It’s Unconscious! Gender bias in the workplace
On 26th August 2021, WOMAG held a discussion on the unconscious bias present in everyone, particularly in the workplace. The session was an opportunity for men and women in the workforce to have an open dialogue and understand how they can better identify and manage these biases.
To facilitate the discussion, Edwin Seah, a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant from Include Consulting was invited. Pairing his current expertise with over 6 years of experience in talent management and recruitment across Asia Pacific and Middle East, he came ready with strategies to address unconscious bias at the workplace.
The session started off with a word association test, where participants memorised and voted for the decor-related words they recalled seeing from the given list. Out of the 84 participants, 40% of them voted ‘Window’, a word that was never on the list. As our brains can only consciously process 40 bits of information per second, we are mostly acting based on our unconscious thoughts and actions. As such, we use mental shortcuts to form subtle assumptions and stereotypes, categorising words or people based on the limited information we have at hand.
This short game proved that everyone has unconscious bias regardless.
What is Unconscious Bias and How is it formed?
If you search unconscious bias on the web, it will tell you it’s the way in which ‘prejudice or unsupported judgments is in favor of or against one thing, person, or group as compared to another’. We’ve learned that when humans are being overloaded with information, and are forced to make a decision or action in a short amount of time, we tend to start associating things and falsely remember or recall information.
Unconscious bias is also present in how we view people in certain positions, especially in the workplace where some professions are associated with certain gender and other gender specific biases. In a social experiment, kindergarten students were asked to draw a firefighter, surgeon, and fighter pilot, and were quite surprised when the women who do these real-life occupations joined them in class. What’s surprising is that their first few reactions were: “You are fake”, “You’re dressing up”, which shows how such unconscious biases are formed at a very early age.
Did You Know?
According to the World Economic Forum, in 2020, it was estimated that the world would take 100 years to achieve gender equality. Yet in 2021, the world would take 35 more years to reach gender equality.
Does economic development of a country reflect a smaller gender gap?
It is proven, as per WEF’s report, that the development of a country does not correlate to gender equality and the progress of closing gender gaps. Gender equality is measured by looking into the respective gender’s participation and opportunities in health, politics, education and economics. With Singapore ranked as the 54th country to achieve gender equality, unconscious bias is inevitably present in workplaces.
What’s Next?
While we have been explaining the depth and severity of unconscious bias, how can we act upon them in stride towards gender equality? We like to introduce you to two frameworks that you might find useful in better managing unconscious bias. (Feel free to munch on these key nuggets!)
SPACE2 Model of Mindful Inclusion
As individuals and members of an organisation, let’s face the issues head on to foster diversity and inclusiveness. Let’s not allow our unconscious biases to hold us back and make the unconscious conscious today!
Connect with WOMAG & LEVEL3 to help you and your organisation to continue the conversation around diversity and inclusion and create a safe space for all of us to openly discuss issues faced at the workplace on an everyday basis.
Sources: