Imposter Syndrome, Alliance, and Diversifying Science
Dear friends of women in science:
Recently, I ran across a blog on the Scientific American blog on a subsite called The Urban Scientist. DN Lee blogs at that site, and she is a young black woman in science.
The first thing she talked about was receiving papers back with marks on them. If black students didn't do well, people seemed to have expected that and told their own higher marks as kind of a put-down. For students like this one, who did do well in science, they would be surprised, would ask to see her paper, and would check answer by answer to see if she was getting credit she didn't deserve. So Lee identifies her own version of the Imposter Syndrome as follows:"The demon that I call Imposter Syndrome isn't self-doubt. It doesn't don my face or voice. No, my demon is a chorus of whispers and side eyes, and groups of leaned in faces treating me as if I were a fraud, as if my accomplishments were a fluke." To paraphrase, she doesn't think she's an imposter, the rest of the scientific world does. That is bad news. I wanted to think these negative attitudes were gone, but clearly they're not.
She identifies the same trends in coments like "You knew THAT?" and "You give such good talks?" Surprise. Someone like her shouldn't be able to do those things. She's an imposter. We know that comments like that can be meant as compliments, but it's good to realize that if there's any flavor of surprise, they have a tinge of insult included. She says as a double minority, woman and black, she encounters the compliment with a question mark at the end of the sentence so often that she expects it now, but it does erode her own confidence too. She is resolved to speak out and not to accept these things, but it is very hard not to seem bitchy. She says, "It's fine line and I try to be diplomatic so as not to shut the conversation down. However, these lessons must be delivered swiftly. The times I failed to do so taught me much. The most difficult situations have been when persons of authority, say department chairs or deans are the offensive ones. (This is where and why allies matter so much)."
I believe some of us need to commit becoming those allies she needs. If something happens to a woman, woman of color, or man of color, or anyone who is being picked on because of not being the average white man in science, everyone who can should speak up and defend the need for diversity in science, point out the excellence of the person, or whatever is needed. If possible, people in higher positions, tenured if in academia, should be the allies who speak up, because it is more effective and much less dangerous for them.
What do you think? How hard is it to be an ally?
cheers,
Laura
On this issue, I don't budge. If I see someone being treated differently as a result of their race or gender, and I can have a positive impact on the person doing it as an independent third party, I will say something.
When you approach it as education and not invalidation of folks who really don't get how they sound, you can get some change. We are a product of our own experiences and culture, and if those experiences have been limited to a homogenous group of people, what else can we expect? That is why diversity in science is so important. We will lose those viewpoints if we don't make the individuals feel welcome. After all groups are just collections of individuals, and each one counts!
I had a chance to do a bit of that today at lunch. A colleague and I were talking about an "issue" she was having with on of her direct reports. The report is Asian, and she couldn't figure out why he won't speak up at meetings but is obviously so smart and invested in his project 1.1. It was frustrating her and making her think he just wasn't commited. She commented that she has had similar problems with other Asian reports in the past.
I reminded her that our management asked us to read "Breaking through the Bamboo Ceiling" so that we would have a better understanding of how Asian culture can influence how talented people perform when judged against a Western ideal. And I brought up some of the salient points in the book. She had a great "aha!" moment and vowed to go and talk to him about what they could do together to promote him more within the company.
That's the best outcome of course. Someone is swayed to become another advocate. But it sometimes is that easy if you strike while the iron is hot and focus on solutions and not a judgement for her being narrow minded. She had a good heart...she just didn't know how to be an effective manager for this person.
I can only imagine what she has to put up with since I'm at single risk, not double risk. It must be horrendous. She's courageous to speak up every time, I must say. While I was still in CS, I only spoke up about one out of five or ten times, to save my energy for the really egregious cases. But sometimes I lost my temper when it was not so serious and felt bad about wasting my ammo later on. She does need allies!
Ex CS
Hi Laura,
Just makes me tired, always pushing the same rock uphill. It's the politics against women out in the "real world" too. So hard to get respect, and when we feel like we're almost there, to see it all slipping away. I need a mai tai or something. No, I won't give up, but it's pretty xxi#%#@ discouraging.
FBP
