Word Salad II

So much of what you write here is very applicable to academcis as well. You don't use the term, buta fair chunk of this is "impostor syndrome", which is common amongst artists but also (perhaps even more so) amongst academics. By the way, I don't think the patriarchy drives the self-doubt out of men. It just makes it impossible for them to express it. In some this drives it out but in many it supprsses it very heavily so that in some cases it becomes subconscious only, while in others it becomes buried.