It isn’t fashionable to admit it, and I’m not sure I’m supposed to, but confidence has always been a struggle for me. The day Mslexia started a ‘blow your own trumpet’ thread on Twitter I had completed an interview for The Short Story website. When asked to say something about myself I replied, ‘I’m really not that interesting’. Compared to the aspirational atmosphere online, suddenly my own trumpet looked distinctly battered. Even when someone handed me a shiny new one, I stuffed a sock in it before making a sound.
Rather than sing my achievements from the rooftops, I mumble. I always assumed my selfdoubt was something I’d grow out of, like braces, or slouching, but it hasn’t disappeared over the years. Occasionally, if I work hard enough, I can buy myself a few weeks off from it – like when I won the Costa Short Story Award, or the Mslexia Short Story Competition – but my confidence is short lived.
I’m annoyed with myself and often feel ridiculous. When I moved house last year, a woman and her daughter came for a viewing and enquired about all the books in it. ‘Oh, they’re my wife’s. She’s a writer,’ my husband explained.
I was downstairs, but the woman wanted to talk to me. ‘What I really want to know is about your writing,’ she said. I was surprised she was interested, but more shocked by my response. I stuttered and squirmed. Pressed to tell her what I write, I replied, ‘Just bits, little short stories and poems and stuff’. She had to squeeze the book titles out of me. And then, within seconds, the daughter had her phone out and was searching online, finding the books, and maybe even shortlists and prizes.
I should have been proud, but I felt like I’d been caught out. It was excruciating to stand there being googled, with all my achievements spilling out. Worse still was my sense of disappointment in myself. I shook my head afterwards and thought, ‘Really? After all this time?’ I was surprised at how unworthy I still felt. I write about strong women: girls who chop their boyfriends in half, wives who control the weather, old women who spit. In comparison I felt weak. Regardless of my track record, I still didn’t feel good enough. I became aware that I haven’t really come out as a writer in real life.
I suspect I’m not alone with this struggle. Why some people are more confident than others can be difficult to pinpoint, but it’s clear that gender plays a part. Social psychologist Brenda Major has spent decades researching self-perception at the University of California, with staggering results. When men and women were asked to rate their performance on various tasks, women consistently underestimated their work, though they did just as well as the men. The confidence gap between men and women is vast and this can so easily hold us back.
I’m grateful to have been published, but deep down I know my lack of confidence has prevented me from pursuing opportunities. At best, it stops me applying for residencies, grants and writing retreats. At worst, it stops me finishing work or submitting it. My inner critic seizes the page and dismisses it before I give it a chance.
Discussing the discrepancy between successful women and their confidence levels in The Confidence Code: The Art and Science of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman argue that our struggle with confidence begins before we even enter the workplace. It originates, they say, in differences in the ways girls and boys are socialised. For example, whereas boys tend to be praised for performance in sports, girls are praised for ‘being good’ and ‘sitting still’.
As girls grow up, confidence isn’t a value praised in the traditional fairytales we read, but servitude and humility are. Our sympathies are directed towards quiet heroines: Cinderella, Snow White, the princess in ‘The Goose Girl’ who wears the clothes of a servant. We pick up on the language used about confident women – pushy, bossy and, god forbid, feisty – and it is rarely flattering. Shouting male presidential candidates may be described as passionate or determined; Hilary Clinton is labelled ‘shrill.’ Whatever our personality, we’re bombarded with phrases that tell us women ought to be quiet, from fishwife to Bridezilla – and I fall for it.
My own difficulties set in early. I grew up in the 80s, with posters of Madonna on the wall and ‘ambition’ used as a dirty word. It wasn’t her appearing on stage in a bra that upset people, but her confidence. Growing up as a workingclass kid, the TV was switched on first thing in the morning – and on TV to be a confident woman was often to lack compassion. I saw Margaret Thatcher on the news. I saw Alexis Colby on Dynasty, a vision in shoulder pads, plotting nefarious schemes, wrestling the kind-hearted Krystle to the ground (if you’ve never seen the fight scenes on Dynasty, seriously, they’re worth googling). ‘Villain’ and ‘confidence’ seemed like synonyms.
It wasn’t only popular culture that made me wary of embracing confidence. Girls at school rolled their eyes at popstars and their confident classmates as ‘thinking she’s it’ or ‘she’s full of herself’. The phrase itself is a curious one, as though women are vessels that should contain nothing other than the values society pours in. As an adult I can rip the expression to bits intellectually, but I’d hate someone to say that about me.
When push comes to shove, there’s part of me that still wants to be ‘a nice girl’. Unfortunately, nice isn’t something readily associated with confidence. When used in a sentence, it often goes hand-in-hand with ‘quiet’. Kay and Shipman were on to something. If girls learn they’ll be praised by being quiet and good, it’s hardly surprising we may find it difficult to sing our own praises later in life. As writers, where self-promotion is crucial, this can place us at a disadvantage.
Looking back at my life, I can recall key moments that affected how I value myself as a writer. It started with a school report at the age of seven that dismissed my interest in short stories, rather than encouraging it. I was still getting comments like that when I saw my careers advisor ten years later. Journalism was so competitive, she said, I probably wouldn’t get on a degree course. I was advised to consider the Civil Service instead.
On the day my GCSE results arrived, a family member phoned to say they were sorry to hear I’d failed. In fact I’d got quite a few A’s and was about to start my A-levels, but that seemed to matter less than the fact that I’d failed my Maths. These days I can see that the way our culture undervalues the arts is part of the problem. It’s an attitude that creeps in when I’m promoting my work. ‘I have a little poem out,’ I’ll tweet. Or, ‘I have a thing on this site’. It’s a reflex. If I catch myself, I can see it for what it is – not so much an announcement of an achievement, but an apology for taking up space.
I’m not sure we should do this as women. I don’t want to be part of the problem by sending the message that our work doesn’t matter. It does.
Though confidence is an issue I may always have to work on, I’m trying to ditch those insidious 'little's and 'stuff's when I talk about my work. I’m starting to recognise my impostor syndrome for what it is: a nasty little creature I must keep my eye on. Sometimes I can even laugh at it. I’ve started picturing it as a stern northern woman in an apron, folding her arms and muttering, ‘There she goes again, showing off. Gobshite.’ It helps.
TRY THIS
► Take some time to create a writer’s CV, listing all your achievements, not only the wins and publications, but shortlists and near-misses too. If you’re starting out, list any positive comments and feedback. Pin it on your wall and let it sink in.
► Turn your lack of self-belief into a character. It could be a little monster who gobbles up your self-belief or a teenager rolling her eyes. Next time you need to step out of your comfort zone, picture how your monster would react – then acknowledge it and move on.
► Think about the language you use to talk about your writing. You may be surprised at just how often words like ‘little’ and ‘stuff’ creep in. Edit them out of your speech for a week and note down how it feels. It will get easier.
► Find one thing that is out of your comfort zone and try it this week. It may be submitting to a magazine, writing in a genre you haven’t tried, or applying for a residency or retreat.
ANGELA READMAN’s stories have won the Costa Short Story Award, Mslexia Short Story Competition and Anton Chekhov Prize for Short Fiction. Her collection Don’t Try This at Home won the Rubery Book Award. Her poem ‘The Book of Tides’ won the Mslexia Poetry Competition and was followed by an eponymous Nine Arches collection. Something Like Breathing, her novel, was published by And Other Stories in 2019. Her latest poetry collection, Bunny Girls, was published in 2022.
This article was first published in Issue 81 of Mslexia.
