Real men don’t care what others think.
Real men make tough decisions.

[I]t looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular … aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.

Remember David Hampton, the con artist immortalized in “Six Degrees of Separation”, who pretended he was Sydney Poitier’s son? He lied his way into restaurants and clubs, managed to borrow money, and crashed in celebrity guest rooms. He didn’t miss the fact that he was taking a risk, or that he might suffer. He just didn’t care.

It’s tempting to imagine that women could be forceful and self-confident without being arrogant or jerky, but that’s a false hope, because it’s other people who get to decide when they think you’re a jerk, and trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions. To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.

…

If you walked into my department at NYU, you wouldn’t say “Oh my, look how much more talented the men are than the women.” The level and variety of creative energy in the place is still breathtaking to me, and it’s not divided by gender. However, you would be justified in saying “I bet that the students who get famous five years from now will include more men than women”, because that’s what happens, year after year. My friend talking to the reporter remains the sad exception.

Part of this sorting out of careers is sexism, but part of it is that men are just better at being arrogant, and less concerned about people thinking we’re stupid (often correctly, it should be noted) for trying things we’re not qualified for.

…

It would be good if more women got in the habit of raising their hands and saying “I can do that. Sign me up. My work is awesome,” no matter how many people that behavior upsets.

—Clay Shirky, “A Rant about Women”, Clay Shirky, January 15, 2010 (available at http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/); see also Kate Harding, “A Rant about Socialization”, Salon Broadsheet, January 19, 2010 available at http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2010/01/19/shirky_rant/index.html) (“The key phrase … is ‘men and women need to work together to change the culture’ — otherwise, just telling women to put themselves out there more, as Shirky’s done, is asking them to risk serious social and professional penalties to get the same rewards as men.”; Deanna Zandt, “More on Shirky’s women rant: speaking up, ‘natural’ behavior, and storytelling wins”, Deanna Zandt, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (available at http://www.deannazandt.com/2010/01/19/more-on-shirkys-women-rant-speaking-up-natural-behavior-and-storytelling-wins/) (“There are times that I feel damaged and inauthentic when I’ve been acting like an overconfident jerk, and that’s not how I want to ultimately live my life. I wrote this post from that place, of wanting to change the culture so that different personality traits can be rewarded, so that we can have (as I said) a more holistic, welcoming set of standards.”).