Why confidence culture is problematic: Self-confidence at work isn't everything
We all know Confidence Culture. Would you like an example? Here you go: you don't feel comfortableand fight along? Try it with a little more self-confidence! You have problems with? Be confident! And inIsn't it going well either? You guessed it: work on your confidence? and the rest will take care of itself. Or?
That's the message that women have been presented with in recent years as an all-round solution to pretty much every unfortunate situation in life? and as we all know, there are enough of them. It's written on the shower gel packaging that taunts us in the shower, just as it is on every other pink, glittery one-Graphic can be read on Insta. Everyone seems to have agreed that self-confidence is the key to personal happiness and professional success for us women.
Confidence Culture: in the vortex of self-optimization
I'm sure you're familiar with this situation: you're sitting in a meeting, your colleague is talking nonstop, and when you try to say something, he blithely cuts you off without even noticing it. Do you accept the situation? and are secretly annoyed by this incorrigible man. The whole thing haunts you mentally until the end of your workday and during your every evening-Let the mask take effect, you ponder: What could I have done differently? You come to the conclusion: I have to trust myself more,be, represent my point of view and not allow myself to be silenced. So far so good. To a certain extent this is right and important.
However, there is a not-so-small catch: we live in a so-calledConfidence Culture, which wants to instill self-confidence in women in particular as a solution to all problems. This is convenient on several levels (for the system, not for us) and also problematic. Is each of our problems due to our own individual self-confidence, do we end up in the endless whirlpool of self-optimization? and so issues anchored in the system can quickly become personal “women’s problems”. be pathologized and thus belittled.
Confidence Culture: This is how it distracts us from real problems
An example: It has been proven that women still earn less than men. TheGender pay gap is in Germanyin 2021, for example, at 18 percent. If you go to one as a womanIf you don't achieve the desired result, this is quickly blamed solely on your personal appearance and self-confidence. “If only you had negotiated harder and demanded what you were entitled to!”: Those who say these sentences to us, however, forget that it isscientifically provenis that men are more likely to promote men? and more likely to approve them raises. Confidence or not. Don't get me wrong, of course personal appearance plays a role in such conversations. But not the only one. TheConfidence CultureBut that's exactly what you want us to believe? and thus directs our focus away from problems that we owe to the patriarchy and not our own inadequacy.
The two sociologists Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill, among others, think so in theirsBuch ?Confidence Culture?in which they deal with this specter of our time obsessed with self-optimization. “Being self-confident is the imperative of our time. As inequalities of gender, race and class deepen, women are increasingly being asked to believe in themselves, her book says. This results in a very individual feminism that relies solely on the empowerment of the individual woman, who concentrates on the supposed construction sites of her own personality. What is very important to the two scientists, however, is that they are in no way criticizing self-confident women, but rather the assumption that self-confidence solves structurally anchored problems. OppositeThe GuardianGill explained: “A lack of self-confidence is presented as a personal defect. When business leaders, politicians, coaches or brands talk about inequality, it is always about women's self-confidence. But as long as we blame women, we absolve institutions and structures from driving change.?
Confidence or Competence? Why self-confidence isn't everything at work? or should be
Another trap that theConfidence Cultureinherent in itself: As a woman, you can quickly change thingstoconfident, right? While men with strong opinions are celebrated as doers, different rules seem to apply to really self-confident women. Too loud, too cheeky? too demanding. Sure, after all, many girls are still taught restraint from an early age, while boys are allowed to let off steam. It seems as if you can't really please anyone: If we put ourselves in the front row and internalize the behavior that men show us as promising, it quickly becomes too much for the people around us. If we hold back, we are seen as wallflowers who urgently need to work on ourselves. And honestly, who actually thought that self-confidence at work had something to do with competence and that self-confident people are automatically better off? At least I have met enough loud, mediocre male colleagues in my professional life whose confidence, upon closer inspection, was their only asset. Just like those colleagues who work quietly but regularly deliver the best performance without constantly wanting to take the credit.
My conclusion? Be yourself!
I think there is something that is even more important than our own too much or too little self-confidence. Something that is often forgotten when it comes to loving job advice for women: authenticity.
It doesn't matter if you're brimming with confidence and in any situationThe Life of the Partyor you prefer to check out a situation from the background before you decide whether you want to or can step out of yourself: Don't let anyone tell you that your path is the wrong one.
You are okay the way you are, even if our working world often tells you something different,? and the person who should actually reconsider their behavior is the mansplaining colleague who made you feel bad in the meeting. In my opinion, becoming aware of this shows real self-confidence.
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