100 Things Challenge (#3): Confidence and the Wimpy Writer
Today, I received good news about a paper I'd written for my recent grad school class, but for the first time in a long while, I'd been very nervous about something I'd written. It's that comfortable old dread, that sudden realization of the possibility that one has labored hard and still produced a dud. As I clicked through the university's
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He insisted on calling, in every one of his pile of stories, female genitalia "the garden." He was always entering someone's "garden" amid much moisture and humidity.
OMG!
ETA: On a more serious note, my observations over the years in the scientific/biomedical arena is that (for the most part), men tend to project more self-confidence than women, even if said guys may not feel all that confident if you really press them. And I note that the overly-confident writers you've chosen to describe are...men! :^)
[Risque sciency anecdote alert!]
This reminds me of a story one of my former colleagues at Club V related to me. When he was in grad school (a chemistry department at a major university), he and the other students and post-docs were friendly with the sole female faculty member in the chem. department, and she apparently felt more at ease with them than her faculty colleagues, at least in terms of venting.
My friend related that this professor came back from a faculty meeting in an extremely annoyed state over some issue of contention in the department and had found it difficult to be heard amongst all the androgenic posturing (overconfidence :^)). She put it rather bluntly:
"It was a contest to see who had the biggest dick in the room, and I have nothing to work with!"
Heh.
[/risque sciency story alert!]
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The porn pile was funny; my editor and I giggled over it often, and my sister and I, after I told her about it, made jokes about it for years after. I also vacillate between thinking "John" was either really creepy or really tone-deaf, based on the number of self-insert porns he felt it necessary to send to the journal. O.O
men tend to project more self-confidence than women, even if said guys may not feel all that confident if you really press them. And I note that the overly-confident writers you've chosen to describe are...men! :^)
Definitely! I've worked with few obnoxiously overconfident woman writers ... actually, only one comes immediately to mind, and given that I've worked with many more woman writers then male writers, I do think that is significant.
I know that it's taken me almost thirty years to be confident enough to say that, yes, I know I'm smart and good as a writer. When I started, it felt liberating but also scary, like I risked being perceived in a negative way for it.
"It was a contest to see who had the biggest dick in the room, and I have nothing to work with!"
LMAO! :D
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