I am the author of a book on shame and have written a number of academic articles in French Studies, Education, Cultural Studies, Deaf Studies and Disability Studies. My PhD examined the topics of guilt and shame in French narratives of the Nazi Occupation. Previous to that, I had transitioned though a Bachelor’s in French and Italian and a Masters in Cultural Studies. I have lived in Italy, France and Austria and have learnt the languages of each of those countries. 

After my PhD in French Studies, I moved into research in the field of Education, specifically working on a programme that trained postgraduate teachers of the deaf. Three years later, while I was working as Assistant Professor in French Studies at Cardiff University. There, I received a Marie Curie Research Fellowship from the European Research Commission. I moved to the Advanced Institute for Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris in 2014 to lead a two-year research project on deaf people in contemporary cinema. I am currently finishing the book relating to that research. 

All this to say: I have always pushed myself academically and professionally. Yet, I believe that the majority of my academic and professional choices were actually motivated by the fact that I have a very strong inner critic. Statistically, female academics have lower confidence in their abilities and lower self-esteem relating to their achievements that their male counterparts. There have been pushes to shift the gender inequality gap in academia but, in general, men still hold more of the senior management positions and are more likely to put themselves forward for promotion. 

One of my good friends, a senior male professor, who had held all the high-level administrative positions at university (Head of School, Dean, Pro-Vice Chancellor including acting-Vice Chancellor), maintained that when interviewing for any university position men would over-estimate their abilities and women would undervalue their achievements. He had coached a number of female colleagues to professorship level to try to address this discrepancy. However, the issues of inner criticism that affect confidence, self-esteem and which also activate imposter syndrome do not disappear with promotion. In fact, unaddressed, they often get worse.

In my opinion, people who pursue a career to a high-level or who those go as far as obtaining a doctorate are generally doing it, on some level, for recognition – a sense of worth – be it economic, intellectual, artistic, professional or personal – having value in the eyes of an employer, society, the community, loved ones.  The issue is that the drive to be recognised as having value / being valued can become all-consuming: it is not sated by reaching the desired level of achievement. It pushes the person relentlessly on – far beyond the point of the work creating value or achieving worth. The inner critic can also lead to paralysis vis-à-vis completion of a project or a task cause the pressure of living up to impossible standards of perfection and achievement becomes too great. In the worst cases, this culminates in burnout whether full or partial.