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Gunjan Sharma Arora's avatar

Great Piece! I think the psychological roots go deeper! I think since childhood, men are reinforced for faking it, to display themselves as powerful, brave, aggressive, street smart and hence, faking it till you make it{or not) becomes their default behavior. Also, the entitlement they are given while growing up, that they deserve everything because they are men, so a man who qualifies for a job only 10% gets explained, they have been reinforced to make themselves feel relevant in most irrelevant places.

With women, it's the opposite. They are conditioned to feel irrelevant mostly, to be invisible, and always subjected to criticism under the guise of raising a perfect daughter in law for future. We are bound to feel unanchored in our own selves if all we get are question marks!

You see, families are raising boys and girls in a manner that builds their image, of raising perfect males to dominate and perfect females to surrender, so instilling false pride in men and false shame in women! That's also the perfect recipe for toxic male-female relationships eventually.

Our society basically runs on the polarity of pride and shame. Men get exclamations and women get question marks. So makes sense why both genders are deprived of their authenticity.

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Mahima Vashisht's avatar

So beautifully put Gunjan! 100% agree!

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GG's avatar

Mahima you are a fabulous writer! (I expect you to fully embrace this compliment :) )

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Mahima Vashisht's avatar

Hahaha, as promised:

Thank you! ☺️

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Dr.Shashi Singhal's avatar

Mahima...great appreciation and respect for you as a writer...truly resonate with your ideas n thought process of yours... wishing u a very successful journey ahead ❤️

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Mahima Vashisht's avatar

Thank you Shashi ji! :)

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Dr.Shashi Singhal's avatar

My son introduced me to your podcast and content ...loving reading it... really enjoying all the articles that you have written... thinking of enrolling myself for your course also.. but finding the charges a little on the higher side..

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Geetha sethuraman's avatar

Very well written

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Divya Baveja's avatar

Lovely read Mahima! Very well written. I love the unpretentious non preaching tone you adopt in your writings!

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Vaibhav Vashisht's avatar

Bahut hi badhiya 👏👏

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Chitra's avatar

Really great issue. I #totally relate to this feeling and I have several similar experiences of being aghast with senior male colleagues being confident and complacent in their ignorance

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Jyoti's avatar

An article nicely written. The imposter syndrome has been well brought to the fore with examples and clarity.

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Vinita B.'s avatar

LOVED this. Keep speaking truth to power, dearest SIL!

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Geetha sethuraman's avatar

Very well written

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