The intersection of identity and imposter syndrome: Identity politics as a woman of colour in law school

An unwelcome, bothersome hindrance. When standing in a law class as an indisputable Other, this immutable reality begins to not only weigh you down, but becomes attached to your very being. 

At the end of my first week of law school, I felt like this unwelcome, bothersome hindrance, degraded by my peers’ indifference towards me. Despite being equals, my identity as a woman of colour resulted in a sense of ostracisation from these people. 

What I soon learnt is that the politics of identity, despite being shielded from it my whole life, and the consequences of one’s positionality dominate the status quo in law school and influence even the most trivial of interactions. 

So, you may wonder what this is, or why it exists? Simply put, the politics of one’s identity is crucial to how others perceive us and the value they place on the relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’. When you are a minority, whether you are a woman, person of colour, or both, the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ grows, disrupting positive social cohesion and cooperation among those who have the most political and social power, and those that have little. 

For many women of colour, their first interaction with the legal field occurs when they begin their law school journey. They believe that they will be welcomed into classrooms with an opportunity for amicability. Instead, what feels like a slap to the fact is what awaits. 

In my own experience, I remember sitting at tables and not being able to contribute without feeling as though I was being judged, both subtly or overtly. I can recall answering questions in group discussions and being told outwardly that I was wrong, meanwhile my male peers with a slightly different but fundamentally equivalent answer being held in higher regard. Interruption was also not a stranger to myself and other women in my classes. 

In my isolation, I believed that this may have been a more personal problem, in that, perhaps I was displeasing to be around. But in recent conversations with friends and practitioners of the law, I have come to realise that this is a universal lived experience.

In her first week of law school, a friend of mine was asked by a male peer which school she attended prior to starting her degree. She responded that she was in fact a second year and had transferred from an arts degree, to which he stated that she must be finding law “extremely difficult” then. 

My cousin, who was a legal practitioner in wills and estates, recently quit her job, feeling as though the stress of working tirelessly was not worth the constant invisibility she felt when compared to her male peers. 

While many may see this as a slight snafu, that my friend simply ran into the wrong sort of person or that my cousin was experiencing imposter syndrome, I believe that for a woman of colour, it is the onset of a lifetime of alienation from a field they wish to feel a sense of belonging in. It instils a feeling of betrayal by the very thing you commit a lifetime of effort to. 

The truth is that many women, especially women of colour, will experience a heavy sense of alienation when entering the white and male dominated status quo, and as a consequence of this, will be burdened by their own identity.

While many will try to paint this as a form of imposter syndrome, systemic bias and exclusionary practices are not the fault of those subject to them. Imposter syndrome is born as a consequence of deeply ingrained societal norms that alienate Others. Therefore, this is not an issue of self-confidence for women in law, but rather a discrepancy in the system itself. The biassed practices within legal academia and those that take up the most powerful spaces within it stifle underrepresented groups and their ability to prosper. The universal doubts that already crowd our minds become more magnified in our struggle against bias.  

I have learnt that your difference should not invoke silence. In fact, a disruption to the status quo in the form of your identity should scream, shout and yell. Women of colour must take on the burdensome task of being more bold, being even more Other. We must engage these differences to find a more unique way about our approach to studying law, as well as practising it. 

While we patiently wait for systemic changes that decenter our current Eurocentric and masculine model of society, we must learn to become comfortable with discomfort. 

Written by Muskaan Bal