Impostoritis: A Lifelong, but Treatable, Condition

It's not just a women's issue but in a male dominated field it's good to hear from a female perspective on the matter.

Yep. impostor syndrome never was associated with gender. She just picked the low hanging fruit.

Impostor syndrome applies to everyone who still lacks close friends in a particular social occasion. So it's very common on all steam folks since most have social anxiety, hence take a long time to make close friends.

I agree, and I think it's related to the Dunning Kruger effect. The more you know, the more you realize all the things which you don't know.

There's also a bit of a vicious feedback loop; often people are unwilling to admit that they don't know something because they don't want to appear weak. But until they admit it, they'll always be deficient in that subject.

Perhaps more attention should be given to the fact that men feel this way as well. Women are often told they don't fare as well because they are not as assertive or confident as men. Imposteritis then introduces feelings of guilt in women for not feeling confident like they are "supposed" to and the way they are told that men do. Whether men feel that way or not should perhaps be addressed more frequently.

Probably the nature of the work - it's easier to feel like an impostor if success is primarily defined by detailed knowledge of the field. I suspect that in the business field you can't succeed unless you're comfortable portraying incomplete or speculative information as fact. Just guessing, though.

Part of working in science is knowing that you only know a tiny sliver of your field. It's easy to get the idea that everyone else knows vastly more than you do.

What makes you qualified to say that? You think smart people aren't applying to Harvey Mudd?