people ask me all the time reshma how do I overcome imposter syndrome class of 2023 I am done answering that question and you all can hold me to it because you see imposter syndrome it’s not my problem to solve and it’s not yours either so today if you’ll humor me I want to squeeze in one last history lesson before we leave this place let’s go back to the 1890s a few short decades after Smith was founded doctors had identified a never-before-seen medical malady one that threatened to wreck havoc on the entire female population that condition was called bicycle face you see the original Michael school had one gigantic wheel in the front and one tiny little wheel in the back
imagine a hula hoop in a dinner plate not easy to ride but then Along Comes This revolutionary concept two wheels of the same size go figure The Power of Equality baby and as a result cycling takes off and it takes off in Europe and North America and it takes off for women but the with the rise of women riding the bicycle comes the rise of bicycle face here are the symptoms of this terrifying condition these are direct quotes by the way flushed cheeks hard clenched jaw bulging eyes an expression that is either anxious irritable or best Stoney that’s right long before there was resting face there was resting bike face
now here’s the thing it wasn’t just women who were riding bicycles in fact the majority of those who had taken up the hobby were men but bicycle face that was strictly a woman’s disease why because bicycle face was invented to purely scare women off their wheels here’s what was really going on then the bicycle became a symbol for a growing feminist movement all of a sudden women could go further and faster and they didn’t need to wait around for a gentleman to show up with his horseback and give him a ride suffragists can now meet with one another from town to town and they would take their signs and they would fix them to the front of their handlebars because of the bicycle women even started wanting different clothes Victorian hoop skirts so last season women wanted Breezy Bloomers better for
peddling as one magazine wrote in 1896 to men the bicycle was merely just a new toy but to women it was the Steed upon which they rode into the new world of course it wasn’t long before men started seeing bikes as more than just a new toy too to them bicycles and the behavior they were enabling with women were jarring dangerous threatening to the status quo more than a century later we can see bicycle face for what it is or what it was not a medical mistake but a deliberate tool strategy wielded by powerful men to put women back in their place to make us stop peddling ridiculously beside I think that there’s something deeper here I think that there’s a lot we can learn about imposter Syndrome from bicycle
face both of them are strategies used to hold women back and it’s up to us to not take the bait the way our culture talks about imposter syndrome you also could mistake it for a medical condition but it’s not Leslie Jameson wrote about the origins of the phrase in the New Yorker a few months ago and she talked about how the two researchers who had first talked about imposter syndrome didn’t call it an imposter syndrome at all in fact they refer to it as imposter phenomenon and it was based on high achieving white ladies it was never meant to be pathologized still like bicycle face before it imposter syndrome was rooted in misogyny it’s no coincidence that the concept first emerged as Title IX became law and women started going to college or that it gained traction just as Roe v
Wade was decided and now that women have control over their bodies they were starting to enter the workforce in droves just like bicycle face before imposter syndrome was a reaction to women’s progress but this time the backlash was even more Insidious which is why today instead of telling you how to overcome imposter syndrome we’re going to question the whole concept and I want to do that by breaking down some lies we’re told about an imposter syndrome starting with the big one that maybe there’s something wrong with you that imposter syndrome is grounded in actual deficiency imagine you’re riding a bicycle up a hill and as you pedal your way to the top you fixate on your destination and you clench your jaw doesn’t mean that you have bicycle face that means you’re riding a bicycle imposter syndrome is based on the premise that were the problem that if we
feel underqualified it’s because we are that if we worry that we don’t have what it takes it’s because we don’t but in my experience I had found that discomfort anxiety to just be a natural human reaction you know when I showed up at that fancy corporate law firm for the very first time I had not just one but two ivy league postgraduate degrees but still I felt like everybody was speaking a different language and that’s because they were so many people there had unearned privileges that I didn’t big law firms were built by four people who didn’t look like me so it’s normal to feel like you don’t fit in when you don’t fit in so as much as I love Taylor Swift it’s me hi I’m not the problem it’s not me and it’s not my responsibility to fix
the problem that’s our second lie that’s your job to fix yourself if your face is flush at the end of a bicycle ride I wouldn’t tell you to powder your nose that’s pretty much what we do when it comes to imposter syndrome that’s the message that we send to you all that it’s your job to make it go away or at least cover it up I’m sure you’ve heard all the tips and tricks get yourself a mentor learn how to say no power pose your way to the top there are countless countless books and articles out there and yes I’m counting my own on that list for years I too have been telling women how to overcome imposter syndrome and look none of his bad advice per se I really do believe that we should focus Less on being perfect and more I’m being brave but all those shoulds there’s just ultimately another burden that we put on women that is just not solving the problem
a great example of this is a gender pay Gap you know in the United States a gender pay Gap has not budged in two decades two decades but still we keep telling women that you all should one by one know your worth slay your negotiation ask for more when instead we should just be telling companies to pay women fairly right provide salary transparency offer paid leave in child care both proven to close the pay Gap companies not individual women have the power to erase disparities overnight similarly though when it comes to imposter syndrome the unspoken assumption is that if you don’t stick up for yourself and you feel like an imposter it’s your own fault it’s extraordinarily unfair and it’s unhelpful if we really care about
closing the gender gap the problem the solution is just bigger than any one of us and that brings me to my third and final lie which is that imposter syndrome is inevitable so if we don’t fix ourselves what do we do we go to the source the notion of bicycle face was debunked by Dr Sarah Hackett Stevenson she was the first ever woman admitted to the American Medical Association she didn’t tell women to fix her bicycle face and she certainly didn’t tell them to stop peddling she challenged the entire premise when as many as 82 percent of women report feeling imposter syndrome hard to believe that this is just about individuals imposter syndrome is the result of structural inequality not individual inadequacy look I’ve sat across from some powerful dudes
CEOs presidents Senators you name it in that experience has truly been a gift not because they are smarter than I am but because they’re not okay I told you about the hundreds of thousands of girls that I’ve taught to code well any one of them could run circles around these dudes but it took me 30 years to learn this lesson and this is why I’m sharing it with you today because right here right now I need you to know this it’s never been about whether we’re qualified enough smart enough prepared enough if you are here today it is because you are instead it’s always been about the political the financial the culture barriers that are designed to keep us out of these rooms in the first place it’s leaders who look around and tell
women the biggest problem facing you is not child care or paid leave or misogyny the biggest problem is you which is all to say that imposter syndrome it’s a distraction it’s a strategy it’s a way to keep our concentration on our own alleged inadequacies so we don’t turn it towards the sexism the racism the classism the homophobia the transphobia that is baked into the system in the first place [Applause] which means our job stay focused to focus Less on fixing ourselves and more on healing a broken world now for many of you I know this work is not new marginalized people women of color we’ve been leading the fight against systematic Injustice for Generations and your generation has been fighting the status quo your whole lives so here is the class the task out of you
class of 2023 to know that you are more than good enough so that you can dedicate your precious limited time on the things that aren’t my great hope is that you will want to take up this work that you will want to build a better world than the one you inherited and I am absolutely certain that you are up to the task because your Smith education has prepares you for this moment this is a special place for the past four years you’ve been part of a community where no team captain no Club president no valedictorian has ever been held back because of their gender and I know it’s bittersweet to leave that behind but consider this you’ve had a tiny glimpse of what the world could be what it should be now bring that audacity that agency that authenticity to the world Beyond
Northampton because you you are uniquely qualified to make that world a reality imposter syndrome is modern day bike face My Hope Is that one day smithy’s of the future we’ll see them both as equally laughable just two more failed attempts to hold us back getting there though will be the work of a lifetime but I believe that there’s one thing you can do today on the on this first day of the new chapter of your life and every day moving forward let’s ride your bicycle [Applause] and what I mean by that pursue what you want to pursue as if imposter syndrome is just
two made up words on a page because they are do your work make your argument lead your movement because there’s nothing wrong with you it’s not your job to fix yourself but it is your job to fix the system and from everything I’ve heard about this class you’re going to do a damn good job doing it [Applause] because you have what it takes to lead and you have an entire community if you fall they are right here to pick you up so start pedaling feel the sun on your face feel the wind in your hair feel the joy feel the freedom feel the love