their salary, they were still less likely to promote themselves. Why is that? Could imposter syndrome be at the core of this?
What does Imposter Syndrome look like?
The following are a list of signs that may be evidence of imposter syndrome:
- Crediting success to outside factors
- Avoiding asking for a promotion or pay raise
- A lack of satisfaction with completing a task until everything is known about the subject
- Avoiding applying for jobs because of feeling unqualified
- Turning away help to prove oneself to others
- Inflexible with setting goals
- An intense fear of failure
- Dwelling on the past
- Negative self-talk
- Rejecting praise or compliments from others
The history of the Black woman and Imposter Syndrome
The ties between imposter syndrome and the Black woman are deeply rooted in the history of Black women in the workplace. During the Rosie the Riveter era, women went to work the jobs that men left behind when they left to fight in World War II. Although those women performed the same jobs, they were never paid more than 50 percent of what the men earned.
In addition to that inequality, Black women were not given the opportunity to even earn the lesser wage for those jobs because they weren’t allowed to work alongside white women or men. Today, some Black women still carry the weight of feeling like they don’t…