Why does society dislike strong, confident women?

KAKALI DAS

Confidence is the belief in our ability to perform well in the face of challenges. It plays a role in so many forms of success.

Professional success requires self-promotion, achievement in sports requires grit, and leadership roles require decisiveness. These fields are all dominated by men. And across the globe, while women show equal competency to succeed, men show higher self-confidence than women.

So, why do women struggle to believe in their own worth, despite their talents?

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Psychologists have shown that high self-confidence comes from repeated validation of one’s performance. School, sport, and career provide settings that validate someone’s abilities and boost self-confidence. But these environments don’t operate the same way for everyone. From childhood, boys are encouraged to aim high, be it in sports or science and math, bolstering their belief in their own abilities.

On the other hand, though girls have shown high interest to learn and even higher academic performance in some research studies, they do not receive the same encouragement or support for their academic pursuits. This results in them being less confident in their abilities, even when their performance is at par or better than boys.

This inequality in education has historical roots. Women in India were rarely encouraged to read and write, up until the 19^th century. Women’s education focused on cooking, maintaining a household, and learning skills that would make them good wives, mothers, and daughters-in-law. Women weren’t encouraged to be a part of most professional fields that were considered the domains of men.

However, from the early 20^th century, professional avenues have opened up for women around the world. But India is still far behind, with less than 21^%of Indian women participating in the paid workforce.

Why does society dislike strong, confident women?

That means a majority of Indian women are engaged in full-time housework, which is unpaid and unrecognised work, frequently seen as a duty rather than ‘real’ work. Because society undervalues housework, often a lot of women who spend a lot of time on this work, are not complimented or validated for their efforts or performance.

And, for women who take up careers, they find it hard to believe that they are ‘good enough’. Many times, this is because workplaces have been so male-dominated, that women have role models, mentors, or champions in the workplace to represent their needs and perspectives. This renders them less visible and makes it harder for them to speak up, or be taken seriously when they contribute.

It’s also easier for men to express confidence at work. Persuasive, vocal, and assertive men are viewed as leaders. But when women express self-assured behaviour, they are viewed as bossy or shrill.

In a 2008 study published in Psychological Science, Brescoll and colleagues found that men received a boost in their perceived status after expressing anger. On the other hand, “women who expressed anger were consistently accorded lower status and lower wages, and were seen as less confident.”

Examples include headlines of women who were belittled by the media for expressing their anger – “Serena Williams and the Game that can’t be won – what rage costs a woman”, “Sushmita Sen, tantrum queen or just plain careful?” etc.

This all leads to a dangerous cycle, where women tend to attribute their success to others, by making statements like, “I just got lucky” or “It was all because of my support system” – which further undermines their own role in their achievements. On the other hand, studies have shown that men tend to attribute their success to their own hard work and diligence.

But it’s not only at the workplace that these biases play a negative role in shaping women’s self-worth. When people have to operate in an environment where they feel marginalised, their confidence suffers. This is why the lack of confidence that many women feel has much more to do with the societal biases that they live in, rather than with their own accomplishments.

Since this problem is so deeply connected to the way in which gender roles in our society function, leaving women to build their own confidence is not the solution. And it is not just gender. Social biases based on caste, class, race and ethnicity have a huge role to play in how we view people and their ‘worth’.

So, may be, it is finally time to start viewing qualities like self-confidence, talent and intelligence in perspective, to realise that they are not just about an individual, but influenced heavily by which individuals or society does and does not allow to flourish.

It is time to finally reflect on and actively challenge these biases, to allow everyone to feel confident in who they are and what they can accomplish.

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