It’s more prevalent than you might think.

Finished reading ‘The Confidence Gap’ by Russ Harris. Really enjoyed it. I found myself verbally agreeing with what he had to say throughout. It helped me realize a lot about how I look at myself and the mistakes I might have made. Really good read, I already feel like a better person.

(via These Are the Three Best Mistakes I Ever Made and How They Helped My Business Evolve)

I tried to quietly question them but I definitely didn’t push hard enough. Now that I’m older and so much more experienced I look back and realize how insane and unrealistic their goals were. My mistake then was not feeling confident enough to question them because they were older, more experienced and more established. It was a combo of inexperience, youth and insecurity. I’m definitely not suggesting being argumentative but if you have doubts or questions or a strong opinion that you can’t let go, voice it. Over the years I’ve realized I know my shit (my stuff) and always had good instincts. Being afraid or too insecure is a waste of time especially when you really feel strongly. Trust yourself at every stage and have enough sense of self to call it like you see it. As my career has evolved questioning the “establishment” or the traditional way of doing things and pushing boundaries has often led to some of my biggest career successes and made for quicker growth.

Feminist Shana Lebowitz reports scientists did a study on gender differences and the embrace of competition through the willingness to enter a tournament. Results showed that boys chose to enter the tournament system more often than girls (61% versus 23%). Yet the researchers found that men with older sisters only chose the tournament option 38% of the time. Meanwhile, women who had younger brothers chose the tournament setup at a 39% rate.

One potential explanation for these results is that younger brothers may assimilate the stereotypically feminine traits of their older sisters, such as kindness and friendliness.

So, what do feminists suggest we should do with this knowledge that girls with younger brothers become more competitive and boys with older sisters become less competitive?

Our study lends support for institutional reforms that promote interactions between women and younger men. Exposing women to experiences where they are in a position to overrule younger men may help cultivate their willingness to compete with men.

De-politicized translation?

We need to make human sacrifices of little boys and pair them with older girls who can gain confidence and competitiveness through institutional bullying, while simultaneously depriving those little boys of those same important attributes to success.

(Feminists would never dare think maybe females proclivity for collaboration is a strength to be praised. Nope. Males compete, so it must be better and females must do it too)

Ms. Lebowitz says:

The idea isn't to discourage men from competing so much as to encourage women. It's an interesting suggestion because it doesn't involve demanding that anyone change his or her personality, so much as tweaking the environment to bring out different aspects of their personalities in the workplace.

Either Ms. Lebowitz doesn’t understand discouraging men from competing is precisely the effect the study shows (22% decrease in competitiveness for males) or she’s a baldfaced liar. The entire point of institutionalizing such a process is to absolutely change his and her personalities. 

“Feminism is simply about promoting equality between the sexes” through any means necessary including the institutionalized bullying of of male children to turn them into uncompetitive failures. If that’s their path to “gender equality” then feminism is a fraud.

I read this article yesterday on a study that found the more “gender equality” and economic independence women have in a society, the less confidence and self-esteem they report compared to men:

Empowerment, that overused catchphrase of modern feminism, is both a feeling and an economic concept. It’s commonly used to mean confidence or self-esteem, but it’s also financial opportunity and professional equality.

And yet new research shows that the two definitions of “empowerment” might not co-exist as neatly as you might expect. According to a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the confidence gap between men and women is actually smallest in countries that rank low in gender equality. In other words, economic empowerment and emotional empowerment don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

But these researchers also found something else: the self-esteem gap between men and women had no correlation with economic empowerment, and the countries where women’s self-esteem approached men actually tended be in the developing world. “In all countries, men have a higher self-esteem than women do, but the gender gap varies,” explains Wiebke Bleidorn, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, and the author of the study. “There is a bigger gap in many developed Western countries than in developing countries.”

Any interpretation of these results is pure conjecture, but here’s mine. If you are a woman living in a Western, developed society you are constantly being inundated with feminist indoctrination propaganda in the media designed specifically to make you feel bad about your life:

You are being oppressed by the patriarchy

You are underpaid

You are overworked

You live in a rape culture

You have been brainwashed to like the color pink

Your teachers limit you by making you think you’re bad at math

No one listens to you

Air conditioning is designed to make you less productive

Marriage and children kill your career aspirations

You will eventually be beaten by a man and no one will care

Men are denying you subway seats by spreading their legs too much

When you are young you will be objectified for your beauty

When you get old no one will think you are beautiful

Blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum