Fighting our own insecurities

After the plan for my postdoctoral project became clear I had a strange reaction to it. When I woke up the next day I had thoughts that it will be impossible for me to do this project. I felt that there was too little time and too little support, and each silly thing, starting with glassware, will have to be fought for. With this came the realisation (or fear) that I will not get anything meaningful published in the situation I found myself in.

It feels like "who am I to attempt this" and "I am not that good a researcher". The feeling of zero-confidence in my research abilities. The feeling of great insecurity.

I have noticed similar pattern of insecurities in some other blogs that I read. The blogs written by female researchers focus more on soul searching and dealing with feelings, whereas the blogs written by men focus more on politics and describing the ways things are and hypothesising on how they could be changed. Females write about that subjects too, but they tend to write about what these things make them feel.

Many of us, successful female researchers, even senior postdocs and lecturers feel very insecure inside. Men never write about that. Maybe even if they had some doubts they block them out and do not think about it as they tend to ignore emotions.

I think that it is those insecurities that I noticed in female researchers that contribute significantly to block our progress in scientific careers. We need a lot of emotional reassurance and some patting back on the shoulders that we are doing a good job.

Working mainly for male bosses we do not get what we need emotionally and we drop out from what seems to be a hostile work environment.

I am glad I found my way to the blogosphere. It has been enlightening to read the unrestrained (I hope) women who are at a similar career stage to me, or slightly higher above. We scientists are not robots, we are not data production machines, we are humans with all associated emotions, frustrations, fears, and insecurities.

I can see the same thoughts going through heads of other bloggers. I can recognize those thoughts now and I see it as a major struggle within. To fight one's own insecurities (am I a good enough scientist to stay in science and academia? what if I am crap and the research that I do is worthless?) is the biggest struggle*. And no one working around me knows what the struggle in my head is. And that my future depends on the outcome of this struggle.

* it does not help that I am a huge pessimist and a worrier, and that my father and the former PhD supervisor are big pessimists too!