"We know from abundant social-psychological research that those groups in society that are often linked to the impostor “syndrome,” such as women and ethnic minorities, are also subject to persistent negative stereotyping..."
As such we may be missing a point. These marginalised groups exist because we are a war-mongering species that looks for scapegoats, knowing that factionalism is never healthy but being drawn towards it anyway. The elephant in the room here is our own undoing.
Imposter syndrome fits into the box with a lot of other labels (threatening to overflow into the common room 'Harry-Potter' style) that destabilise a sense of harmony with self and categorises perfectly normal human behaviours into some kind of subversive plot thickened by 'mental illness'. The mind has a lot of trouble being ill, while having no trouble at all in creating vast quantities of illusionary waste matter that we have a job to sift through. Hardly surprising that the mountain is piling up, what with all those labels multiplying in front of our eyes.
No matter what your position or situation, you're going to feel periods of self-doubt, guilt, disembodiment and fear just as everyone does. How you react to them - whether they're pushed under the surface or ground into dust beneath your heel or manifested in bouts of overspill - is a matter of persona and choice, in equal measure. Who you are is something you don't get to choose. What you do is something quite different.
Expecting the labels to stop multiplying any time soon is a stretch too far even for my imagination, but I do believe there are people out there who want to talk about these things, and would be glad of somehow being understood.
