. I think I often do this to avoid folks getting carried away; my knowledge about A or B doesn't necessarily mean I am good at C or am qualified for D. There is encouragement, which is good, and leaping to big ass conclusions, which makes me feel like I am on the verge of disappointing people, and/or being seen as deceiving folks, being "unmasked" as not being as "smart" as folks presumed. Stuff like than happened a LOT when I was younger, and it totally stressed me out with feeling that I wasn't "allowed" to make mistakes or fail.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I've heard it said that a woman applying for a job says things like "I dunno, I only have 5 years experience in this field" where a man tries "none, but I'm sue I can pick it up as I go" -- and he gets the job because the confidence is what comes across. Speaking as a female-socialized and more-or-less cisgendered woman who's struggled with the pervasive sense of being totally physically invisible most of her life, I'm not sure why Shirky thinks we'd be heard even if we did start getting louder about it tomorrow... {sigh}

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

My boss had me write my own letter of recommendation. It was uncomfortable to do, but I did make it incredibly glowing. :)