We need to self-promote
It’s time to be loud and proud! Here are ten ways women can learn to self-advocate
Photo: Everett Collection (Shutterstock)
During a recent podcast interview, one question made me squirm. I was asked, “What are you most proud of?” The thought of answering the question, and effectively saying I’m proud of something I’ve done, let alone saying those words, made me uncomfortable. It felt like bragging. I did share something but I couldn’t use the ‘p’ word.
Like many women, I’ve learnt to be modest and downplay my achievements. It’ll go along the lines of, ‘thanks yeah I won the race, or got the job, but…’ and I’ll insert some reason as to why it was anything other than hard work and ability. I own it and then give it away.
I know I’m not alone. Time and time again I see women doing and achieving incredible things, yet rush to tell us it was nothing, they were lucky, or anyone could have done it or that they were just in the right place at the right time.
It happens to so many of us, even those at the peak of success. Billie Eilish in her acceptance speech for Album of the Year at the 2020 Grammys played down her accomplishment and took time to recognise fellow nominee Ariana Grande and say that her album deserved the award.
Why do we downplay our achievements?
It’s part of the accepted gender norms. The Society Role Theory suggests that men are taught to value agency and women are taught to value communion. Agency is about striving to master the environment, to assert yourself, to experience competence, achievement and power. Communion is about valuing communal goals and cooperating and joining with others.
That translates into women being expected to be nurturing, sensitive, selfless and collaborative and avoid being dominant. Conversely, men are expected to be assertive, competitive and independent.
This communal role of women embeds modesty within it. The implication is that this modesty pressures women to advocate for each other but not themselves. Being modest means having a moderate opinion of ourselves and as well as denying responsibility for our success while accepting responsibility for failures (Gould & Slone, 1982).
We effectively get rewarded for behaving consistently with our gender norms. Research has shown that women who do so are liked more than those who don’t (Crawford, 1988).
We are disparaged for violating these gender norms and therefore do what’s needed to avoid the potential backlash, even if it goes against our self-interest (Brescoll, 2011). While men who chest beat their achievements are applauded, women who self-promote and boast about their own accomplishments risk repercussions.
As the meme goes: What’s the difference between aggressive and assertive? Your gender.
As a result, when women are asked to self-promote they tend to feel ill at ease, as did I when asked me to share what I was proud of.
According to a Harvard Business School study, “Women rate their performance less favourably than equally performing men.” For example, when asked how much they agreed with the statement “I performed well on the test” on a scale of 1 to 100, the average woman rated her performance at 46 while the average man reported a 61, a 33 percent difference. However, among both the female and male participants the average respondent answered 10 of the 20 test questions correctly.
Owning our achievements with confidence can make people around us feel uncomfortable. One example that stood out to me was the reaction to Megan Rapinoe, former US soccer captain, when she held her head high after a World Cup goal. While some praised her confidence, others called her egotistical. Can you imagine Ronaldo getting the same response?
University of California Berkeley professor Bonnie Morris said of Rapinoe, “She’s earned the right to present herself as capable, but still people don’t want to let her show pride.”
Clearly these gender norms haven’t been left behind, instead they have been handed down from one generation to the next like an ugly and unwanted heirloom.
How this hurts us
We limit our potential.
By telling ourselves that what we did wasn’t much, or anyone could have done it, we don’t acknowledge what we achieved and what that took. Then, if another challenge or opportunity comes along, we may turn it down, because we don’t believe we have what it takes. We risk not taking on large goals and stretch targets because we tell ourselves we’re not capable. In doing so, we limit our ability to become all that we can be.
Think what a coach would say — would they tell us it was nothing after we’ve put in the hard work and had success? No, they would pull out all the things we did and allow it to feed us, to build our appetite for bigger and better.
By acknowledging what has been achieved and what that took, we build our confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Then if a new opportunity comes along, we’re more likely to take it and we look for, and take on, bigger goals.
If we own our successes and what it took, we can capitalise on it, setting ourselves up for bigger and better.
We risk making ourselves so small that we become invisible.
We are less likely to get promotions, raises or be approached for larger projects if we don’t talk about our accomplishments and instead hope someone will notice. More often it’s going to involve self-advocation.
Yes, give others appropriate recognition, but if we spend our time solely raising others up and assigning our success to them, we don’t promote ourselves and our accomplishments and these risk being overlooked.
We don’t have to run around telling everyone how amazing we are, but we should take credit where it’s due. Let people see what we have achieved and let ourselves be seen.
We disempower ourselves.
By putting the success on others, by not owning our successes, we risk eroding our confidence and belief in ourselves when we could be increasing it. We’re ripping ourselves off. We do this amazing stuff and then totally downplay it to make sure everyone else feels comfortable. How can we truly love ourselves, if we are denying who we are and what we’re capable of? We do ourselves a disservice if we don’t acknowledge this.
Feeling proud of who we are and what we’ve achieved isn’t just allowed, it’s positive and healthy. As is attributing our success to the efforts our hard work and abilities. We owe ourselves that recognition.
How to turn the dial
We don’t need to start chest beating or begin a brag-athon. Here are ten things we can do instead.
1. Begin by acknowledging to yourself. Create a list of your achievements and what you’ve overcome including what it took to get there. Make this a living document and keep adding to it.
2. Be your own coach. Pause and reflect. When you have a success, take time to appreciate it and what it took, what you’ve gained and how far you’ve come. Think how a coach would talk to you, how they would pick out what you achieved and everything it took to get there. Imagine how they would encourage you onto bigger goals. Don’t just go straight to the next project.
3. Get clarity on your strengths. Evaluate what your strengths are — perhaps start with an online strengths finder. Understanding our strengths have many benefits, including increased life satisfaction and wellbeing. A strengths assessment can give us confidence by having an objective view of what our strengths are.
4. Words matter. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself and others about your success — if you catch yourself downplaying your achievements think about another way you could respond. Be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up — this is a process of unlearning and learning.
5. Accept compliments. If someone gives you a compliment or congratulates you, accept it and avoid downplaying it. A simple ‘thank you’ is a great start.
6. Learn from others. If you see another woman really owning their successes, could you do the same? If seeing this level of confidence make you feel slightly uncomfortable (I’ve experienced this), pause and ask yourself why? Is there something to learn from them?
7. Jump before you’re ready. Put yourself forward for things before you feel ready, chances are you’ll surprise yourself. Don’t wait until you feel over-qualified or experienced. (If Trump can believe he had the experience to be president, I’m quietly confident, whatever you’re thinking of, you are more than capable of.)
8. Mind your language. Avoid words like just, only, nearly and get comfortable speaking confidently about your achievements — not in a chest beating way, but simply by being honest. Find a balance that feels authentic to you and find your way to getting the balance of appearing sure of yourself.
9. Support each other. Help each other and raise each other up — whether man or woman, let’s raise those up around us, and gently call us out if we begin to put ourselves down. A friend of mine, Roz, is amazing at raising the women about her up. She shares on social media the achievements of the women around her.
10. Tone from the top. If you’re in a position of authority, start encouraging women to self-promote and talk about their accomplishments. We need the culture to change.
Have you downplayed your achievements? If so, what ways could you begin to own them?
Sarah