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Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here's why, and what to do about it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/
-- submitted from IRC
The elusive nature of confidence has intrigued us ever since we started work on our 2009 book, Womenomics, which looked at the many positive changes unfolding for women. To our surprise, as we talked with women, dozens of them, all accomplished and credentialed, we kept bumping up against a dark spot that we couldn't quite identify, a force clearly holding them back. Why did the successful investment banker mention to us that she didn't really deserve the big promotion she'd just got? What did it mean when the engineer who'd been a pioneer in her industry for decades told us offhandedly that she wasn't sure she was really the best choice to run her firm's new big project? In two decades of covering American politics as journalists, we realized, we have between us interviewed some of the most influential women in the nation. In our jobs and our lives, we walk among people you would assume brim with confidence. And yet our experience suggests that the power centers of this nation are zones of female self-doubt—that is, when they include women at all.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 15 2015, @04:14PM
That is probably a contributing factor.
More to the point, males have always been risk takers, and females have always been more careful. Virtually every field in which mankind has progressed, men led the way. That's not to ignore all the great women who have contributed to science, medicine, etc - but it's a fact that men are reckless, and women are careful. Males win their self confidence before they reach age 20 - or they probably never get it. Go out, get hurt, come home and lick your wounds, then go out and challenge the world again. Rinse and repeat, until you either give up, or you win. THAT is the secret of self confidence.
Also - men are built and conditioned to solve problems. Women, more often, want to talk problems out. AC made a post below about women collaborating. That's all well and good, but collaboration takes TIME. Maybe women are going to be right more often, because they collaborated, but in most lines of work I've been in, you gotta get it right NOW, not some day.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday November 15 2015, @06:13PM
Go out, get hurt, come home and lick your wounds, then go out and challenge the world again.
Insert obvious analogy with standard western dating game. Guys are trained to pursue and women are trained to select in that game. Add in the usual workplace biases toward physical attractiveness and mass oversupply/underemployment and you end up with hot businessmen who are sharks and go out there and get it done at the office in the day or at the singles bar at night, and hot businesswomen who are used to passively waiting for wave upon wave of men to crash ashore with ridiculous lines.