SELF-DEPRECATION: CHARMING OR CHILDISH?

Marianne Power on why she’s celebrating herself

I gave a TED Talk recently and it went well. People laughed and clapped and came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they’d enjoyed it. The friend I brought with me was stunned by how good a speaker I was. ‘It’s like you’ve been doing that for 20 years,’ she said. Which I most certainly have not.

So when other friends ask me how it went, do I say all that? No, I don’t. I tell them about fluffing the slides at the beginning, that my hair looked mad and that I sweated my way through all 15 minutes of it.

I have a constant impulse to put myself down. The self-critical words fly out of my mouth before I even realise what I’m saying. But why? Why do I throw myself under the bus? Firstly, I was scared that when the video of the performance came out, people would criticise it, and I wanted to get the criticism in before anyone else could. I wanted to keep expectations low. I was also worried that people would think I was showing off about doing this prestigious event – and if my childhood taught me anything, it was that nobody likes a show-off; people like you more when you are humble. Finally, my writing career has been built on self-deprecating humour: if there is a story to tell about me slipping on a banana peel, I’ll tell it… and if I sweated my way through two cans of deodorant and spent the week before the talk on the toilet, I’ll tell you that, too.

But when does self-deprecation stop being funny and charming? When does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy that does me and everyone around me a disservice? Well, now, actually. I’ve started to feel that I am living down to the shambolic version of myself that I show to the world. If you call yourself a mess often enough, you start to believe it and so do others. For example, I’ve written a lot about how terrible I am with money. Now, nobody can mention anything to do with cash without me declaring, ‘I’m crap with money!’ I am cementing this identity for myself, instead of seeing it as an area for growth and something that I am capable of changing.

I’ve also seen that this self-criticism is childish and attention-seeking, because when I put myself down, I’m putting pressure on others to reassure me. I’m looking for the other person to tell me I’m good enough. But why do I need that? I am a 42-year-old woman who has built a great career, travelled the world and has a blessed life that I have worked very hard to create. It’s disingenuous to keep putting myself down. And yet I feel that the more success I have, the more I have to cut myself off at the knees.

There might be an element of impostor syndrome or fear of success within me, but I also think that I have absorbed the message that a woman can only be visible or successful if they make jokes about their crazy hair or how inadequate they feel underneath it all. But that message is currently being rewritten.

Comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about it in her show Nanette: ‘I have built a career out of self-deprecating humour and I don’t want to do that any more. Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility, it’s humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak, and I simply will not do that any more, not to myself or anybody who identifies with me. If that means that my comedy career is over, then so be it.’

Times are changing. I doubt Greta Thunberg has time for the self-indulgence or self-absorption of self-doubt. She has work to do. And so do we all. So yes, let’s keep being vulnerable and honest about our insecurities but, when we do that, can we also balance it with the fact that it’s amazing to give a TED Talk and have a whole room applaud?

Because when we make ourselves small, we are not serving anyone. It’s when we celebrate ourselves and our achievements that we give others the permission to do the same.

‘Why do I throw myself under the bus?’