This article really spoke to me

[Frances]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/sunday/girls-school-confidence.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

It perfectly describes my experience. 

[ktgrok]

Me too, except I'm like the boys in the article, lol. I once got a low A on a paper in college, and the professor pulled me aside to say it was good, but he was sure I could do even better. I just stared at him and wondered why I'd do that? If what I did was an A, why work harder?

I was also a lover of oral book reports, because you could make them up on the fly, lol. 

[gardenmom5]

11 hours ago, Ktgrok said:

Me too, except I'm like the boys in the article, lol. I once got a low A on a paper in college, and the professor pulled me aside to say it was good, but he was sure I could do even better. I just stared at him and wondered why I'd do that? If what I did was an A, why work harder?

I was also a lover of oral book reports, because you could make them up on the fly, lol. 

while a friend was doing her masters, she commented - her A was just as good as these twenty-somethings A, even though she did less work.

and my bil did a paper book report that was completely made up.   the teacher never looked to see there was no such book.

[Scarlett]

One time my ds was about 14 and he had a programming course.  After the final his grade was 90 (an A)  The teacher offered to let him resubmit something for a higher grade.  Ds looked at me and said, 'He's never hearing from me again.'   LOL.  Still makes me laugh. I did try to teach him to do 'his best'....but he has not really ever done that.  Not on academics anyway.

[ktgrok]

18 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

while a friend was doing her masters, she commented - her A was just as good as these twenty-somethings A, even though she did less work.

and my bil did a paper book report that was completely made up.   the teacher never looked to see there was no such book.

I am in awe of you BIL and almost (but not quite) want to go back to school just to do this, lol. 

I need to ask my oldest if he ever did this, sounds like him. 

My sister did every book report she ever did on Helen Keller. But she got away with it not because teacher's didn't know, but because she was a good student otherwise but a bad reader...we did find she had convergence issues and did vision therapy but I have the same issues (and never did therapy). My DD is dyslexic and looking back I bet my sister is too. So people just cut her slack. (one of the reasons I told my son to be on his teacher's good side)

[gardenmom5]

one thing dd learned - men are more likely to apply for a job, even if they don't meet all the qualifications.  women are more likely to apply for jobs ONLY when they meet *all* the qualifications.   so, she took a page out of that book, and applied for her current job, even though she didn't meet all qualifications.  she's the one who got the job.

[Kareni]

What an interesting article, Frances. Thanks for posting the link.

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

Good article and it perfectly describes my kids,  boy and girl,  heading into the same demanding career field.  She is so much more intense about her classes etc.

[Liz CA]

I can see that confidence in your own capabilities can still be an issue. Knowing how to have a humble mindset yet assert yourself professionally is not always easy.

[forty-two]

That experience — of succeeding in school while exerting minimal or moderate effort — is a potentially crucial one.  It may help our sons develop confidence, as they see how much they can accomplish simply by counting on their wits. For them, school serves as a test track, where they build their belief in their abilities and grow increasingly at ease relying on them. Our daughters, on the other hand, may miss the chance to gain confidence in their abilities if they always count on intellectual elbow grease alone.

The bolded statement really struck me, as I tend to think of "succeeding in school with minimal effort" as a *bad* thing.  It's a well-known issue in gifted education, that a long-term dearth of sufficient challenge can cause a lot of problems, from failing to develop a habit of working hard to feeling like having to work hard means you are a failure.  (The latter - feeling like having to work hard means you are a failure (and so avoiding situations that might challenge you to avoid perceived failure) - is an interesting counterpoint to the article's point that many girls feel compelled to work as hard as possible as a hedge against failure.)  Personally I was more like the boys in the article, doing the minimum for an A, and I left high school with tons of confidence but a crappy work ethic, and in the end confidence was not enough to overcome a lack of competence.

So I kind of take issue with the author's framing of the situation as "schooling builds boys' confidence, while it *only* builds girls' competence".  She seems to be assuming that boys are building *both* confidence and competence through succeeding with minimal effort, instead of confidence at the expense of confidence, and idk that that's necessarily true - it certainly wasn't true for me.  Or, at least, I had plenty of competence and confidence in academic things, but I did not have much competence in EF things, but I never noticed, because of the lack of challenge.  "Succeeding with minimal effort" left me with *unwarranted* confidence in my ability to get things done.  (There might be a significant difference between succeeding with *minimal* effort vs succeeding with *moderate* effort.)

~*~

That said, while I think the author is painting with too broad a brush, I think she *has* put her finger on something interesting: how some people feel compelled to overachieve to ward off failure.  See, in addition to underachieving, I also overachieved out of perfectionism, but not because I thought I'd fail the teacher's standards, but because I would have failed *reality's* standards.  When I set out to achieve, I wanted to do the very best possible because *I* knew it mattered, even though I knew full well it didn't matter to others; although I thought it *should* have mattered to them, I knew it didn't.  So in some ways, I was as unable to set realistic, less-than-the-best priorities as the anxious girls in the article - but it wasn't because I feared school failure.  And my underachieving was the flip side of my not being able to handle my perfectionism in a realistic way - if I couldn't do it *right*, then I'd just do the school-established minimum in the most slap-dash way possible.

So I was as unable to set realistic standards as the girls in the article - to see a whole spectrum of options between "bare minimum" and "as perfect as possible" - to be able to judge how much effort a given assignment was really worth, and give it that and not more.  But unlike the girls, I could short-circuit the problem by procrastinating and doing the best I could manage in the time available, because I wasn't overachieving to ward off school failure but was overachieving *to* accomplish something good.  My problem was that I had no option between "overachieve to accomplish excellence" and "procrastinate till the last minute to create a hard limit to the time spent on overachieving effort".  (Which was one more option than the girls in the article had, so there's that, but it wasn't really a great alternate option, because I was unable to keep my procrastination under control.) 

In many ways, I was as anxiety-driven as the girls in the article, but instead of dealing with the anxiety by constant work, I dealt with it via ignoring work as long as possible.  But though I had just as unrealistic a notion of how much work it takes to do things "right" as they did - and was unable to deliberately do things to a lesser standard - my notion of doing things "right" wasn't at all rooted in school standards.  So I could - and did - underachieve to minimum school standards as much as I overachieved to my own standards.

[Bluegoat]

Well, it will ot let me read the article, which is frustrating.  I guess maybe this si a sign I should pay them.

But, my experience is a lot like forty-two, I was a pretty classic underachiever as a result of doing well with no real work or challenge. And it did not serve me well later in life, it's really been a challenge to overcome the effects.

My general feeling - I'm not sure obviously how this reflects or not the article - is that girls do better in school early on, being so much more precocious and ready for academic work in the early years.  So they are much more likely to become used to getting positive attention in that kind of way - doing well, ticking the boxes, meeting expectations.  Boys on the other hand in many cases come into heir own academically later on, even in their teens sometimes.  Their experience of school early on is much less about getting a lot of positive feedback - for some it is rather the opposite.

[Mom0012]

Interesting article. It made me think about my own experiences.  Academics were easy for me, but I was never interested in a career.  I wanted to be a mom.  In the end, I wound up getting my degree in accounting and then becoming a CPA.  I picked this field almost entirely for practical reasons, with one of the biggest being that I could always run my own tax business from home if I had children.  The second I knew my first child was on the way, my only desire was to be able to care for him.  I still enjoy doing taxes and have done them for my family and friends in the years since my son was born, but I have no desire to return to it as a career.  My husband lost his job of 25 years due to layoffs last year, and rather than return to the most lucrative position I could find, I took a menial job to help out financially, but that still enabled me to care for my sick mother and be heavily involved with my children.

My dd excels in academics and she does care about her grades, but she also excels because she really enjoys the material most of the time.  She could do anything she wanted, I believe, as a career, but I can guarantee you that if she marries and has children, she will pour her heart into her family rather than a career.  And if she has to work for financial reasons, it won’t be a highly demanding, travel-intensive job.  It will be something that will allow her to do the best she can for her family.

That’s what I think is the biggest factor leading to men doing so much better in the workforce.

[NorthwestMom]

On 2/8/2019 at 11:48 AM, Bluegoat said:

Well, it will ot let me read the article, which is frustrating.  I guess maybe this si a sign I should pay them.

 

 You might be able to see it if you go through her site and click the link there: https://www.drlisadamour.com/articles/

I really like Lisa Damour. Untangled was excellent and I have her newest book on pre-order. 

[Frances]

On 2/9/2019 at 1:44 PM, Mom0012 said:

Interesting article. It made me think about my own experiences.  Academics were easy for me, but I was never interested in a career.  I wanted to be a mom.  In the end, I wound up getting my degree in accounting and then becoming a CPA.  I picked this field almost entirely for practical reasons, with one of the biggest being that I could always run my own tax business from home if I had children.  The second I knew my first child was on the way, my only desire was to be able to care for him.  I still enjoy doing taxes and have done them for my family and friends in the years since my son was born, but I have no desire to return to it as a career.  My husband lost his job of 25 years due to layoffs last year, and rather than return to the most lucrative position I could find, I took a menial job to help out financially, but that still enabled me to care for my sick mother and be heavily involved with my children.

My dd excels in academics and she does care about her grades, but she also excels because she really enjoys the material most of the time.  She could do anything she wanted, I believe, as a career, but I can guarantee you that if she marries and has children, she will pour her heart into her family rather than a career.  And if she has to work for financial reasons, it won’t be a highly demanding, travel-intensive job.  It will be something that will allow her to do the best she can for her family.

That’s what I think is the biggest factor leading to men doing so much better in the workforce.

I also have no desire to be in the boardroom or management, and have even turned down promotions. Time for the more important things in life and less stress are more important to me than money or titles. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Frances

[Arcadia]

I am definitely like the guys in the article, cruise in school, scoring As for the exams that affect college admission and spending most of my effort in after school jobs. “Work smart don’t work hard” was what my parents and relatives told me to do since I was a preschooler. Majority of my cousins are successful business owners with underachieving academic grades so that’s the environment I grew up in.

[Mom0012]

18 minutes ago, Frances said:

I also have no desire to be in the boardroom or management, and have even turned down promotions. Time for the more important things in life and less stress are more important to me than money or titles. But I have seen repeatedly during my work life in my male dominated field that women hold back until they are very sure and confident while men will often share their ideas and plans, even when they know little or nothing about the subject matter. In general, they seem to have far more confidence in their abilities, even when the  women are actually more competent.

And I went to an interesting research talk lately that presented a study demonstrating that at least in one field, men are much more likely than women to be forgiven for making mistakes. The study looked at referrals to specialists by primary care physicians after there was a death or other adverse outcome. Referrals for female specialists pretty much dried up, while there was no significant difference for male specialists.

 

Yes, I can see what you are saying about confidence levels. I do believe that is true.  I’m not sure I agree with the author’s reasoning for it, though.  I would guess that the high confidence in males may be more related to testosterone than getting away with putting a minimal effort into their schoolwork.  Honestly, so many boys I can think of are completely demoralized by school because they struggle with the work, especially in recent years where everything has been accelerated in the elementary years.  Boys often aren’t developmentally ready for the work.

 

[Bluegoat]

When I was in the army, I noticed that there was a real difference between the way men and women tended to communicate.  I worked in an area that involved a lot of collaborative problem solving, and a woman was a lot more likely to say something like "what do you think of this idea" or "it seems to me" and that sort of thing.  Whereas men would be much more certain sounding or positive "This is what is going on".  I remember when I was still learning, I could not figure out how the other students - almost all men - figured stuff out so quickly.  I realised some time later they were talking out of their buts a lot of the time.

I think that this difference in communication style is related to this confidence or boldness or whatever in other things - things like applying for a job even without the qualifications.  I am not sure I think it relates to having it easy in school.  I wonder if it isn't a form of risk taking.

[Frances]

On 2/9/2019 at 6:06 PM, Mom0012 said:

 

Yes, I can see what you are saying about confidence levels. I do believe that is true.  I’m not sure I agree with the author’s reasoning for it, though.  I would guess that the high confidence in males may be more related to testosterone than getting away with putting a minimal effort into their schoolwork.  Honestly, so many boys I can think of are completely demoralized by school because they struggle with the work, especially in recent years where everything has been accelerated in the elementary years.  Boys often aren’t developmentally ready for the work.

 

I completely agree that many boys aren’t ready developmentally for the level of work, and I hate that so many schools have almost eliminated recess. I’m not sure about testosterone and confidence. I’ll have to read more about that. I certainly know some women with very high levels of confidence and men who are lacking it.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Frances

[Arcadia]

4 minutes ago, Frances said:

I’m not sure about testosterone and confidence. I’ll have to read more about that. I certainly know some women with very high levels of confidence and men who are lacking it.

 

I had to advocate during my public school education days and I found using “I need” a lot more forceful than “I want”. My parents and doting relatives would cater to my wants but almost everyone would cater to my needs.

[KathyBC]

Talking about this article with my family, perhaps it should be restated that hyper-conscientious people don't tend to hold top positions.

[SKL]

Using time wisely is definitely something I'm trying to encourage in my kids.  I have one who really should put in a little more time, and one who should put in a little more thought in order to spend less time.

I don't do so great myself on that sort of thing, but my kids don't have to grow up just like me.  😛

[Bluegoat]

51 minutes ago, KathyBC said:

Talking about this article with my family, perhaps it should be restated that hyper-conscientious people don't tend to hold top positions.

 

I think that isn't really surprising - I think top positions - what they seem to think of as top positions - don't actually require the hyper-consientious personality type in many cases.  

[Teaching3bears]

I think there is some truth in this article but it does not really explain why men do better in the workforce. While there is definitely an ultra-conscientious type and nine times out of ten she is female , I don't think most females, by the time they get to high school, are getting straight As, or being perfectionist at school. They might be doing better than boys and generally working harder but most are average or slightly above average. I think once they get to the workplace males are more conifident, they feel more confident showing that confidence outwardly and we let them show more confidence. I agree that men are allowed to make more mistakes. Also, I think we have a general deeply-bred stereotype of a male body being more competent. We listen to males more when they speak in meetings. Women in managerial positions are often more masculine in their physique or they do things to make themselves more masculine. If a woman becomes a politician her physical body, the way she dresses etc. is called to attention way more and this stops people from taking her seriously.

[hjffkj]

I am like the guys in the article.  There was a girl in my class in high school who hated me because she was a perfectionist and was working her butt off for the highest gpa.  I did very little and still surpassed her in everything.  I'm pretty sure if we were in the same work environment I'd continue to surpass her and other people like her.  She's intelligent and a hard worker but she if she is the same as in high school, she's inefficient and hyper focused on perfection. The problem is, most things don't need to be perfect and an employer doesn't want to see that perfection if it took X number of hours longer.

[Mom0012]

12 hours ago, Frances said:

I completely agree that many boys aren’t ready developmentally for the level of work, and I hate that so many schools have almost eliminated recess. I’m not sure about testosterone and confidence. I’ll have to read more about that. I certainly know some women with very high levels of confidence and men who are lacking it.

Once when I was curious about why I and all of my siblings had low self esteem, I did some research and discovered a link between that and levels of parental conflict. There are so many factors to consider.

 

There are so many factors to consider.  After reading this thread last night, I found this article and it talks about a lot of things people have commented on in this thread.  I like it so much, I sent it to my dd to read because she is extremely conscientious and it can be crippling at times.  I was the same way as a young woman.

https://www.success.com/why-women-struggle-with-confidence-more-than-men/

[Frances]

3 hours ago, Mom0012 said:

 

There are so many factors to consider.  After reading this thread last night, I found this article and it talks about a lot of things people have commented on in this thread.  I like it so much, I sent it to my dd to read because she is extremely conscientious and it can be crippling at times.  I was the same way as a young woman.

https://www.success.com/why-women-struggle-with-confidence-more-than-men/

An excellent article, much better than the editorial. Thanks so much for posting.

[forty-two]

13 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I think that isn't really surprising - I think top positions - what they seem to think of as top positions - don't actually require the hyper-consientious personality type in many cases.  

Also, I'm not sure that most hyper-conscientious people even *want* to be in those sort of top positions in the first place.  A lot of the women in my family are fairly hyper-conscientious (though with a fair amount of confidence in their abilities, unlike the article), and they *don't* want that kind of visibility and responsibility.  My mom, kind of a textbook Hermione Granger-type wrt overachieving, has a lot of confidence in her areas of strength, and part of that confidence comes from having a clear-eyed view of her weaknesses - one of which is getting anxious at moving too far out of her comfort zone.  Given a choice, she'd rather be quietly competent in her areas of strength instead of push outside her comfort zone in order to stand out more. And fwiw, quiet competence and confidence together have not gone unnoticed for the hyper-conscientious women in my family - they get noticed, and tend to get offered more responsibility than they sometimes really want. 

[forty-two]

I was originally baffled at the author's assertion that girls' competence doesn't lead to confidence.  I mean, from where else does (justified) confidence in one's abilities come from, if not from one's competence?  And then I realized that's the editorial's point: school competence leads to confidence in boys (as one would expect), but, somehow, contrary to expectations, it doesn't for girls - and the very existence of that baffling, unexpected fact is the problem the editorial is trying to explain. 
(It took me quite a while to move from arguing with the editorial over "but it makes no sense that competence wouldn't lead to confidence???" to "Yes, right, it *doesn't* make sense, and yet it exists anyway - *that's* the editorial's point".)

I still disagree with the editorial that hyper-conscientiousness itself is what is undermining girls' confidence in their competence, though.  But if you accept the article's assertion that, for many girls, demonstrated competence somehow doesn't lead to confidence in their abilities, then you're still left with the interesting question of *why*.  Looking at the other article linked, things mentioned are: 1) anxiety due to perfectionism, 2) imposter syndrome, 3) women being more conscientious about qualifications than men, and 4) women being more risk-adverse than men. 

While numbers 1 and 2 definitely can impinge on confidence and are problems for anyone who suffers from them, numbers 3 and 4 are not actually bad in themselves - they are only a problem in mixed-sex spaces that nevertheless largely function under male expectations.  I mean, #3/4 are not really about women having intrinsically less confidence in their abilities than men do, but about differences in how men and women understand and judge a given situation.  It's not necessarily a lack of confidence that drives women treating a list of required qualifications as actually being required, but a difference in what "required qualifications" actually means.   I mean, I've seen job listings that I am dead confident that I could do, but require paper qualifications I don't have.  I don't apply not because I think I can't do the job, but because I think that the prospective employer doesn't think I can do the job - that without some personal connection, I'll be rejected by the numbers before I have a chance to show I can do the job.  (But upon learning that reality works differently than I thought, I can change and apply, knowing that it is an expected thing.)  And being risk adverse doesn't have to be a lack of confidence in oneself, but simply valuing the bird in the hand over two in the bush.  Men may have more big successes than women, but I bet they have more big failures than women, too.  It's definitely true that mismatches between how men and women consider risk and qualifications can definitely penalize women in the male-achievement-oriented business world, but it's not necessarily due to a lack of confidence in women, but differences in what men and women value and in how they judge a given set of facts. 

~*~

ETA: So there's still the question of what causes anxiety due to perfectionism and imposter syndrome.  I don't think perfectionism or hyper-conscientiousness *has* to lead to anxiety, although it often can.  (I agree with Linda Silverman that perfectionism can also be a valuable spur to great achievement.)  I think a difference is whether you are trying to achieve perfection to warn off something bad (a recipe for anxiety) or whether you are trying to achieve perfection to accomplish a positive good (a good use of perfectionism).

Edited February 10, 2019 by forty-two

[Bluegoat]

I also think you've hit the nail on the head, forty-two.  I'm not even convinced women are more likely to suffer from things like impostor syndrome - I think plenty of men do too, but they may tend to deal with it differently.

It's a stereotype of course that men are more directly aggressive than women, but that doesn't really tell us that it is untrue.    I think work can be seen as a competitive place for many men, and they probably treat it that way at some level.

[moonflower]

When I was in elementary school, my only behavior mark down on report cards was "uses time wisely" (I was unsatisfactory at using my time wisely).

This was actually not true, and a misunderstanding.  I completed my work ages before everyone else.  I was a very fast reader with excellent comprehension, which is like 95% of elementary ed, or was in the 90s.  So I sat around a lot.  There was no better way to use my time.

In high school, I used my time more wisely than anyone I knew.  I did the IB Diploma and top-level music classes and got perfect grades without giving my whole life to homework; I did this by not having a lunch (I took Symphonic Orchestra during lunch) and studying for tests while walking around the track in gym or while the brass was rehearsing a line in band.  I did the absolute minimum required, in a way - the minimum required to achieve my goals.  I had high goals, though.

 

Our valedictorian and salutatorian were both perfectionists who did no extra-curriculars (zero) and spent all their spare time on homework.  Still, what got them the top two slots wasn't those things - we got the same grades.  It was that neither of them took more than the required music or art (or debate or drama) classes.  Non-core elective classes were all weighted 4.0, and jr/sr core IB classes were weighted 5.0.  They both took study halls instead of band or choir, so had no extra 4.0s in their GPA (a 4.0 is an A in a music/art class but a B in an IB class).

Yes, I am still a bit bitter, hah 🙂

[Another Lynn]

I think there's also the issue of school success not preparing people for work success. If nearly everything at school can be prepared for, then work ethic and perfectionism is golden. But the real world, the work place doesn't work the same way. Many events and challenges can't be prepared for, at least not to the same degree. So, if guys get practice in their school years at getting by without perfect preparation, then perhaps they are actually preparing themselves better for their future work environments. 

[gardenmom5]

21 hours ago, Arcadia said:

 

I had to advocate during my public school education days and I found using “I need” a lot more forceful than “I want”. My parents and doting relatives would cater to my wants but almost everyone would cater to my needs.

I hope you have thanked your parents and your doting relatives.   that is the exception, and not the rule.  

18 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I think that isn't really surprising - I think top positions - what they seem to think of as top positions - don't actually require the hyper-consientious personality type in many cases.  

hyper-conscientiousness is a negative in a c-level.

47 minutes ago, Another Lynn said:

I think there's also the issue of school success not preparing people for work success. If nearly everything at school can be prepared for, then work ethic and perfectionism is golden. But the real world, the work place doesn't work the same way. Many events and challenges can't be prepared for, at least not to the same degree. So, if guys get practice in their school years at getting by without perfect preparation, then perhaps they are actually preparing themselves better for their future work environments. 

this.

ds is doing a capstone project sponsored by business.  many unis offer capstone projects in the same thing.  the universities insist it's just as good.   the corporations who employee their graduates- will tell you the unis aren't.  that's why they started their own project for students from chosen universities.  they want to teach them what they want them to know while they are in university, so they don't have to teach them during their first year on the job.