According to various online surveys, 50 per cent of men believe they could land a passenger aircraft in an emergency, with no training; eight per cent feel sure they could defeat a lion in a fist fight; 12 per cent believe they could beat Serena Williams in a tennis match; 27 per cent believe they could traverse the globe without a map – and a whopping 30 per cent feel confident that they could qualify for the 2028 Olympics if they started training, right now.
These kinds of statistics are usually met with either wry smiles or exasperated eyerolls, especially from women (who are very used to the overconfidence of men), but I, for one, am a little envious. What must it be like to wander around, truly believing yourself capable of beating up a grizzly bear or smashing a standup comedy routine using your own material, off the cuff?
“Ofermod” is an old English word that roughly translates to “overconfidence”. It turns up in one medieval poem, The Battle of Maldon, where the Saxon chieftain Byrhtnoth really believes that he and his mates can beat the Vikings in hand-to-hand combat, despite being vastly outmatched and outnumbered. He doesn’t – and they all die – but what a way to live your life. I can hardly fathom what it must be like to have such rock-solid confidence in yourself. If anyone asked me to fight a Viking, I would probably just set fire to my own house to save them the trouble.
square LUCY MANGAN No man could cope with my menopause symptoms
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Is there any way to harvest even the tiniest drop of such delusional self-belief? If we find these men and stand next to them, can this “ofermod” be absorbed through osmosis? Yes, I know being overly confident is not a good thing (it makes you reckless and far more likely to get hurt) but women, in particular, suffer from chronic levels of underconfidence – and that is just as damaging. I truly believe that if women could believe in themselves – even fractionally – in the way men do, we could go a long way towards kicking the patriarchy in the tits, once and for all.
You’ve heard of the pay gap and the orgasm gap, well: the confidence gap is another chasm we have to overcome. All the research shows us that men are significantly more confident in their own abilities than women are – and this has a profound impact on our lives. For example, men are 34 per cent more likely than women to be employed in top jobs at the age of 42. Why? Not because they are the most qualified, but because men are far more likely to apply for jobs that they are not qualified to do, than women are.
Picture the scene: a woman is desperately questioning if she is even worthy of asking for a promotion at work – versus her male colleague who is thinking, “why not? I invented the internet.”
Women doubt themselves, because the entire system doubts us. It’s instilled into us from infancy that girls are pretty, sweet and caring. Confidence is critiqued as “bossy”, being loud is “rude” and wanting to play with toys other than dollies and makeup is labelled as being a “tomboy”. Whereas, little boys are encouraged to do all those things – and are subjected to bullying if they don’t.
Is it any wonder that confidence levels between boys and girls are markedly different from the age of eight onwards? This shows up in subjects like maths and science – where boys greatly overestimate their abilities – and girls seriously underestimate theirs. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, seeing far fewer women following STEM subjects and careers further down the line, which only reinforces the idea that these are male subjects – and undermines women’s confidence in approaching them.
square KATE LISTER I've started taking testosterone at 43 - it's changed my life
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I was the branch chair of the University and College Union for just under a year. In that time, I worked with people of all genders from across the university – in every professional role and position available – and let me tell you, the way men and women communicate in the workplace could not be more different. And it wasn’t just the staff; it was the same with the students.
Emails from women frequently opened with an apology: “I’m sorry to take up your time,” “I’m sorry if you already know this,” etc. Women’s emails were always much longer than men’s, as they went to great efforts to appear likeable and pleasant. They used exclamation marks significantly more, as if to convey their friendly, whimsical side. “Hi, Kate!” Men’s emails rarely use the word “just”, but women’s are full of them: “I’m just following up,” “I am just wondering.”
Men don’t talk like that. They are direct, straight to the point – and certainly do not initiate a correspondence by apologising for doing so in the first place. If you are a woman reading this and wondering if you are guilty of professional underconfidence, try taking “just” and the exclamation marks out of all your work emails and messages for a week – and let me know how uncomfortable that makes you feel.
So, how do we go about closing the confidence gap? Much of it comes down to encouraging the next generation of girls to be more confident and ousting the outdated gendering of certain traits and past-times in childhood. For adults, this will mean unpicking a great deal of learned behaviours and moving outside your comfort zone. Big each other up, and ask yourself, “what would a mediocre man do?” and do that – unless of course, you are deciding whether or not to arm wrestle a gorilla.
Another useful tip a therapist gave me is to challenge self-doubt by asking yourself if you would say the same thing to a friend. Would you tell a friend they weren’t smart enough or good looking enough? Of course you wouldn’t, so why say this to yourself? Overconfidence can be a bad thing, but recognising your own skills is vital in pushing yourself forward in all walks of life. Having said that, I’d love to meet a woman who thought she could beat a bear in a fight.
How many opportunities will open for you if you truly believe yourself to be the smartest person in the room – or perhaps, more soberingly, how many opportunities will be lost because you lacked the self-belief to really go for it?
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