How gender roles can influence our beliefs about why we succeed and why we fail.
Last summer, I road tripped to New Jersey to chaperone my daughter’s all-female Olympic Development Program soccer camp. Players and coaches from across the Eastern Seaboard gathered for a few days of triple training sessions under the hot July sun. There were hundreds of nervous girls, plus a bunch of nervous mom chaperones. It was unavoidably competitive by nature. Everyone was on unfamiliar turf, playing with unfamiliar teammates, while being evaluated by unfamiliar coaches. These kids were young, 11 and 12 years old, many away from home for the first time. It was a recipe for any number of emotional disasters. So, I was very pleasantly surprised by the welcome speech the chaperones received from head coach Sue Ryan.
Here’s what I loved.
Coach Ryan told us her goal was to teach the girls to identify their strengths and weaknesses for themselves, and not just base their self-evaluation on the feedback from the coaches. Her reason to focus on this went way beyond the soccer field. When they learn to identify their strengths and weaknesses for themselves, she explained, the criticisms they will undoubtedly hear from people who will try to disempower them over the years will be easier for them to blow-off. Straight talk from an honest coach/professor/mom/woman.
Coach is right. Without internally sourced self-knowledge, we give more weight to external feedback. Therefore, she explained, players are vulnerable to feeling crushed by negative feedback from others if they can’t realistically assess themselves. But, she clarified, this isn’t a universal truth; instead, it’s something she has observed to be true for her female players. She shared a story about telling a team of boys that she was frustrated with their play, and “they all looked around at each other wondering which of the other knuckleheads was upsetting Coach Sue.” They didn’t identify with her criticism. But when she gave a team of girls the same feedback, each player hung her head in personal shame, certain she was to blame, sure she was bringing down her teammates and disappointing Coach.
What Coach Ryan noticed is a depressing, enraging, fascinating phenomenon established in social psychology experiments about the differences in how males and females explain their experiences in the world…and not just in soccer. Research indicates that there are gender-based differences in how we make sense of our successes and our failures. This doesn’t mean that this is or will be true for all girls and all boys, but what the research suggests is that there are normative differences when we look at the common experiences of large groups of males and females.
Here’s the finding: Girls are more likely to attribute success to external and unstable factors—meaning girls are more likely to think that success is not really about their talents or their efforts, but about impermanent factors outside of themselves, and outside of their control. For example, that math test she aced? That was because the test was easy, or her teacher was so good—external and unstable factors. In contrast, girls are more likely to attribute failure to internal and stable factors. For example, that math test she failed? That’s because she’s stupid and can’t do math. So what’s the result of all this? Self-esteem is harder to build, and confidence is harder to come by.
Boys, it turns out, tend to make the opposite attributions. Success is attributed to internal and stable factors, so acing that math test is because he’s really smart and good at math. This means that not only does he get to feel proud and competent as a result of his success, but he can also go into the next test feeling confident that he can create a similar positive result. Not surprisingly, confidence is correlated with positive outcomes. So for boys, success leads to confidence, confidence leads to more success, and this lovely positive feedback loop keeps rolling. And failure? Boys are more likely to attribute failure to external and unstable factors. The failed math test is because the test was too hard, the teacher was no good, etc. His self-esteem is protected, and his confidence for next time is intact.
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So why does this difference exist? What’s happening here? Gender roles organized in a patriarchal structure—that’s what’s happening here. Both patterns are actually consistent with what the culture around us demands of females and males. Girls and women are given little space and permission to feel into their strength and power without being judged as pushy, over-bearing, bossy or bitchy. And boys and men are given little space and permission to feel into their weaknesses and vulnerabilities without being judged as weak, lame, soft or fragile. So these attribution differences help both girls and boys play by the rules of the gender role game.
This isn’t a win for anyone. The attribution pattern of males does help them build confidence and tip the scales towards greater frequency of successful outcomes, but there is a cost. Without authentic self-knowledge that incorporates honest integration of their strengths and weaknesses, males are prone to emotional isolation and stoicism, disconnection in their relationships, and deep and lonely shame spirals when they come face to face with their natural human vulnerabilities. For girls and women, the internalized message is to not feel too powerful. There is permission to identify with weakness, but not with strength. This erodes confidence, self-efficacy, and self-esteem, and as a result, perpetuates poor outcomes internally and externally.
So this pattern doesn’t serve boys and men, nor does it serve girls and women…but it does serve the patriarchy. By only owning strength, men are positioned to remain in power. And by not owning strength, women are positioned to not challenge power. The only winner here is an idea; a cultural structure and a value system that is limiting and damaging to everyone involved. So what do we do?
I think Coach Ryan is on the right track. Remember back at the beginning of her speech, she suggested that if girls can identify their own strengths and weaknesses, then they are less vulnerable to believing criticisms that are meant to be disempowering? Let’s start there. The first step is self-knowledge. Begin with self-assessment based in truth and authenticity, rather than self-stories based in role-playing and external expectations. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. What are you good at? Give yourself props. What do you love about yourself? Let yourself feel pride. What are your weaknesses, your areas for growth, your limitations? Acknowledge them with neutrality, and even with compassion. Start small, if you want. Look at your strengths and weaknesses in one particular context, like in your family zone, in school, in work, or in your favorite hobbies…or on the soccer field.
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If you’re a parent, listen for how your kids story their successes and their failures. Encourage them to take both credit and responsibility when and where appropriate. Are they blaming a bad grade on a teacher? Think together about whether they studied enough, or whether they would benefit from some extra help. Are they chalking their athletic success solely up to undeniable talents? Add that their hard work, and the hard work of their coaches and teammates, is paying off.
The second step is to build cultural knowledge—awareness of gender roles, and the patriarchal expectations that organize them. Practice seeing the invisible forces that contribute to your sense of self. They are insidious and systemic, and if we don’t go looking for them, those expectations slip by in a mask of truth. We even internalize those messages so we hear them in our own voices. Boys and men tell themselves not to be “pussies;” girls and women tell themselves not to be “bitches.” When we talk to ourselves in ways that perpetuate the maintenance of a power structure built on sexism and misogyny, it’s called internalized sexism. It’s sneaky and subtle and so woven into the fabric of identity and self-talk that we don’t even see it until we look for it. And we have to see it before we can make a new choice. Whether you are male or female, or you are a parent to a son or a daughter, give yourself and your child permission to be a complex, multi-faceted, strong and vulnerable human. Point out messages in the media or in peer talk that demand otherwise. Use any opportunity as a jumping off point for a reflective conversation. Once you start to recognize the cultural demand to dampen your full light, you can decide to start countering it. You can give yourself, and those around you, permission to shine.