In neurodivergent circles, I've seen it often pointed out that the reason women tend to be late diagnosed more often than men is that women are usually taught to mask and tiptoe around in society regardless. So it isn't caught as easily. Which very much correlates with everything said in this article.
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I have seen this dynamic play out throughout my own academic career and in the students I mentor. As a young PhD student in Cosmology, I often felt unqualified to join the spontaneous blackboard debates physicists love, discussions that reward quick interruptions over deep reflection. I was not unqualified; I had ranked first in one of France’s most competitive master’s programs. But as I learned the hard way, confidence does not automatically come with credentials.
is the problem really your sense of being unqualified, or is the problem the culture that rewards masculine competitive discussion and overconfidence?
Women do participate in their own subjugation, but the conclusion that women just need to embody masculine norms and nothing about society is left to change is probably not the whole picture...
The effects are visible and measurable. A survey study across 20 different countries showed that women ask significantly fewer questions than men in academic seminars, and they are about 28% less likely to promote their research on social media, even when equally or more productive. This leads to reduced visibility, fewer opportunities for recognition, and diminished dissemination of their work.
where is the discussion of implicit bias and the way that women experience more stress and pressure to be right all the time because they become a representative of all women when they speak, while men are free to make errors and move past it without being subject to stereotyping?
Sure, women can be taught confidence and to move past these social pressures, but let's not pretend the problem is all with the women ...
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