Breaking the bias, one action at a time

While International Women’s Day (IWD) causes us to celebrate successes when it comes to gender equality, it also serves to remind us as to how much is still to be done. Each year has a formal IWD theme – with this year calling on all of us to #BreakTheBias that women and girls still experience.

This focus on ‘breaking’ bias is something that is so important – we know bias exists and we know that it can often be unconscious. We know that it can shape critical decisions, and we know that it can come to the fore in everyday life moments – those assumptions that are made based solely on ways in which we identify; decisions made and words used that simply continue to perpetuate this bias. We need to break this bias, but how do we do this? And how do we do it every day – not just on one day each year?

To me this is about everyone committing to take just one small action that can help to break the bias; and to do that each day, not just on IWD. At Deloitte, we are asking everyone to ‘Be the Butterfly’. Based on the premise that seemingly small actions create lasting positive change we want everyone to choose one action that they will commit to take to help gender equality – from supporting women-owned businesses, challenging ‘traditional’ gender roles at work, being a mentor to women or girls to not calling grown women ‘girls’ (a particular bugbear of mine). We have created a list of 12 such actions and are encouraging our people to choose one or come up with their own – and to commit to do it. It doesn’t matter how small it is - If it’s done consistently by many it will help to break the bias.

So what am I going to do to #BeTheButterfly? I am already a mentor to several women, but I don’t mentor any girls – so I am going to do that. I am going to stop describing myself as a ‘working mother’ – I am a ‘working parent’. And I am going to curate the podcasts I subscribe to – while I can’t dictate the choice of presenter for the podcasts I am interested in, I can decide what I subscribe to and make sure that I listen to an equal number of men and women.

These adjustments may not seem very significant at an individual level, but collectively they can make a difference. We can start to change some of the narratives that entrench inequality - we can help break the bias. Unconscious bias that is built into us all from our earliest age. We all have it. Indeed, when I first heard the conundrum about the terrible accident (child injured, father tragically killed, surgeon says ‘I can’t operate on this child, he’s my son’ – who is the surgeon?) my brain’s immediate unconscious response was that the surgeon was a ‘he’. Happily, my conscious brain instantly kicked in. But for a brief second my unconscious showed itself, even though I have worked so hard for many years to enable gender equality.

I believe this personal awareness is at the core of collective change: we all have unconscious bias acquired over years of conforming to societal norms, but we each have the power to address it. Through small deliberate actions in our everyday lives – not just on one day a year but on every day. And if we speak openly about what we learn by doing so, we can make it easier for others to do the same. We can each be the butterfly. As more of us do this, day after day, we can truly break the bias, and create the new norms that will secure gender equality in all aspects of our lives.