Imposter Syndrome, Retributive Distribution, and Contention Tax

 “She’s not _______ enough to be that good!”

Check the box.

• Male enough (which she can never be)
• White enough (which, if she is not white, she can never be)
• Educated enough (which, if she is either of the above, she can never be.)
• Smart enough (see “educated enough”)
• Tough enough (see “male enough”)
• Experienced enough (see “male enough” and “educated enough”)
• Wise enough (see “educated enough”)
• Rich enough (see “educated enough” and “white enough”)
• Extroverted enough (translation: “she’s not networking enough with wealthy people who could potentially appropriate from her on the built-in notion of contention tax (described below)”)
• Talented enough (see “extroverted enough” and/or “rich enough” and/or “educated enough”)
• Single enough (see “I want to get you pregnant, take you off the career force, and exploit the crap out of your career advice until you hit menopause. Then I will cheat on you and go into my the pleasures of the self-affirmed male materialist phase, while making sure you feel too old and unattractive to divorce me. If you give me too much trouble while I cheat on you, I may consider having you covertly murdered with the money I would’ve never been able to make without you.”)
• Beautified enough (see “single enough”)
• Old enough (who cares. It’s happening, isn’t it?)

Was your reaction “enough?!”

Let’s ask. Were you

• Saying “I’ve had enough of pointing this out, we all know how these things things work”?
• Or were you saying, “I’ve had this knee jerk reaction of saying ‘enough’ to the truth that will set me free slapped, slammed, silenced, shoved and forced into me by an oppressor in my life?”

When you deal with imposter syndrome for an identity you can literally not possess, or do not want to be forced into possessing, you will

• Not be given recognition unless you acquiesce to the fact you can never possess this
• Or, be given recognition as long as you keep pretending that you can try so people can capitalize on your 80% without ever having to deliver the full expensive 100%.

Does this hurt? Does this seem unfair?

That’s because it is. You can’t earn your “freedom” when your freedom requires you to have a skin color or appendage you will never have, nor should you validate this low-functioning materialist paradigm.

Good. If you’re a woman who is undercompensated in leadership, stop avoiding this conversation because you don’t want to point out the obvious flaws because it hurts.

Now, let’s universalize the principle without taking away what we owe the women leaders in our lives. When statistics for women CEOs are still absolutely abysmal, we can put strict universalism on the backburner for a day.

The principle is, when someone does not have the perceived identity required for a role, a contention tax is waged against this individual that is higher for someone who has historically high recognition credit with that role. For instance, if I’m walking around with a beanie in all black, you’re less likely to think I’m a CEO than if I’m walking around in a suit, with a crisp button up and pressed slacks. And there’s good reason for that. Someone who doesn’t adhere to the expectations of easy recognition may be doing it just to differentiate from that recognition system…and that seems like something someone whose job it is to congeal, aggregate and solidify a corporate body should probably not have interest in doing. We assume, if they are good at their jobs, they don’t want to throw wrenches into an image that aggregates with the most efficiency the recognition of its role. And that reasoning makes sense.

But when no recognition system will deliver the 100% deserved and required, it can serve as a message that says, “I am well aware I am sufficient. I’m well aware nothing I can do can match up to the physiological uniform imposed on my role. Meet me where I’m at. That type of brain is the one I hire. We do things much differently here.”

Now, given that one did not give into the contention tax, the subject becomes targeted by “retributive distribution”. What is retributive distribution?

Akin to the win-lose mindset based in narcissism, retributive distribution says, because I did not think you were [tall, white, educated, male] enough, I think you have not earned your power and will take it from you. I would never, of course, even think to do this if you were [tall, white, educated, male] enough, because you easily morphed with the proper recognition icon. Once I have your power, I will distribute it according to my weights on this identity…aka, if I am most discombobulated by your being a woman, I will redistribute what I take from you to men. If I am most discombobulated by your being self-taught, I will take the power to those who are performatively educated in the way that makes me feel good. In essence, the statement is, “I think I deserve what you have even if I don’t.” Again, retributive justice is therefore based in narcissism. And the sad part is, it is often other women, minorities, non-standard bodied, and uneducated people who do this policing. Tall, minority women may perform retributive justice on short white or minority men. These men many perform retributive justice on women in turn. Etc. The entire thing is self-policing. You don’t even have to say “tall, educated, white male conspiracy” when other people do the work of calling that a conspiracy for you hoping to get brownie points, despite the fact they will never benefit more than they are victimized by such an advocacy.

The oppression, you could say, is automated.

So how did it come to be automated?

To quote myself earlier, one of the secrets of automatized hegemony, “I’ve had this knee jerk reaction of saying ‘enough’ to the truth that will set me free slapped, slammed, silenced, shoved and forced into me by an oppressor in my life.”

Where did that come from? Here.

At WSS, we’re solving contention tax. If meeting you halfway can only max out at 80% for us and 120% for you, you can meet us alllll the way over here.

As They say, inequity only persists because it is enabled.

If you found this piece insightful or woke you up a little, please donate to We’re Solving Society. gf.me/u/y47m8d