Confidence is key. Keep reading to learn about how important it is for women in college to maintain a strong sense of self.
“Statistics show that while men’s confidence increases dramatically during college, confidence of female declines during those four formative years,” said Cherie Strachan, a presenter at a talk at Colby called “Women at Work.” This remark was part of a larger conversation about difficulties facing women in the workplace and in academia. This one statement really stuck with me. I began to think about my own academic life, in high school and this far into college. Why does women’s confidence decrease during college? I would think being in a high-powered academic environment would have the reverse effect.
SO,
I looked to my own life for reasons.
And I came up with a couple of times that being a girl has directly or indirectly influenced how I act in an academic setting.
1. When speaking to older, male professors, I tend to act daughterly/grand-daughterly. This means I smile a lot and my voice goes up like an octave. I also laugh a lot more at whatever jokes they try to make. I seem more like a young girl instead of a woman of intelligence who should be taken seriously.
2. There is something a lot of us do when we’re doing group projects. While I have noticed that my male classmates can just say something like “No, I don’t think we should do that, it won’t work” during group project work, I realized that I would never say this, because I have seen other girls do this and get written off as bossy. Instead, I would say something like “that’s such a great idea! But maybe we should think about doing this? It might work a little better.” And I would smile and laugh the whole time so everyone knew I was being friendly.
3. When I was a junior in high school, I wore a semi-tight dress to go meet with one of my teachers. He had a friend, a retired teacher at the school, in the classroom as well. The retired professor looked at me and said “I think I retired too young! The girls didn’t look like this when I taught here.” I left because I felt uncomfortable and didn’t even get the question I had about my paper answered. It was clear that the first thing he saw about me was not that I was a student.
4. I say sorry all the time and unnecessarily. For things that I have no reason to be sorry for and are out of my control! This definitely doesn’t send a message of confidence.
These are just the first examples I could think of. There are tons of more small examples of times when we, as girls, defer to men. Or times when we are too timid in stating our opinions.
Check out these articles for a couple other women’s takes on the issue:
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/412-faking-it-women-academia-and-impostor-syndrome
http://jezebel.com/google-exec-women-stop-saying-just-so-much-you-sound-1715228159
Just a few things to think about this week…in class and around campus, try to think about times when you are deferring to a male or acting grand daughterly or apologizing too much! Let’s do something about the unfortunate reality of women’s self-confidence decreasing during college. It all starts with awareness.