The most common piece of advice given to women in professional settings is some variation of “be more confident” or “speak up more.” The unstated implication is that the problem is internal. Women doubt themselves. Women are too tentative. Women apologise too much. Women self-qualify. Women don’t self-promote. If only women were more confident, they’d succeed.
This advice is mostly wrong. And more importantly, it puts the responsibility in the wrong place.
The research on this is actually pretty clear. When women speak up in meetings, they’re less likely to be taken seriously than when men speak up. When women propose ideas, those ideas are discounted until a man restates them. When women are assertive, they’re described as aggressive or difficult. When men are assertive, they’re described as leadership material. This isn’t because women are less confident. It’s because the systems are working exactly as designed to discount women’s contributions.
There’s a study where researchers had people listen to the same presentation delivered by either a man or a woman. The content was identical. The delivery was identical. The man was rated as more authoritative and more competent. The woman was rated as less likeable. This isn’t a confidence problem. This is a perception problem. And the perception problem is not the woman’s problem to fix.
I have spent ten years in professional environments with genuinely confident women. Women who spoke up, who had opinions, who didn’t apologise for their presence. And I have watched those women be described as “a lot” or “difficult” or “not a culture fit” by the exact same men who praised confident men as natural leaders. The women weren’t the problem. The culture was.
Confidence is useful. I’m not going to argue that it’s not. Being able to speak in meetings without hedging, being able to trust your judgment, being able to push back when you disagree — these are genuinely valuable things. And there are probably some women who could benefit from being more confident. But that’s not the actual barrier to women’s advancement.
The actual barrier is that women are working in systems that systematically discount their contributions. That don’t give them the same information men have about what success looks like. That interrupt them more. That attribute their success to luck or help rather than competence. That punish them for the same behaviour that’s praised in men. And then those systems tell women that if they’d just be more confident, everything would be fine.
It’s gaslighting with good intentions.
Here’s what actually happens when a woman becomes more confident in these systems. She speaks up more. She has opinions. She doesn’t apologise. And the men around her get uncomfortable. They describe her as aggressive. They wonder if she’s fit for the culture. They worry she’s not a team player. Some of them actively work to marginalise her because her confidence is threatening.
I’m not exaggerating. This is well-documented. Women who are confident and assertive are penalised in ways that men are not. They’re passed over for promotions. They’re given critical feedback about their interpersonal skills. They’re excluded from informal networks. They’re told they need to work on their “executive presence,” which is usually code for “be less threatening.”
The confidence narrative puts this on the woman. It says the problem is that she’s not confident enough. If she would just be more assertive, she’d be fine. But the research shows that’s not true. The problem is not the woman’s confidence. The problem is the system’s response to that confidence.
This doesn’t mean individual behaviour doesn’t matter. It does. You still have to navigate the system you’re in. And some strategies work better than others. But framing it as a confidence problem puts the responsibility in entirely the wrong place.
What would actually help is if the systems changed. If women weren’t punished for assertiveness. If their contributions were credited to them instead of to luck or someone else. If their ideas weren’t discounted until a man said them. If confidence and competence in a woman were seen as leadership qualities instead of threatening qualities. If women weren’t held to a different standard.
In the meantime, the practical thing to do is this: if you’re a woman and you’ve internalised the idea that you’re not confident enough and that’s why you’re not getting ahead, stop. That might be true in some specific instances. But more likely, the problem is that the people around you are not evaluating you on an equal basis. That’s not your problem to fix by becoming more confident. That’s their problem to fix by becoming less biased.
If you’re a woman and you’re actually quite confident and you’re still not getting ahead, the problem is almost certainly not your confidence. The problem is the system. And the fix is not for you to be more confident. The fix is for the system to change.
If you’re in a position to influence culture and systems, here’s what would actually help. Stop telling women to be more confident. That’s useless. Instead, look at your own biases. Notice when you discount a woman’s contribution. Notice when you’re more critical of a woman’s assertiveness than a man’s. Notice when you’re attributing a woman’s success to luck or help rather than competence. Notice when you’re describing a woman’s confidence as aggression. And then actively work to counter those biases.
Make sure women have the same access to information that men have about what success looks like. Make sure they’re getting the same feedback. Make sure their ideas are credited to them. Make sure assertiveness is rewarded in women the way it is in men. Make sure confidence in a woman is read as leadership potential rather than as threatening.
The confidence narrative is appealing because it puts the problem on the woman. It’s her job to fix. The system just has to sit back and wait for her to get more confident. But the actual problem is the system. And the actual fix is structural.
Confidence in women is not the barrier. Confidence in men, even the unwarranted kind, is rewarded. Confidence in women is punished. That’s not a woman’s problem. That’s everyone else’s problem. And the only real fix is to stop rewarding men’s confidence so automatically and start rewarding women’s competence as much as we reward men’s.
Until then, telling women to be more confident is just asking them to run faster on a treadmill that’s moving against them.