Hey y’all! First and foremost, Happy Black History Month! At the beginning of my last post, I mentioned that my next few posts would share a similar theme. So, I’m back again, to unmask something that often tends to go hand in hand with perfectionism… impostor phenomenon (but with a twist). Before I go there though, let me tell you what this is. Wait. Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you how impostor vs. imposter is trippin me up, LOL. Seems like it’s spelled both ways so just vibe with the spelling I’ve chosen and that I see used in the literature! Impostor phenomenon is a term coined by Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in the 1970s to describe “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness” despite evidence of academic and professional achievements. It’s a feeling that you’re not as competent as people think you are, and that it’s only a matter of time before they find out. This is often characterized by a few different traits, many of which are shared by individuals with perfectionistic tendencies:

• a tendency to attribute success to external causes
• difficulty accepting others’ compliments or positive feedback
• fear of being evaluated
• the tendency to overestimate others
• the need to be the best
• fear of failure
• fear and guilt about success
• the tendency to discount personal competencies 

The initial research conducted by Clance and Imes (1978) focused on high achieving women’s experiences with impostor phenomenon. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this term until I started grad school. Since then, I’ve attended workshops about it. I’ve even co-presented at a workshop about it. Research projects are conducted about it. I just had to watch a TED Talk for a class that mentioned it. And here’s where I hit you with the plot twist. Because on this here Black History Month (and anytime really), I’d be remiss if I suggested that everyone experiences the phenomenon to the same degree. In fact, many articles and research studies highlight that minoritized individuals experience impostor phenomenon at much higher rates, and for individuals with multiple intersecting marginalized identities (e.g., Black women), it’s at an all-time high.

With this in mind, I feel like it’s important to talk about how sometimes, the masks we wear aren’t so easy to just take off. Sometimes we feel like impostors because we exist in spaces where people quite literally do not see our value and affirmation is nonexistent. We exist in spaces where we cannot show up as our authentic selves without scrutiny, and so, we wear the mask. What about when “fake it ‘til you make it” doesn’t apply because there are systems set up so you don’t make it? Or the fact that there are voices in the room that take precedence over yours? The whole “you have to work twice as hard as them to get half of what they have” type vibe. 

I recently discovered a poem titled We Wear the Mask, written by Paul Laurence Dunbar in the 1890s, which tells the story of what it’s like to be Black in America, feeling the need to present a brave face to the world, while falling apart on the inside. Maya Angelou’s rendition of the poem combines her own work with that of Dunbar to tell the story of a woman who wears her smile as a mask, or what she refers to as “survival apparatus.” Which got me thinking about another level of unmasking. What about the people who wear masks for survival? 

I want to acknowledge that unmasking also looks like understanding the impact of systemic oppression on our mental health, how we interact with others, how they interact with us, and the masks we wear. Unmasking, for some of us, is an act of resistance. Coming into a fuller awareness of ourselves involves a breaking of mental chains that have held us captive for centuries. Impostor phenomenon plagues me daily in the academy, especially now as I begin my dissertation process, which ironically explores the systemic factors that contribute to the way that Black women see themselves. Am I actually incompetent? Not at all. But I do exist within a system that sometimes makes it hard for me to show up as my authentic self, so I inevitably feel like a fraud. Here’s to me acknowledging that sometimes it’s me in my own way, and sometimes it’s the system. Here’s to me showing up anyway and learning how to bring my full self with me. Here’s to me unmasking not only myself, but the systems in which I exist.