Men Blame The Equipment, But Women Blame Themselves

One of the smartest women I know, Merakoh, threw this truth bomb at me, and honestly I don’t think anything more true has ever been said.

When something goes wrong, men blame the equipment but women blame themselves. She was referencing photography.

When a man takes a bad picture, he assumes it’s because he doesn’t have the right equipment, but when a women does it she assumes it’s because they aren’t a good photographer.

I do this all the time in all sorts of different things. I don’t know if it’s a self-esteem issue of what, but every time something goes wrong, I blame myself. Then I dwell on what I could do better and try to fix it.

The truth is, most of the time it’s completely out of my control and it’s not on me at all, yet I still can’t shake the feeling that I did something wrong that lead to whatever-is-happening.

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We all do this. It’s ingrained into us from a young age.

When dinner was burned, our moms said “I’m just not a good cook.” Even though they were cooking with limited I gradients in an oven that was 20+ years old with a recipe they couldn’t even read.

We do this in relationships, too. When our husbands are upset, we try to figure out what we did to make them feel that way, when in reality it’s hardly ever something we’ve actually done to cause the mood.

It’s much more likely to be a by-product of some outside factor we can’t do anything about.

I actually did this in my job recently, and I’m still kicking myself for not trusting that I was awesome enough that it was a software issue causing all my problems and not my complete lack of computer skills. (And I’m actually super computer savvy!)

What’s it going to take to shift this thought process?

To start believing in ourselves and in our skills as a parent, a partner, and even as bossbabes. How do we convince ourselves that we aren’t the problem, when we really aren’t?

It’s almost like we are so quick to take the blame because we don’t want to be known as someone who doesn’t own up to their faults.

We’ve taken this to an extreme that doesn’t even make any sense anymore.

We aren’t making excuses.

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There really are things holding us back. And until we start seeing those things, and addressing those as the problems, we aren’t going to get anywhere.