Most bestselling nonfiction authors are men. The most successful online personalities are men. The people who have made it the biggest in the motivational speaking field? Yup, men again.
This is not to say that there aren’t lots of accomplished women in these areas. There are. But there are more men. With regard to speaking, I’ve even had people say to me that I will do well with the bureaus just because I’m missing that certain Y chromosome. I’m female, so apparently that makes me a novelty.
I’ve been thinking about why this is the case, and my preliminary conclusion is that it has to do with natural confidence and the perception others have of you as a result of that confidence. Doing well in my fields of authoring and speaking requires a certain amount of ego. You have to be willing to put yourself — and your provocative ideas — out there without caring what other people think.
When I do a talk, I always poll my audience to see what they think so that I can improve my speech for the next group. There aren’t a lot of top male speakers who do this. They know they’re awesome, and if you don’t like them, they assume that you’re in the minority. It’s a similar deal with authors. I can’t imagine ever hearing a female first-time author say that she intended to have a bestseller right out of the gate. Yet I can name several male first time authors who have said this. And you know what? One of them was actually right.
We women spend a lot of time being modest. Sometimes we actually feel that way, and sometimes we don’t but think that’s how we’re supposed to act so that other people will like us. At times, though, I believe it has the reverse effect. Other people don’t view us as talented or as worthy because we don’t appear to view ourselves that way.
As for the corporate world, there is a ton of research out there that says that men receive higher salaries than women for doing the same job. Even in fields where women dominate the bottom ranks, it’s still unusual to see a woman as CEO of a large organization. It’s easy to say that women are just being discriminated against, but could it be that there’s more to it? Maybe it’s our own fault, and we can actually control what’s happening.
For my part, I’m going to work on being proud of my accomplishments and feeling that I deserve to be in esteemed company. Maybe if I feel more confident inside, that self-assurance will flow outward and infect the people around me. Ladies, what are you going to do, and men, how can you help us master your secrets to success?
Image: Bill Liao
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There are a lot of successful women that are equally as successful as men or maybe even more. I think it just depends on one’s inner confidence and their drive. I wrote a mini biography on Hillary Clinton and Demi Moore. Both of these women are successful because they were willing to take risks and go with what they believe in, despite what others thought.
Some women didn’t like how Demi Moore posted nude and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, but she was proud of that. Some men didn’t like how Hillary Clinton was playing such as big role as First Lady because of power issues, but she continued to voice her opinions. Sometimes environment also does play a big role to inspire confidence, but really I think anybody – man or woman – can inspire confidence if they keep on being persistent with their beliefs despite what others think.
Men are encouraged to be confident, dominant and take up space. Women are encouraged to be subservient..You cannot blame someone for behaving the eway society wants them to behave and it is not easy at all to swim against the social tide.
Good luck working on your confidence and hope you write a best seller soon :)
Hey Mr. Lee, before making generalizations and uninformed assumptions about some men’s view of Hilary Clinton, take this view into account. It’s her politics! Many of us would have no problem with a Jeane Kirkpatrick or Margaret Thacther type woman as president. How about Sarah Palin? Oops, sorry that wasn’t politcally correct.
I’m flabbergasted that the author didn’t consider that perhaps the reason there are so many more successful men in these fields is that people are more critical of women and male privilege allows these men to have the ‘confidence’ necessary to succeed.
Lifehack has almost earned itself a deletion off my RSS feed for this.
“Does the Y Chromosome Inspire Confidence?”
Yes, on a chemical level it does… in the form of testosterone.
At first I thought this was going to be a sexist post. But I agree with you. It has a lot to do with self-confidence. Men are not as self-conscious as women are. They don’t have self-esteem issues (most of them). You ask them if they love their job, they will answer that they don’t have to love their job, they just do it. As for women, we have to find reasons for doing what we do. I hate to say it but sometimes women tend to overanalyze simple things. But this doesn’t neccessarily mean they are better than us. They only seem better than us because self-confidence plays a great factor in how people perceive you. A person full of confidence saying things he may have no idea about; but people buy what he says because he’s confident about it as if he knew so much about the subject matter. Which doesn’t mean they’re greater only better liars (HeHeHe).
If you still don’t believe me that self-esteem plays a big part in success, http://budurl.com/fuu5 is article tackling success and self-esteem.
I think Adam has it right. Testosterone does affect this – whether for good or bad. But I think environmental considerations are more prevalent. Men have been dominant for much longer.
I think, though, that we’re beginning to see many women stake their claim. The more it happens, the less we’ll ask this kind of question.
One of my profs in university had a theory about women in the workforce… He said that women generally make less money than men. At first I couldn’t beleive he flatly admitted his opinion in our progessive society but his explanation was lucid. Women get pregnant and often will put aside time from their jobs/careers to child rearing. This hinders them from getting promotions not necessarily because of prejudice but because they have less experience.
When it comes to confidence, maybe men on average have more because of gender roles. Women are more attracted to a mate with high social status aka confidence. Therefore men have to learn this skill in order to attract a mate and survive. Men are attacted more towards physical beauty which is not necessarily related to confidence.
why limit that to authors and online personalities? If you look carefully men dominate the fields of art, science, literature, war, mafia, crime, religion,drugs, porn, etc.,
The prime reason for this being that men are bored, because the most important act in the society of upbringing is taken up by the women, Men are left out from this prime duty after seeding. Socio-psychologically every man is subconsciously directed to gain that importance in his life. It is, in getting back this, that he resorts to such sort of measures and creates this illusory goals and targets so that it quenches his social needs.
Once this becomes a social cult, he needs to excel in it to dominate that specific field. This is the classic alpha male feature, hence men who start things because they are bored, end up mastering them.
wonder why women would want this…
White, straight, cisgender, temporarily able bodied men are constantly being reassured by the world around them that they deserve all the good things in their life. Of course they have confidence. Studies have shown that men will nearly always overestimate his intelligence, whereas women consistently underestimate.
To say that women just need to be more confident ignores the constant messages from birth that we don’t belong.
In fact, you’re ignoring the catch-22 we face. If a woman takes your advice and is confident in her own abilities, she will be viewed negatively for it.
Unfortunately this is another example of a trite, superficial post that ignores the existence of privilege and power structures.
I agree that confidence is a key to success. Our society does have obvious differences in expectations for men and women and this plays a huge role. As a women in a male dominated field, I have had to learn to have more confidence, and am still working at it. Societal pressure is also difficult on men who take on the non-traditional role of family caregiver. My husband, went from a very successful, high paying job to staying at home with our three kids. He received an unforseen backlash of negative self-worth as everyone from neighbors and his mother treated him as a loser with no job.
Haha Steve, you have a good point there.
I see where you’re going with this, and along the lines of several of the posts here, I would suggest that it probably has a lot more to do with our culture and much less our genetics. True, testosterone might play a part, and the brute strength that men typically have over typical women might play a part in it (and of course, there are exceptions where strong women could beat an average man, etc). But there are societies in which women are the dominant gender, and I don’t think those women have confidence problems (granted, I’m not an anthropologist).
It’s an interesting topic, because, as you’ve mentioned, research shows this and that about the differences between men and women in the workplace, etc. And certain authors will come out and tell you its because women don’t do x. I don’t think its that easy. I think on the one hand, we have to understand that there are differences between most men and women, and on the other hand, we can’t play the victim of being a “woman in a man’s world.” Some successful women are “like one of the boys” and some successful women are hard-core feminists, and neither of those extremes paints a good picture for women in general. I don’t think we should have to change or mask who we are to play in the boy’s club; in fact, what makes a man successful might not work for a woman at all.
I would recommend that we stay true to ourselves, and learn the skills that will make us succeed. Having confidence is one thing, but I wouldn’t stop there. I’ve been criticized time and time again for not being tough enough, yet I get results. I think its because I’m not mean and demanding, I care about the people around me, and I show my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And sometimes, I get results when others don’t expect me to. Why? Because they think I need to be tough and in-your-face to be successful.
The author needs to get in touch with critical perspectives of social injustice. The inequities in our society come from deeply rooted structures of power based in patriarchy and the gender divide continues to perpetuate itself.
Sure, testosterone is -linked- with aggression, but in a society where men grow up and are pretty much handed all this privilege, and women notice this privilege isn’t quite theirs and have to deal with it, you’re likely to see men get ahead. It’s a socially implemented privilege, not a biological predisposition to success.
There is research in behavioral economics and psychology to support this argument. Overall, men are more confident despite equal abilities.
Much of the research I have read can be found here:
http://www.stanford.edu/~niederle/
I stopped reading after the first paragraph due to the unscientific generalizations. If the author wishes to claim ‘most’ successful non-fiction authors are men, she should back that up with hard numbers.
very nice post and good comments.
To get confidence I think it’s very important to stop comparing. As long as you compare yourself to others there will never bee fair.
Like your post
Okay, so the long-term patriarchy has impressed upon women that we need to be a certain way so men and the associated concepts of masculinity won’t be threatened.
Does this mean we women need to continue to buy into that bullcrap?
Not by a long shot! I’ve begun to realize that the reason we women have been “downtrodden” in every imaginable, discussable way is because we allowed it. Why? Because we were scared, forced into doing what others wanted or else suffer the “consequences.”
On the flip side of the coin, men who want to explore their nurturing, protective side a bit more by being stay-at-home fathers get reamed a new one just for wanting to express that softer side. My dad is one example. Being a minister, he had the beautiful luxury of being a loving, doting daddy by having me in the church office playing while he typed and ran copies of the Sunday bulletin. One of the church ladies Mom and Pop had to deal with was very conservative (albeit very outspoken) and she made it clear that she thought I should be at home with my mom and my dad had no business raising me just because he was a man.
I actually think I benefitted from that constant (albeit overprotective) attention from my father, because he taught me to be confident in ways my introverted mother could not.
I actually think that the more that dads DO choose to stay home and interact more with their kids–especially the daughters–the more those little girls will watch their fathers’ natural boldness and pattern themselves thusly.
So it does not serve our society for women to keep denigrating themselves in the name of being modest for the sake of “being liked” according to old, fusty ideas of femininity, and the only way the young women of tomorrows after will have this capability to be confident is if the dads feel allowed by society to stay home and teach their daughters what the mothers of yesteryear cannot/will not.
So, more power to the stay-at-home dads, I say! And come on ladies! Quit complaining about the dudes and instead really watch what they do, and if some guys complain about our taking back the natural levels of confidence that belong to BOTH genders, so what? It’s time to bring the balance of power back. Not to dominate or be submissive, for the idea is not to be at either extreme, but to balance things out.
[...] feeling of humiliation turned crucial in the step-by-step psychogenic splitting up of the many personalities of people who are entrapped. Furthermore, this actual operation of critism and mind control has been [...]
I believe ” behind every succesful man there’s a woman”
I think we’re dealing with two different issues:
1 – Hormones do affect our mental state, and to some extent, our behavior. For instance, high levels of testosterone are associated with a lack of generosity, and heightened vengeance. Estrogen regulates Oxytocin, which makes us inclined to use the tend and befriend response to stress. I’d be tempted to theorize that these influence our handling of stressful situations in our careers. I wouldn’t say that this is a deciding factor, or something that we can’t change, but our hormones may have an affect on how we handle stress (or even how we measure workplace happiness and success in the first place).
For instance: if you turn to a group of relationships at work to handle workplace stress, staying close to that support group becomes very appealing, and when times get stressful, you may focus on protecting your friends, instead of watching for a window of opportunity for yourself. You may also prefer that your whole group gets to spread the raise money evenly, and may see it as selfish if one or two people demand large raises for themselves. This correlates with the tendency of women to push less for pay bumps, and to have less urge to be promoted away from (or at the expense of) their friends and allies.
Testosterone Administration Decreases Generosity in the Ultimatum Game
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008330
Tend and Befriend stress response:
http://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/2006_Tend%20and%20Befriend_Biobehavioral%20Bases%20of%20Affiliation%20Under%20Stress.pdf
Of course, I wouldn’t say that this is bad, unless the only measure of success we can use is earnings. Being attached to a good network of people has benefits. The
more I network with friends at my level, or in a certain office, the
less likely I am to want to leave that peer group, because I’m offered
good benefits right where I am. The network protects me, lowering the
chance of layoffs, making it easier to spot other career mistakes, and
providing me mentors. Of course, a
network can also drive career growth. Friends get promoted, transfer, seek new jobs. On the way, they teach me whether it’s worth following them, and how to do it. The more I have friends spread
all over, including above me, the better I do at growing into roles, and
forming new networks in the new position. Together, a group of friends
may not move up fast, but we can pool our knowledge and flourish every
step of the way.
2 – Learned behaviors.
Competition:
In the US, we tend to encourage boys to go into activities that teach competition well, somewhat more often than we send girls into them. Learning to compete can be done in childhood or adulthood, but if you teach it sooner, you can get into the race for competitive positions faster. If you push hard in high school, you can get a huge boost to your odds of getting a top rated business/accounting degree, which helps your odds of getting into top management of a fortune 500. There are other things you can do in high school and college to line yourself up for a high profile job, but they’re also often competitive. You have to compete to even get considered for high level jobs.
There are other skills that women learn at about equal proportions to the men: Building Contacts, Allies, and a Reputation, as well as Planning, Problem Solving, working with the corporate culture, and building expertise. I don’t think that training in most of these skills is gender balanced one way or another. Some women may be reluctant to build up a reputation, or join a club, but I’m not sure I’d say that’s a gender issue. I think if more girls are taught that success is a competitive job, the rest of the skills will be familiar enough.
I like the little message at the end for the men, But ask yourself this: If we men knew why we were doing better, would we tell you? *Humorous and somewhat twisted/gloating pleasure* followed by *Evil Laugh* followed by *Cough* followed by *Confident Manly Laugh at all the Other Posters who Think way too Much about this* followed by *Denial of being Chauvinistic* followed by a *Dare to Ask your Best Male Friend if He would Tell You, if he Knew* followed by *Wishes for a Very Good Week to Everyone.*
AND, Thank You For Listening,
Your Dearest Bestest and Most Confident Male Friend (Who does not count for the dare),
Ccube.
P.S. That’s pronounced “Chubby” to you, Women! (No chauvinism there, just an assumption that no man will read the article AND the comments…. Wait, is that chauvinism?? You know what, Forget this, AND Forget political correctness – I’m going to sleep!)
I believe a woman can do anything a man can do. I believe men and women are alike in alot of ways and different and i think thats fine. i think people should be treated equal.