Gender and Performance Anxiety at Academic Conferences

Abstract

This chapter analyses the factors which lead to some women experiencing ‘stage fright’ or ‘performance anxiety’ when speaking in public, particularly in the presentation of papers at academic conferences.¹ Performance anxiety is often considered something which women are more likely to experience than men when speaking to an audience. It is considered that the discursive rules operating in this setting are more in line with stereotypically masculine norms of speech. It is my contention that particular types of gender identity and preconceptions about the masculine nature of public speaking may be activated or challenged in the process of giving academic papers. Thus, women do not necessarily suffer from performance anxiety, and indeed many older women do not suffer from stage fright at all. But those who do may have internalised some sense of the discourse considered appropriate to the context and consider themselves unable to draw on this masculine discourse with ease. Some of the reasons for this may be: their marginal position within the university; their assessment of their expertise or status in relation to the audience; their assessment of their own personality and whether they feel that this is open to change. What seems to play a role in performance anxiety is the degree to which the individual has internalised or resisted stereotypical views of the gendered nature of the public sphere and public speaking. In order to test out these ideas, in this chapter, I discuss the results of a questionnaire which I sent to academics to investigate the factors which they considered to contribute to performance anxiety.