Anyone else fatigued with the diversity discussion?

It’s surprised me over the past 12 months at the number of people outwardly fatigued by the diversity conversation, from debate to outwardly declaring it’s just no longer an issue, or alternatively completely blind to the challenges faced by bias and stereotypes in the work place and at home.

In an interview, only a matter of 7 years ago, I was asked “How old are you? Are you planning on having children any time soon?”

Or in returning from having a child “Well your career is on hold now for a year.” Leaving my 9 month old at home to return to my career only made my job even more important not only to support my family financially, to be a role model for her own future but also by sacrificing time with her, my career now had to be worth it! I didn’t just want to coast now I had a child.

Being told on a recent date that “Women didn’t even want the vote!” Safe to say that date was wrapped up very quickly!

I have seen sexual harassment swept under the carpet… shocking I know! Been told you won’t progress your career here “It’s a boys club!” The list goes on unfortunately.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the stories I could recount of the bias and discrimination I have seen or experienced firsthand, the assumptions made because I am woman… The same can be said about race, religion etc etc and of course these are only examples of explicit bias and discrimination. I have always been a great believer in unwrapping the unconscious so that you can alter your conscious mind – to challenge your own status quo and the “conditioning” of our mindset by our friends, family, society and history, afterall I am biased too, we all are!

If you want to challenge your own bias start by understanding your own blind spots and work on building understanding - Everyone has bias. Nothing changes over night but I’m getting fatigued from explaining that this is a real experience… parity is a long journey ahead that starts with each and every one of us – I promise to challenge my own mindset daily, will you?

Find your bias - Take the test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/australia/takeatest.html