How Grace Davis failed to adhere to the accepted narrative

In the last few years, research has found that, for women, there’s nothing quite as terrible as being seen as cocky or too confident. And it seems as if our reasoning for this is rooted in some logic, despite being horribly depressing: women who are assertive or forceful (aka intent on pursuing their dreams and achieving their goals) are perceived as 35% less competent than non-assertive women, according to a 2015 VitalSmarts study. And one Stanford University paper, which compared employees with certain masculine traits – like being “aggressive, assertive, and confident” – with feminine traits such as “acting like a lady”, found that a woman can’t step outside of her traditional role without making waves, or experiencing a backlash.

“To be successful, you must be assertive and confident, but if you are aggressive as a woman you are sometimes punished for behaving in ways that are contrary to the feminine stereotype,” the researchers theorised.

With this in mind, it makes sense that so many people balked when Grace owned her talent on live TV – and that so many people on social media experienced an irrational hatred of her from the moment she first stepped confidently onto the X Factor stage. They would have preferred her to bashfully bat away compliments, talk down her skills and insist she’s far more mediocre than the world gives her credit for. To be cowed, simpering, and full of self-loathing. To flush red with embarrassment whenever Simon Cowell gave her that ever-so-slightly-patronising wink. To spout out lengthy monologues about how terrible she’s been, and is, and will continue to be. To begin every single sentence with an apology.

“In our culture, there is this unspoken rule that women are supposed to be modest,” Alyson Lanier, a psychotherapist and life coach in Wilmington, North Carolina, tells Women’s Health. “If we accept a compliment fully, the fear is that it’s going to come off as bragging.”

“The big problem with our reaction to The X Factor’s Grace Davies”