Looking to #breakthebias this International Women’s Day? Start by looking inward
https://youtu.be/CSGEbuhMQl4
Author’s note: this essay is adapted from a presentation I delivered to the Albany CCI Women’s Leadership Forum on 8 March 2022
I’m a straight-passing, cis-gender, thin, white woman. When I start talking, you’ll pick up a Canadian accent — I’m not from around here. When I mention that I did my Master’s thesis on high achieving women and their relationship to their femininity from a post structural feminist perspective, you learn a few more things about me.
- She’s educated
- Her pronouns are she/her
- She’s a feminist
- She might be a drag to talk to at a party
On 8 March, we celebrated International Women’s Day — which has been running since 1911. In 1928, a volunteer organisation ran the first-ever International Women’s Day event in Sydney and the name of that group is amazing.
The first IWD event in Australia was literally run by the Militant Women’s Movement! That name hasn’t aged well but thank goodness for them. The fight for women’s rights has been waged in boardrooms, at kitchen tables, in classrooms, and on playgrounds ever since.
For 111 years. And yet today — in 2022 — no country has achieved gender equality.
To this day, women simply don’t have equal footing in workplaces, as CEOs, on Boards, or in Parliament.
Doom x3
I like to start every morning by getting soul-crushingly depressed and today you’re invited to join me. The Women’s Financial Index measures the financial progress of Australian women and economic equality. That’s because financial inequality is a major obstacle to the progress of women, families, and future generations.
The Index is supported by Deliotte Access Economics.
The quarterly report contains lots of interesting information. But basically, when it comes to women’s financial (in)equality, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news
Women’s equality improved in Australia in 2021! This surprised the Deloitte eggheads because everyone thought that the Covid situation would further derail women’s financial progress. There are three things that have contributed to the improvement.
- Some men in heterosexual couples took on slightly more unpaid work in the home
2. There have been skills shortages thanks to border closures, which may have created opportunities for women
3. There has been a small increase in gender diversity in ASX board positions.
But you’ve gotta know there’s bad news
Do me a favour: please pick a number between 58 and 60. Now say that number out loud.
Fifty-nine (59).
At the current rate of change, fifty-nine is the number of years it will take to achieve total gender equality in Australia. Fifty-nine years from now, it will be 2081.
And it gets worse.
Because the 59 year thing only represents Australia. The World Economic Forum estimates that at the current rate of change, women around the world will achieve financial equality in 257 years. That means that the first baby girls born into a world in which they hold financial equality will be born in 2259.
Which brings me to bias
The theme of International Women’s Day in 2022 is #breakthebias.
The idea is that there is a strong bias against women in the world. And there is. But there’s also a reason why Australia is “only” 59 years away from equality while some other countries will be waiting 257.
Racism, sexism and discrimination are baked into the structures all around us. We live in a world that has been colonised by white men. The systems of power in which we continue to exist were created by and for white men. So when it comes to bias — it’s important that we realise that.
Every interaction that we have is formed within these same systems. And because of that, we ourselves all have biases. It can be tricky to see and definitely hard to admit and interrogate, but it is impossible to be a human being in this world that is free of bias.
Bias starts with our brains
Our brains are hardwired to trust what’s familiar and be suspicious about what’s unfamiliar. It’s a basic survival instinct that has kept us alive all this time. Without even realising it, we group things and people into categories. This is called unconscious or implicit bias.
Your brain is a busy place. It receives about 11 million messages per second. It captures about 50 of those and processes about seven. Your unconscious mind is habit and intuition driven. It notices patterns and places things into categories like:
- Age
- Sex
- Gender identity
- Skin colour
- Ability
- Education
- Income
Based on these categories, we decide whether someone is like us or not and whether they’re good or not almost immediately.
Unconscious bias is a shortcut that your brain takes to make judgments without you even noticing. It saves us time and mental effort but can lead to stereotyping. And if our biases remain unconscious, they can manifest as discrimination that harms the most the most vulnerable people. This is part of what stops us from being considered equal.
Twice as good
It has long been said that for a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard and be twice as smart. In fact, there are peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate that this is true. After her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton observed
“ If women are too tough, we’re unlikable. If we’re too soft, we’re not cut out for the big leagues. If we work too hard, we’re neglecting our families. If we put family first, we’re not serious about work. If we have a career but no children, there’s something wrong with us… if we want to compete for higher office, we’re too ambitious.”
And as indicated in the Safety. Respect. Equity video, “if you’re a First Nations woman, a woman of colour, a woman living with a disability, or are queer,” that criticism is even harsher.
That’s because the gender-based discrimination that a woman may experience can be compounded by her race, her socioeconomic status, her gender identity, her physical or mental ability, her age, her religion, or her ethnicity.
In fact, many people with three or more minority identities report feeling like they don’t belong ANYWHERE.
Break the bias: here’s how to get started
This year, International Women’s Day was celebrated under one rallying cry: #breakthebias. I don’t know about you, but my first question was ‘which one?’
What we know now is that the scam is structural. Bias exists in this world because the system is working the way it was designed. It was designed to empower certain groups and disadvantage others. Babies aren’t born with these biases built in. But as people grow up in this society, biases are imprinted on them.
Unless you already have a leadership role, you may not be able to make structural changes at work or in the community. But what you can do is make your unconscious biases CONSCIOUS. Make yourself aware of them. Bring them into your conscious mind where you can interrogate and challenge them.
With intention, you can interrupt the unconscious categorisation of people and things. Interrogating our thoughts brings them into the conscious mind — a place of slow, deliberate, and nuanced thinking.
If we’re committing to #breakthebias beyond International Women’s Day, the first step is to identify them. The Harvard Implicit Association Test is a great place to start. The test is easily accessible and it gives you the chance to identify the extent to which you display bias based on race, skin tone, countries, weight, sexuality, gender and age.
Acknowledging your biases is only step one
After that, you can #breakthebias through your decision making. Use the power you do have to vote for parties that support equality for ALL WOMEN. The companies you support, the voices you elevate, and the conversations you start all contribute to interrupting bias in a very real way.
Educate yourself about history and about how systems of oppression affect marginalised women. This is not a one-shot deal — unlearning the lessons of white supremacy is a lifelong process.
Accept that you have biases. And then work intentionally, deliberately, and proactively to dismantle them. If you are in a position of privilege, use it to challenge the status quo. If you make a mistake while you’re learning, be open. Learn. Apologise. Move on.
Remember, we don’t do to other people what we are trying to escape from.
Know thy self
The only way to break the bias in your home, your community, or the world is to look within. Know thy self — and then vote with your feet. Two hundred fifty seven years could become 180 in our generation. 59 could become 41. That’s not everything. But it’s not nothing.
