I know you’ve felt it.
That voice in your head that tells you that you’re not good enough, that your accomplishments are just luck, that one day, you’ll be outed as the fraud you are.
As women, we are more likely to have these kinds of thoughts and suffer from imposter syndrome than men are.
And there’s a reason for this! No, it’s not because you’re actually a fraud, or lack self-esteem.
In a society that tells women that we should be modest about our accomplishments, and actually goes as far as to erase and invalidate our accomplishments. It’s no wonder that we feel fraudulent.
The problem is not you. It’s that we’ve been socialized into this feeling.
And when we feel like a fraud, who benefits?
These feelings can cause us to not apply for positions. To not publish our work. To not put ourselves out there as experts. To not speak on panels or give our thoughts in a public forum.
And those actions (or inactions) uphold the power structure of the patriarchy. So us feeling like frauds allows the systems of injustice to proceed unchecked.
We do the work. Every woman in my circle is busting her ass holding down work/family/school/business and excelling.
We are not frauds.
Continue to look for the evidence in your like that you are the real deal. It’s there. Name it and claim it. And break the system.