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Original poster

Women and confidence

53 replies

BelleCurve · 05/09/2014 21:11

Can we talk about women and confidence? I've been thinking about this lately and it really strikes me this is a common marketing ploy.

Mascara, underwear, cereal bars -almost anything seems to be claiming to give women "confidence". Every career advice article claims we need more "confidence".

I am plenty confident, but I'm still discriminated against. Why are women supposed to need to be more confident in all situations?

OP posts:
SevenZarkSeven · 05/09/2014 22:08

And yes Belle I agree it is odd.

Everything aimed at women seems to be about "confidence" from pant-liners to yoghurt to face cream.

Is it code for something maybe. What does it actually mean. It doesn't mean "confidence" in the dictionary sense does it.

SevenZarkSeven · 05/09/2014 22:07

Also in your example TeWi being on the receiving end of all the "being hit on" is not a terribly nice place to be a lot of the time and of course when you "reject" the one hitting on you and he becomes gobby/arsey/aggressive/insulting etc that doesn't exactly bolster confidence either!

TeWiSavesTheDay · 05/09/2014 21:20

I think when people say confidence, they mean able to ignore rude comments about themselves.

I saw a skit on tv last night about how men have to handle much more social rejection from women and societal expectation is that they just get on with hitting on the next girl, whereas women will be allowed to be upset and be comforted by anyone near by.

So kind of a good one for women in that we are allowed to have a normal emotional reaction - but really we get punished for it too with the if you aren't successful it's your own fault stuff.

I think even if you do succeed by being confident in this sense you are open to criticism for being cold/ball breaker etc.

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