Believing in yourself in spite of yourself

A woman with fraud syndrome is someone who lies?

– No. Fraud syndrome is also sometimes known as impostor syndrome. Its essence is well captured by the term “not in her own skin”, which was used by Anna Dziewit-Meller in a column in “Tygodnik Powszechny”.

It was defined by two American psychologists in 1978: not as a disease, but as a psychological phenomenon. It is also not exactly synonymous with a lack of self-confidence. It consists in the fact that when you achieve success, you question your skills and intellectual abilities. Research shows that women attribute their success to external factors such as coincidence, the support of others or luck, much more often than men. Men are more likely to attribute success to themselves.

How does fraud syndrome work in us women?

– For example, we doubt that we deserve a promotion or a key position in a company when we achieve it. Our own success creates stress – we have to prove it wasn’t a mistake, so we can’t fail. We feel that our success is a bit like cheating, that we don’t deserve it, that we have deceived everyone only for a moment. We are stressed that it’ll come out that it was an accident at the earliest opportunity.

You are a successful woman, but you have also suffered from this syndrome.

– After years of work at the university, encouraged by my friends, I entered a competition for the position of the representative of the Mayor of Poznań. But first, I checked that I met the requirements to the letter. I don’t know if I would have applied if I thought I had only met 70 percent of what was required. Winning the competition was a success. And then there was a crisis caused by a change in the work system and organisational culture that I did not know about. At the very beginning, I was also thrown in at the deep end, without support. I was new and didn’t know how to ask for help, and I didn’t think I could ask for it at all.

It got to the point where I was afraid to pick up the telephone so as not to hear that the person on the other side did not have time to talk to me. In the end, I decided that I couldn’t function like that. I hired a trainer because I didn’t see anyone around me who could help me with this paralysis. Thanks to her, I started making lists of small achievements every day, and I decided that networking and creating concepts was also effective work.

My first great success in the office was the organisation of the National Congress of Women outside the capital for the first time.

What did you think after your first such big success?

– That this success was paid for with a titanic amount of work, which was true. But I was also grateful to everyone around me, except for myself. I saw it as a well done task – because that was my job – and I thought less about it as a result of my skills and talent.

Meanwhile, one should remember that the function, the resulting competences and the support of others are just pieces of a puzzle. That not everyone in my position would use them as well as I do. You must recognise your participation thinking: OK, I was given a chance and I was able to use it very well. This feeling is essential to celebrating success, because you must congratulate yourself on your achievements. However, it is difficult to celebrate success when we believe that we don’t deserve it, that it is no big deal, that anyone could do it. The point is that not everyone could. Today I know that, I read about fraud syndrome, I talk to my friends about it.

Women are not born with a fraud syndrome. Where does it come from?

– Let’s try to define a successful woman. Who is she? She is a woman in a managerial position in a company, or a politician, with high earnings, power and influence, high status in a clearly defined hierarchy. When we think of a successful woman, we do not see a mother bringing up four children, which is still not recognised as work. The definition of success applies to spheres in which only men initially functioned. It is oriented towards areas based on male rules. For women who want to achieve success beyond the sphere traditionally assigned to them, it is the male world that is the point of reference, unfortunately.

Is this fraud syndrome not a gift from school, where we are taught stereotypical roles?

– Absolutely, yes! First, this gift is given to us at home, by our closest relatives. At school, we are socially conditioned to be masculine and feminine. It is worth mentioning here the great research of Prof. Lucyna Kopciewicz, which shows that boys and girls are trained according to (stereotypical) social roles at school. This is the influence of the hidden curriculum, the beliefs of male and female teachers, reinforced by the harmful and limiting messages from textbooks on the cultural patterns of femininity and masculinity.

A female student is diligent, polite, conscientious, kind, and sensitive. A male student is independent, assertive, concrete, active, adventurous, entrepreneurial, and open to experiences.

This training teaches boys to believe in their own abilities, take risks, and make decisions for themselves. Girls are taught to be passive, submissive to authorities and uncertain about their own abilities. The media and social practices make their own contributions, where women are silent and men explain the world to us – to quote the title of Rebecca Solnit’s book.

And here we come full circle. If women trained in such a manner enter the male world of success, it is no wonder that they begin to suffer from fraud syndrome.

– Yes, these are the conclusions of many studies. This syndrome is caused by perfectionism and a tendency to procrastinate, which lower efficiency and constitute a roadblock on the path to promotion. Therefore, it is worth recognising your strengths, finding a mentor and endorsing your own successes, so as not to be deceived by an internal fraud.

 Interview by  Anna Dobiegała

• Marta Mazurek - former plenipotentiary of Mayor of Poznań Jacek Jaśkowiak for counteracting exclusion.

18 July 2020