A few months ago, I found myself in conversation with an accomplished leader. He had all the marks of an impressive and socially privileged individual: as an older, cisgender, heterosexual white male, he served as the CEO of an organization that was bringing in millions of dollars in grant funding and making powerful international connections. He commented, “God has been working on me with pride. I’m trying to learn to be humble.”
Given his obvious success, it might seem natural that he would feel pride in his accomplishments. However, I found myself marveling at what he was saying, not because I was surprised that he would feel proud but because of how very unfamiliar that experience was to me and to many of my colleagues who do not share the same marks of social privilege or have the same list of achievements (no matter how accomplished we might be).
Instead, the shared experience that I more often find myself discussing with other younger/female/BIPOC/LGBTQ+/etc. colleagues is the experience of imposter syndrome. That is, the struggles that I have shared with such colleagues are not struggles over curtailing our pride about what we have accomplished but a struggle to see our achievements as something even worthy of pride. The challenge has been not thinking too highly of ourselves but not thinking highly enough.
Thus, in this two-part blog series, I would like to suggest how Christian institutions of higher education might be able to draw upon our Christian theological foundations in order to implement actionable steps that might limit the systemic factors that can contribute to imposter syndrome by rewarding expressions of pride. The experience of imposter syndrome is often more pronounced in individuals with any number of minoritized identities. However, I will be focusing especially on women since I can speak from that specific gender identity myself. I would very much welcome learning from colleagues who identify with other minoritized identities who could speak to their own experiences with imposter syndrome.
Reconsidering Sin & Pride
Combatting imposter syndrome on Christian university campuses can begin with the theological underpinnings of these campuses. Some Christian audiences have been immersed in the message that pride is sinful. The words of Proverbs 16:18 (“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall”) have been emblazoned on many hearts and minds. Yet, despite the truth that such a message might hold, it is important to acknowledge how this message has been harmfully internalized by some individuals not simply to encourage an avoidance of pride but actually to diminish their full humanity.
As early as 1960, theologian Valerie Saiving recognized that the definition of sin as pride was not one that resonated easily with women in particular. In her ground-breaking article entitled “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,”1 Saiving observed that much of the theological discourse at that time was predicated upon specifically masculine definitions of human experiences with temptation, sin, and love. Saiving noticed that these masculine definitions tended toward defining sin in terms of pride. She wrote, “It is clear that many of the characteristic emphases of contemporary theology…its identification of sin with pride, will-to-power, exploitation, self-assertiveness, and the treatment of others as objects rather than persons…was profoundly responsive and relevant to the concrete facts of modern men’s existence.”2 However, feminine experience suggested that such definitions of sin did not adequately describe the feminine experience. Thus, Saiving concluded, “The temptations of woman as woman are not the same as the temptations of man as man, and the specifically feminine forms of sin…have a quality which can never be encompassed by such terms as ‘pride’ and ‘will-to-power.’ They are better suggested by such items as…underdevelopment or negation of the self.”3
To be sure, Saiving’s argument is not without its faults. In a 2012 issue of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, contributors considered the impact of Saiving’s argument and how it both had and had not aged well in the past 50 years. In one of the articles there, Rebekah Miles observed how Saiving might seem to paint “women’s experience” in such broad strokes that she failed to take into account the different experiences of white women as opposed to women of color.4 In fact, as Miles observes, Saiving herself, in later years, suggested that she had concerns with some of the generalizations from her 1960 article.5 Thus, it is certainly not the case that Saiving’s argument is above reproach.
Nonetheless, if we are to grant that there is at least some measure of truth to Saiving’s claims, then the simple definition of sin as “too much pride” is too narrow. Rather, to account for the full spectrum of human experience, the inverse equation of sin as “too little pride” must also be considered.
Expanding Definitions of Redemption
The natural question that might follow from Saiving’s redefinition of sin is the question of what “redemption” from the sin of “too little pride” might look like. Writing over a decade after Saiving, Mary Daly developed similar observations and pointed in the direction of what “redemption” might look like in light of this revised definition of “sin.” Daly suggested, “The healing process demands a reaching out toward completeness of human being in the members of both sexes…. For women, this means exorcism of the internalized patriarchal presence, which carries with it feelings of guilt, inferiority, and self-hatred that extends itself to other women.”6
Daly’s use of exorcistic language here to describe the “patriarchal presence” rightly names the demon that skulks about both Christian theology and Christian institutions of higher education. Identifying these patriarchal forces as not just irritants to those who live in their grip but as demons to be expelled speaks to the pervasive and problematic nature of patriarchy. The use of this explicit Christian and theological language highlights that concerns with patriarchy are not just the latest “woke” political vernacular but a reflection of larger Christian theological themes that affirm the imago Dei in both men and women.
Yet, more than just engaging in the exorcism of patriarchy at an individual level, Daly suggests that larger communal responses are also needed for full healing. Daly writes, “The first salvific moment for any woman comes when she perceives the reality of her ‘original sin,’ that is, internalization of blame and guilt…. The fault should not be seen as existing primarily in victimized individuals, but rather in demonic power structures which induce individuals to internalize false identities.”7 In other words, Daly suggests, the sin of “too little pride” is not (just) a deficiency in the individual that needs to be corrected but an indication of larger systemic issues that must be addressed.
Where Daly approached these issues from a theological vantage point, her fundamental idea has been developed beyond the bounds of theological education. For example, just a few years ago, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey published an essay in the Harvard Business Review provocatively titled, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome.”8 Their point was not that something like imposter syndrome does not exist for women but rather that a key factor in this experience is a larger cultural environment that persistently devalues the contributions of women. Tulshyan and Burey observed, “Academic institutions and corporations are still mired in the cultural inertia of the ‘good ol’ boys’ clubs and white supremacy.”9 Like Daly, then, Tulshyan and Burey identify the problem not as the personal failing of an individual but as an indication of a troubled institutional culture. While this may not eliminate the need for personal healing to transpire as well, it suggests that expanding healing to institutions, and not just individuals, may be required for the full flourishing of all individuals.
Christian Theological Contributions to Combatting Imposter Syndrome
To speak of systemic cultural issues may sound to some like the latest political or ideological fad. However, what I hope to have intimated here is that theologians within the Christian tradition have long been addressing such issues from the perspective of faith. That is, the theological DNA of Christian universities is already primed to assist women in combatting imposter syndrome. It may just be a matter of taking some practical steps (to be discussed in Part 2) to allow this DNA to be expressed to its full potential and to allow women on Christian campuses to thrive in their Christ-centered educational vocations.
Footnotes
- Valerie Saiving, “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,” The Journal of Religion 40, no. 2 (April 1960): 100-112.
- Ibid., 107.
- Ibid., 108-109.
- Rebekah Miles, “Valerie Saiving Reconsidered,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 28, no. 1 (2012): 79–86.
- Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), 50.
- Ibid., 49.
- Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome,” Harvard Business Review, February 11, 2021. Available at: https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome
- Ibid.
