“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.” 

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Can I ask you a personal question?

🫣 Why we shy away from taking up space 

As early as preschool, girls are taught to be small. Keep your voice down….cross your legs…don’t draw too much attention to yourself. And of course, it doesn’t stop there. We’re also told that physical smallness is something to be desired. As we enter adolescence and then adulthood, these pressures only compound. This week, we decided to look into how and why girls are figuratively conditioned to not take up space and what the impacts are in adulthood. (As for physical smallness and the thin ideal? We’ll get to that in a later piece ;)).

Where does it all start?

The way girls are socialized to behave at school – a precursor to work – is a good place to start. Research shows that there is inherent sexism built into the fabric of the American school system. In the book Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Cheat Girls, authors Myra Sadker, David Sadker, and Karen Zittleman uncover 20 years of research on sexism in American public and private schools. Starting in elementary school, teachers tend to ask girls fewer questions, give girls less feedback, and spend less time engaging with them. (Note: This is, of course, a generalization and not the case with all teachers. In fact, my 1st grade teacher gave me the lead in the school play because I was painfully shy and she knew I needed the push of confidence. My parents joke I haven’t stopped talking since…). Generally, it appears that our school systems are inadvertently telling young girls that what they have to say doesn’t matter as much as their male classmates’ words. And so as we progress through the school system, we start to raise our hands less, demanding less attention in the classroom. Not only are we not practicing using our voice, but we’re also not getting used to experiencing failure and receiving feedback - something that has been shown to build confidence.

Beyond the classroom, the social dynamics of girls and boys also impact our confidence. As early as kindergarten, boys are teasing and roughhousing each other, making them more resilient. Meanwhile, girls are told to keep their dresses clean, play nice, and get straight As. And when we get unwanted attention from boys (and later, men), we’re scolded to dress and act more modestly - further propagating this idea that we should aim to blend in, not stand out. In her book, Brave Not Perfect, Reshma Soujani summarizes this well: “Boys are taught to be brave, while girls are taught to be perfect.”

The science behind playing small 

There are also potential biological explanations (though somewhat debated) behind why women play small. Studies have found that women’s brains activate their fear centers more easily than men’s, suggesting that women might form stronger emotional memories to negative situations, thus making us more cautious to put ourselves out there. Further, the anterior cingulate cortex (the part of the brain that makes us worry) is larger in women than in men. 

From a hormonal perspective, estrogen and testosterone may play an important role, as well. Whereas estrogen appears to encourage bonding and connection (and thus discourage conflict and risk-taking), testosterone promotes the opposite. In a study out of Cambridge University assessing the testosterone levels of traders at a London-based hedge fund, it was found that on days when they had higher levels of testosterone, they made riskier trades. However, that’s certainly not necessarily better. Research also shows that female hedge-fund managers outperform their male counterparts in taking the longer-term view.

The cost of shrinking ourselves 

“Our experience suggests that the power centers of this nation are zones of female self-doubt—that is, when they include women at all.”

― Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of “The Confidence Gap”

After spending our childhood and adolescence being told to be quieter, less noticeable, and smaller, it’s no wonder we experience self-doubt in the workplace. In their 2014 piece in The Atlantic, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman dubbed this the “confidence gap.” 

You may have heard the statistic that women only apply to jobs when they meet 100% of the qualifications, while men apply when they meet 60%. That’s a direct link to the confidence gap, which starts growing as early as the first time we’re in a classroom and don’t raise our hands. The confidence gap manifests all over adulthood - from women predicting we’ll perform worse on tests, to feeling we aren’t yet deserving of a promotion, to low-balling ourselves on salary negotiations (in some cases, by 20% compared to men). Worse, we tend to downplay our achievements at work, hurting our chances to progress in our careers. Last week, we highlighted that even women at the top doubt themselves, with 75% of female executives questioning whether they really deserve / belong in the role they’re in. On the other hand, men tend to experience “honest overconfidence” - genuinely thinking they’re smarter, more deserving, and more capable than they actually are. Thus, they tend to plow through their careers with a sense of boldness that women often lack - achieving promotions more quickly and more vastly and gaining increasingly more power in society along the way. 

So where does that leave us? It’s complicated because there really isn’t a clear answer. Some will say that women should start taking a page out of men’s books and exhibit more confidence. How? Richard Petty, a psychology professor at Ohio State University, says, “confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action.” So perhaps a first step is simple - hesitate less, take action more. But research also shows that doesn’t always work. Because when we do exemplify confidence, we can also be punished for it. In a 2023 report published by Skyline Group International, women were rated as less effective when they embodied the behaviors that men tend to exhibit for 57% of the leadership competencies studied. As the report puts it, “employees really do view assertive women in leadership as bossy.” So what’s better - playing small and being considered unassertive, or using our voice and being considered bossy? 

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll and leaving an anonymous comment.

  💭 Our two cents

As society encourages us to shrink ourselves, it’s clear that playing small can prevent us from achieving something big. And though it’s frustrating to think that the only way to succeed is to put ourselves through the mental gymnastics of unlearning some of the first things we were ever told, it sometimes feels like the only viable solution is to fight against these instincts. 

But I also struggle with this advice. In my first job, my male manager encouraged me to push back more and share my perspective with more confidence. Whenever I told him I agreed with something, he challenged me with a simple “why”? Fast forward to my year-end review. The only piece of negative feedback I received from that project was that I was “confident to the point of cocky” (disappointedly from the female senior manager on the team - which by the way, is a common occurrence - women tend to give each other worse ratings for acting like men). Knowing how firm politics worked, I set up a feedback call with her to ask how I could improve. She opened the call with “Before we get started, I just want to highlight what you did well. I was so impressed with the confidence with which you carried yourself in front of senior partners and clients.” Sigh.

Being a woman is confusing, to say the least. When I went to write this piece, I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. And I’m still not sure what the real takeaway is. But maybe it’s simple. Maybe it’s just about providing the context to be a little less hard on ourselves. 

I’ll leave you with some final words from Reshma Saujani, the author of Brave, Not Perfect: 

“We've become conditioned to compromise and shrink ourselves in order to be liked. The problem is, when you work so hard to get everyone to like you, you very often end up not liking yourself so much.”

 ✅ You should also know…

 💪Brave, Not Perfect: This book should be required reading for women everywhere. I promise it won’t disappoint. If you want the condensed version, check it out here. 

💫Building Confidence with Katty Kay: Hear more about the confidence gap and how closing it could solve the gender equity gap from the best-selling author of The Confidence Code.

💃 The girls have spoken

Last week, we sought to make the ever-complicated, ever-stressful question So… should I quit my job? just a little bit more approachable. Quitting is something we all have to do at some point or another – or at quite a few points… but it’s not something that we often feel we have the tools to tackle easily. While roughly one-third of us said that the last time we quit a job, it was “obvious” a change needed to be made, another third said it was a “challenging” decision, and the remaining third said it was an “extremely difficult” choice. (In practice, only 5% of us said we’d gone the route of quiet quitting.) But perhaps even more powerful than reading these stats and knowing you’re not alone when you’re grappling with the decision yourself is hearing the stories and emotions of other women who’ve experienced the same thing. In response to last week’s post, many of you opened up about the fear, shame, and frustration (just to name a few sentiments) that you felt when you last dealt with the decision yourself. You shared about your fear of letting others down, fear of leaving money on the table, and fear of feeling like you’ve given up. But beyond that, you also shared about the clarity you’d been able to find in moving on to something new and trusting your gut feeling when you knew something just wasn’t right. And to us, having a place to share these stories is what NTP is all about. <3

💌 Up Next

That’s all for today! If you liked this edition of Not That Personal, we think one of your friends probably will too – refer one (or two or three) below. ;)

Have something to say? We’d love to hear it – reply to this email or leave an anonymous comment here :) 

Up next: So…what if I’m not sure I want kids?

💖 S & J