Anecdotally, as a man in academia, all of the men I know closely also experience this. It’s pretty much universal for men and women. If it’s more associated with women, I think that is because it’s less socially acceptable for men to be vulnerable, or discuss their feelings.
It makes sense to me that it is in a sense a consequence of privilege, success, and opportunities. If nobody believes in you, or expects a lot from you, you won’t feel like an imposter.
> I think that is because it’s less socially acceptable for men to be vulnerable, or discuss their feelings.
This is also true in the broader sense of public discourse. I remember talk shows like Oprah Winfrey in the 1990s discussing women's sexual health and how women never get to discuss or explore women's sexual health issues.
Fast forward 30 years and I've come to realize that this narrative--1) women experience X, 2) women never get to openly discuss X--is a constant. Not just in the past 30 years, but going back for a least a century if you read popular women's magazines.
Heck, just last night on NPR (KQED) there was discussion about menopause and how women are ignorant about the physiology of menopause because it's never openly discussed. And I'm like, "are you kidding me! I don't have enough fingers to count how many times over the past 20+ years I've heard a program on KQED not only dedicated to menopause, but claim that nobody ever talks about menopause." As contrasted to men's health issues, where I definitely have enough fingers.
Which isn't to deny a deficit in open discourse regarding many women's issues, but certainly there's no deficit in the narrative that women's issues are never openly discussed; quite the opposite, they're constantly discussed--on the air, in print, etc, because apparently there's strong demand among women to discuss them.
I wouldn't consider the last century, 30 years, or even 5 years as providing a constant pattern for the level and access to discourse about issues impacting non white males. There is a world of difference between Oprah in the 80s and 90s making a space to address these things, and NPR today.
It makes sense to me that it is in a sense a consequence of privilege, success, and opportunities. If nobody believes in you, or expects a lot from you, you won’t feel like an imposter.