Impostor Syndrome for Men

Pretty much every women-in-science workshop I've attended, book I've read, and website I've visited discusses the threat of Impostor Syndrome. If you're not familiar with it, this is the belief that .... *looks both ways*.. someone will find out your deep, dark secret that actually you're faking it! That you don't know anything about anything, and really you're just a pattern matcher in a Chinese Room - sprouting out clever things at the right moment, but actually you're lost and confused and feel like you don't really belong here.

It's funny, but due to how much this is over-emphasized at these women-in-science workshops on some level I think I must have really believed this was just something women faced. But the more time I spend in academia the more I realize that just about everyone faces this - and, in fact, the people who are the most pompous and the most boisterous about their intellect are the biggest self-doubters of all.

Take my recent acquaintance Sam. I watched Sam present some truly ground-breaking research. His work is so ground-breaking I imagine just about every funding agency and venture capitalist on the planet is begging him to throw buckets of cash his way, because this stuff is bigbigbig. But it's not just that - he has published an ungodly number of papers in the past few years in top journals/conferences, is PI on a large grant, is at a very prestigious place, etc.

Sam delighted in "telling me" (read: bragging) about all of these accomplishments. And truth be told, he really has the right to brag - his research is amazing, and he's got the paper trail to prove it. After awhile, I asked him if he was going on the job market this year.

"Oh, I don't think I will."
"Why not?"
"Well, I'm not good enough to get a job at the top places..."

Wha?!?!?! If this guy doesn't think he can get a job at a top place, something is clearly very wrong in the world. I told him he was nuts, and he should absolutely try. Of all my friends and colleagues at his career stage, I know of no one more accomplished or doing more interesting research than him.

Anyway, it was eye opening for me to come to this realization that Imposter Syndrome is an egalitarian epidemic, and as I look closely I now notice it more often. I saw a man who is one of the top researchers in his field presenting a poster recently, and as people came by to see it he kept saying, "Oh, this is just simple stuff. Nothing fancy, really unremarkable and unimpressive." This shocked me. And lots of other  examples recently have as well.

This is all comforting to me somehow. Especially Sam. If he's self-doubting, by induction it's no shock that we all feel that way from time to time. :-)

happy monday

i think i could crawl into these images and be super happy!!  speaking of being happy, i had such a wonderful time going back to charleston this weekend.  being at my old target and going to my old grocery store put a smile on my face.  and getting to see my charleston friends was an added bonus :)
hope you have a wonderful start to your week....

*images courtesy of lauren mofatt, apartment #34, dress design decor, flourish design + style

Observations from France

I recently got back from a trip to the UK and France visiting family and friends. It was great to see everyone, eat great food and even do some unexpected foraging (chestnuts, mushrooms, walnuts, blackberries). French people are in better general health than most industrialized nations. The obesity, diabetes and heart disease rates are all considerably lower than in the US, although still much higher than in non-industrial cultures. Here are a few of my observations about French food:

1. The French diet generally contains a lot of fat, mostly from traditional animal sources such as dairy and pork fat. Industrial seed oils have crept into the diet over the course of the 20th century, although not to the same degree as in most affluent nations. People seem to think that eating a lot of fat is unhealthy, particularly the younger generation, but they do it anyway. I had dinner with my family at a traditional restaurant in Lyon (a "bouchon Lyonnais" called Stepharo) last week. Before we ordered, they immediately brought out crispy fried chunks of pork skin and fat (I'm not claiming this is healthy!). The entree was a salad: a bed of lettuce piled high with chicken livers, herring, and "pig's feet". The pigs feet were essentially gobs of pork fat. It was a very good meal that I'll continue describing later in the post. I think it's worth pointing out that Lyon is in Southern France. Is this the "Mediterranean diet"?
   
2. French people eat organs. Yes, they never got the memo that muscle meat is the only edible tissue. A typical butcher or even grocery store will have liver, tripe, kidney and blood sausage on full display next to the meat. If you want to make a French person angry, try selling them a chicken or a rabbit without the liver, gizzard and heart. The main course at Stepharo was a large "andouilette", or tripe sausage, baked in mustard sauce. This was a typical traditional restaurant, not a hangout for gastronauts.
   
3. French people fiercely defend the quality of their food. Have you heard of the abbreviation AOC? It stands for "Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée", or controlled designation of origin. A familiar example is Champagne, which has the AOC label. You can't call your sparkling wine Champagne unless it comes from the region Champagne. However, that's only half the story. AOC also designates a specific, traditional production method, in this case called the "méthode champenoise." The AOC label can apply to a variety of food products, including wine, butter, cheese, honey, mustard and seafood, and is a guarantee of quality and tradition. 44 cheeses currently have the AOC designation, and these are commonly available in markets and grocery stores throughout the country (1). These are not fancy products that only the wealthy can afford-- many of them are quality foods that are accessible to nearly everyone. AOC defines many aspects of cheese production, often requiring a minimum amount of pasture time and specifying livestock breeds. The US has a few products that are regulated in a similar fashion, such as Bourbon whiskey, but generally we are far behind in assuring food quality and transparency.
4. French people cook. There is less outsourcing of food processing in France, for several reasons. One reason is that restaurants are generally expensive. That trend is changing however.

I don't think the French diet is optimal by any means. They eat a lot of white flour, some sugar, seed oils and other processed foods. But I do think the French diet has many good qualities, and it certainly poses a number of problems for the mainstream concept of healthy food. Hence the "French paradox."

this post kind of reminds me of skittles....taste the rainbow :)
have a great weekend!!

*images courtesy of tokketok, haven and home, kml design, stephanie rausser, kunsten andere zaken

Reason #452 why women leave academia: macho students

Recently I was teaching a class of students, let's say on the topic of rubber ducks. I give the class some exercises related to rubber duckery and let them get to work. After a short while, I ask if there are any questions. Student A, one of my "hat boys" as I like to call them, replied.

Student A: "Well, it would be a lot easier for me to study rubber duckery if the bath was better implemented to support multiprocessor floatation devices and had a better internal physics model of how fluids move." (I'm just making things up here, but you get the idea).

I realize he's just trying to show off. But I know enough about the gobbledy gook he's spouting and can hold my own, so what I intended to say was something like, "Yes, blahblahblah is true, but this exercise is about rubber ducks, so don't worry so much about this other stuff." But before I can get a word in edgewise, Student B interrupts.

Student B: "Uh, no. Multiprocessor flotation devices were, like, so last year. Now the fluid dynamics blahblahblahblah."

Student A: "Uh, no! Blahblahblahblah."

Me: "Look, I - "

Student B: "Blahblahblahblah"

Me: "But if we just - "

Student A: "Well, actually, blahblahblah."

I keep trying to interrupt to tell them to quit chit chatting about this silly tangent and get back to work, but the two students keep ignoring me. The other students start snickering at the interchange. Finally, I put my hand on Student B's shoulder, because he's so engrossed in arguing with Student A he's not even making eye contact with me. And I say, "Let's talk about all of this later, and get back to rubber ducks."

Then Student B has the audacity to say, "But this is far more interesting."

Sigh. Clearly I need to go sign up for those assertiveness teaching classes. Or else start teaching undergrads who have less of a chip on their shoulder. Because I have to say, moments like these, I honestly wonder why I'm interested in traveling down this path toward being a professor. Having to deal with hundreds of smarty-pants kids all at once does just not appeal to me right now. In general I actually enjoy teaching, but not these moments.