There are 1000 years of Prejudice and Bigotry concentrated in us
“Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice “— Michael Crichton
Our planet has a plethora of problems — countries fighting against each other, extinction of animals, terrorism, and many more. Most of them are spoken about a lot, there are a lot of communities present to prevent such circumstances. At least we know these are not ideal. The most important word to note here is that we know, or we are conscious of the problems.
What if there are problems that we are not aware of. What if the problem exists in each one of us. What if it is a plague that is eating us up slowly, but surely. What if the problem started a thousand years ago.
One such problem is unconscious bias, leading to prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination. As the name suggests, unconscious bias is unfair and baseless discrimination towards a person or a group of people. It is the inherent ability of the human mind to automatically categorize people into various sections based on social norms and guidelines. It is caused by a generalization that allows for little or no individual differences or social variation.
This leads to Stereotyping, Prejudice, and finally discrimination.
So where do we learn this prejudice and stereotyping?
Social studies have shown that children gain and learn prejudice at a very small age. It can be from examples that parents set in the house. Let us look at an example:
Dad: John, watch the financial news. It is important. You will be the man of the family one day and have to financially run your family.
Now, what is wrong with the above sentence. What seems to be a social norm and a routine statement infects the kid with the idea that it should be his fundamental duty to look after the family financially. The “man” keyword has been used as an emblem of power. What this also does is create prejudice against women that they cannot financially support the family or are not meant to.
Another example that I read online was:
When you type CEO, CFO OR CTO in your text-box on your Phone, an emoji of a man in a suit comes up.
This article was published in Dec 2018.
Now, there is good and bad news associated with that, Let me start with the bad one.
This is a prime example of unconscious bias where anyone who searches in the text-box is unconsciously taught that men should be the CTO. If there are women in those positions, they are mere exceptions.
How the hell can there be good news:
I tried doing the same on my iPhone today (year — 2020) and guess what, it now has a man and a woman in a suit. I was elated, thinking — times are changing. People and organizations are putting efforts to fix this big problem in society.
Although a long way to go, it’s a good start.
What are the types of unconscious bias?
I have worked in the tech industry for a while and these are some of the types of biases that I have seen:
- Gender bias: The above-mentioned examples are classic cases of gender bias, where we discriminate against gender, based on some principles we as a society uphold. This is very predominant while hiring for a new position, or assigning tasks to a group of people.
- Affinity bias: When a decision is taken based on a ‘culture fit’, the judgment is most likely an outcome of Affinity bias. Decisions like hiring someone should be taken based on the ability to fulfill the position and not because they share a similar background, opinions, etc.
- Character-based bias: Imagine you are hiring for a role, and you hear that the person you are planning to hire is an impressive online blogger. You check out the blogs and are fascinated by their work. Although the role has nothing to do with blogging, the decision to hire can be impacted by the impression we created in our minds. This is what is called the halo or horns effect where the impression is impacting the decision positively or negatively respectively.
- Other biases: There are other forms of bias like ageism, name-based bias, etc, and are equally bad. I am not going deep dive into these since my idea and motivation is not to preach the type of bias but to understand that they exist in various forms. Categories are immaterial when we are aware they exist.
So, Can this problem be solved?
Yes, I surely believe so. Bias has crept into society because we let it come in, we were OK with it. It will take time, a lot of time, but this is a problem we introduced and we can surely remove it.
Changes like the example I shared above, where a man and a woman in a suit is shown as a CTO will help the next generation understand that there is no discrimination. They are both equal.
Arrange or attend more training to understand and prevent unconscious bias. Most of the Fortune 500 companies already have training in place to educate about this.
If gender, or age, or name of a person is or can cause a bias, explore options to omit this piece of information. If you re hiring someone, standardize the set of questions so that there is no chance of bias.
And most importantly, do not rush into judging a person, do not evaluate a person based on any preconceived notions. Base it on the experience you have with the person.
We all have our own biases, it is more about educating ourselves about it. Focus on how you talk to your spouse, parents, children. Was there any statement that could be biased. Try to prevent that next time. These simple steps can help reduce the problem.
We all should come together and stand up against bigotry and prejudices. There is no place in society for this.
“Our true nationality is mankind.” -H.G. Wells
If you had any related experience, please let the group know in the comments section. Together we can.
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