Blog

Caroline Criado Perez: Why imposter syndrome is a rational response to a culture that penalizes women in power

speakeragency.co.uk

Apr 2, 2025, 09:28

Caroline Criado Perez: Why imposter syndrome is a rational response to a culture that penalizes women in power

Caroline Criado Perez, Author of Invisible Women, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“After one of the talks I gave for International Women’s Day, a female audience member came up to me to ask me why women still experience imposter syndrome and what we can do about it.

Here’s the thing though: I don’t believe imposter syndrome exists.

This is not to say that I don’t believe women feel like imposters – I know I do. But the word “syndrome” implies that this feeling is a result of something wrong with us. It implies that there is something that we need to work on in ourselves to get over this implicitly irrational syndrome.

But in the latest edition of the Invisible Women newsletter I argue that there is nothing irrational about women feeling like imposters when they’re in positions of authority; rather, it is an entirely rational response to a world that treats us as such:

‘There is nothing wrong with you. You do not have a syndrome. You are not irrational. Rather, you are responding very rationally to a culture in which to be in a position of authority while female is to be an imposter – a culture which will, as a result, disproportionately penalise you when you are anything less than perfect. Only a perfect imposter can be allowed – which is the same as saying that no imposter will be allowed, because women are not angels. We are not perfect. We are no more and no less human than men.’

For the full essay, which includes shout-outs to my ladies Mary Wollstonecraft, Janet Radcliffe Richards, and, in what is in danger of becoming a habit for me, Cordelia Fine, head to the comments where I will post the link.”

Diana Romero, Chief Editor at Nature Research, shared a post by Caroline Criado Perez, adding:

“A very interesting view on feeling as an imposter that I had never thought about.”