Seated in a circle, pajama-covered knees bumping into one others’, our cabin of fifth-grade girls listen eagerly as we begin another nightly meeting. Madeline Crowley and I have served as cabin leaders for two years now and we began to institute these assemblies as a way to instill some advice in our young roommates, offering up a question each day for the girls to consider. Our question of the day on one particular day, however, was met with considerably less enthusiasm than the ones before; we simply asked, what is something you love about yourself? While barely skipping a beat during previous conjectures–questions of what they were grateful for or what their favorite part of the day was–the girls now found themselves at a loss, unwilling or unable to spit out a single aspect of themselves they appreciated. The bravest souls mumbled something along the lines of “Well I’m pretty good at sports”, making direct eye contact with the carpet strings as they spoke. While I wish Madeline and I were shocked at this behavior, we could not have expected anything different. Societal expectations have conditioned young girls to participate in a culture of self-deprecation, further encouraging the lowering of self-esteem and downplaying of successes as a necessary part of becoming the ideal ‘modest’ woman.
Traditionally, society has viewed women as secondary to men, homemakers tasked with providing and caring for the needs of those around them before themselves. In the workplace, women are expected to be modest, humble, and at times subservient to their peers. They must fly under the radar, while still going above and beyond the requirements of their position. These qualities stem from that idea of an ‘ideal’ woman, one who supports others but finds no real joy in celebrating her own accomplishments. The workplace provides a satisfactory view into societies’ expectations of what a woman’s role should be; on the other side of the spectrum, the push for women with ‘modesty’–and more directly, low self-esteem–has never been more obvious or pointed as it is on social media. Tirelessly, creators churn out trend after trend seemingly aimed at causing body dysmorphia and self-hatred in children as quickly as possible. Working in tandem with the endless encouragement of self-hate, users flock to the comment sections of those who choose to ignore these harmful trends. Sure enough, every video of a successful woman showcasing her job, an attractive woman showing off her new outfit, or an educated woman discussing her work sports thousands of comments demanding her to “stop trying so hard” or to “quit showing off”. While society has always encouraged women to fall back on their traditional gender role of the provider rather than receiver, social media has only accelerated this cause, generating internalized self-esteem issues earlier on in life than ever before.
Scientists may find it difficult to quantify the expectations and different causes that create an overall need for ‘modesty’ in women, but they can identify the effects that arise from this conditioning. Women in the workplace statistically feel more uncomfortable speaking about their accomplishments, and tend to revert to supporting the work of their friends and family instead. In a study by Jessie L Smith and Megahn Huntoon, women were given the choice to write about the accomplishments of themselves or the accomplishments of a peer for a scholarship essay. The experimenters placed a box in half of the rooms, claiming (dishonestly) that the box could cause feelings of unease due to a “subliminal noise”. As expected, the women who chose to write about themselves on average wrote less robust essays and perceived their work as lower quality compared to those who chose the ‘easy’ route and wrote about a friend. Interestingly, however, those who experienced the fake subliminal sound, and therefore had a source to which they could place the blame of their unease, produced higher quality work and perceived their work as better. Researchers thus found that not only do women feel uneasy when asked to praise themselves, but also that the removal of this discomfort encourages better performance and motivation. Additionally, society values men who display ambition and confidence, but often labels those same traits as arrogance and vanity when exhibited by women. In fact, when Pew Research interviewed the public on what traits they believed society valued most in men, they found the highest mentioned traits were morality, professional/financial success, and ambition. In women, however, physical attractiveness appeared more than any other trait. Ambition trailed far behind in fifth place, with only 9% of survey-takers mentioning it at all. Society’s values remain clear, and ambitious women do not fit into the traditional mold of what the world should look like. Does this mean young girls should stop trying to stand out? That they should stop pushing to be better? To make a difference? Absolutely not.
As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously described in her 1976 scholarly article, “well-behaved women seldom make history”. Young girls should follow in the footsteps of women before them who weren’t afraid of their accomplishments, women like Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, and Anne Boleyn, who dared to go against society’s expectations of how a ‘modest’ woman should act. In a society filled with accelerated maturity and increasing expectations on new generations, we must allow young women to find the courage to be proud of their successes, and to feel excited to answer the question, what is something you love about yourself?