It's Women's History Month!

So obviously, this whole month, at the work place, at my business school, across board really, there have been SO many events to highlight the achievements and contributions of women. Equally, for the first time that I know of, there have been tonnes of incredible women opening up on LinkedIn about how they are tired of the number of invitations they get to speak (mostly for free) just this month, and how they would love to be invited other months too; or even better, how they would prefer for allies to do other things (like fund female-owned startups, shout better for female rights at the workplace and in the world, etc) instead of just "celebrate" female achievements 'despite it all'.

So, this really is not just me-- and there's a lot of us starting to feel like women's history month and International Women's Day is a systemic scam. While there is some merit to it in the sense that it has historically helped bring some attention to the ever-existing gender issues and even raise some money, the fact that the idea of a women's day has lasted longer than a century now (longer than some of our biggest democracies) and it still hasn't achieved equity or even equality is a bit depressing no?

It's almost like people at the top want us to have a venting space so we won't ask for more. Paulo Freire is much more articulate in alluding to this in his 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed': The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify the generosity. In other words, it is in the interest of some of our allies that the gender gap exists, so they can continue to be our allies.

A deep dive on 'Imposter Syndrome'
While there's definitely so many more threads to pick out when it comes to how we talk about "women's lives and issues in today's world", I am particularly obsessed with the idea of "Imposter Syndrome".

Michael Smets, Professor of Management at the University of Oxford, talks a lot about the power of doubt. He alludes to how CEO's and leaders who have a lot of 'hubris' should always seek to employ 'challengers' to keep their confidence in check, just like CEO's and leaders who lack in confidence should seek out 'peer benchmarks' and such to keep their confidence in check as well. So, in a way, everyone needs to be at a (0,0)-- while the former group is at a (5,5), the latter group is often at a (-5,-5). But unfortunately, since the former group is mostly men, as a humanity, we've decided that that is the 'right way to be' and instead of insisting all our leaders aspire to be more "neutral", we expect the latter group, mostly women, to strive to jump (10,10) steps and get to (5,5).

We've conveniently forgotten that the '08 financial crisis, the climate crisis, literally every single geopolitical concern today and ever in the history was caused by leaders with "hubris", and with just a little bit more self-doubt, overthinking, and imposter syndrome, we could have found ourselves in a much better place! So, why aren't leaders with hubris going into a room and talking about how they can keep their arrogance in check? Why is it time and again, it is our more humble leaders who are expected to go in a room and talk about how to keep their self-doubt in check?

  • Maybe like Reshma Saujani says, we want women to stay distracted from all the other "real problems" like gender pay gap, gender data gap, maternity leave, poor women's and girls' safety policies, etc.
  • Maybe like Laura Bates puts it, we want to continue to put it back to the women to say "if only you did this" instead of fixing the system that is essentially designed for men with hubris.
  • Maybe, just maybe, we're scared if women and all humble leaders step into their power as humble, overthinking leaders, they will topple the system and the people it currently benefits.

I am Tamil and there's this word in Tamil called "avaiadakkam": it literally translates to "humility when in a public space"; it's this idea that when you go into public spaces, you can't assume that you know better than others in the room-- it is almost uncivilised to assume that. So, it's really not just women. It's people who come from many "global south" and otherwise oppressed, marginalised, or overlooked cultures who believe in humble, quiet, or even self-doubting servant leadership.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, my all-time favourite thinker and philosopher believes that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time. For a leader, a woman, an overthinker to hold two opposing ideas one of which is some amount of clarity and confidence in what needs to be done, and the other some amount of doubt and uncertainty that that is the right thing to do, is the highest form of intelligence really-- and ain't it typical of our failing capitalist system to try to take away that intelligence from some of our best leaders and in turn from us!

So, the next time, someone invites you into a space and asks you, my dear friend and overthinker, "how do you deal with imposter syndrome", you have my full permission to tell them off-- no matter how well-intentioned an ally they are.