International Women's Day - Break The Bias

While it is lovely to see all of the International Womens’ Day events and initiatives that have been unfolding over the past week or so. I have to say, this year particularly, feels like a heavy one for me.?

The IWD theme for 2022, an inspired and overdue choice, in my opinion, is #BreakTheBias. The hashtag is pithy, alliterated, and speaks of change: tick, tick, tick.

But unpick why we still, in 2022, need a day that drives awareness and change around the pervasive biases against women, not just in the working world but in every corner beyond it, and it’s pretty obvious why I’m not smiling. And nor should you be.?

Let’s be clear, before we even scratch the surface of these obstructing biases, women are already working and existing within deeply held societal structures that hold us back.?

These structures are for another day - another conversation. But it is important that while exploring bias, we do so against a truthful context, a truthful landscape you might say that has been created by and favours men.?

Today though isn’t about those structures, it centres on a collective awareness around and action towards #BreakingTheBias - or many biases, because they are everywhere and they obstruct women at every front and in every way.?

Biases like, 1 in 6 Asian women saying they are frequently mistaken for someone else of the same race; and because of this, managers may overlook their specific contributions to work.* When we aren’t recognised for our work, how can we ever prove our worth, build our visibility or create a personal brand that conduits us to progress??

Another shocking bias: that in 2021, 32% of Black women who spoke out against bias and discrimination at work reported experiencing retaliation, compared to just 6% of white men.**

As the International Women’s Day #BreakTheBias materials themselves say, ‘The state of women in the workplace hangs in the balance. Women continue to face barriers to opportunities making it an uneven playing field.’

In fact, globally, 40% of people thought men made better business executives. And an unbelievable 25% of people in the UK?thought men should have more right to a job than women and said men made better business executives than women did.***

We ourselves as women are also not immune to holding and acting on biases. That is obvious. But what about the biases we hold around ourselves? This nuanced and often overlooked bias, runs deep and does often irreparable damage. For every 100 men who leap forward, who push themselves out of their comfort zones and take a professional risk (a risk, let's face it that usually pays off, whomever you are), only 86 women do.***

While that difference might sound small, when it’s happening at every stage of our careers, the effect is compounded - and pronounced. The biases we hold against ourselves amplify over time. What it means is that women’s career progression stalls straight out of the gate, and we never have the opportunity to catch up.**** Why? Because we are running in bias treacle.?

Despite that pithy hashtag, breaking a bias is hard. Some experts in the field believe it's impossible to truly let go of the biases that we develop from the moment we are aware of life and its many facets. But there is some hope, and that rests in recognition, truth, and conversations. Breaking a bias may be better understood as managing a bias or sense checking a bias, because this is an ongoing job for all of us, all of the time.?

It’s heavy - vital - work and we all have a responsibility to create positive new mental habits around our instincts and our actions because the adverse effects of bias aren’t just harmful, they breed hatred, racism, patriarchal benefit, and many more toxic wounds that do not heal. Biases spread; they are the cancer of an equal world.?

To start with, we must collectively commit to bias recognition - not just around why they exist, but why they still exist - and then our work needs to centre on elevating women’s voices, in fact just elevating women because the lasting effect of enough (and equal numbers of) women with influence, will at least begin to swing the seesaw back to neutral.?

This is a long game. But it’s one we are obliged as human beings to take seriously - and commit to with vigour. Both for ourselves and our daughters, and their daughters, and their great-granddaughters after that. Because it will take that long. And it could take longer.?

Discrimination against anyone is wrong. Today, we focus on discrimination against women, all women - and we recognise that women of colour, disabled women, LGBTQ+ communities, and other already marginalised women, often face complex and intersecting biases that compound to shut doors and build barriers at every turn.?

There is so much that we need to do and learn when it comes to managing bias: today though, I ask you just to recognise yourself. Be alert to the unconscious biases that you hold, and challenge your responses and actions to as many situations and people as possible. Investigate what is going on inside your own mind and belief system, and then start one conversation with one other person around what you are doing - and perhaps, what you have found.?

Be clear that it must be a judgment-free space of trust and understanding. Because while these conversations and internal investigations will feel uncomfortable and exposing, they are the first step to us #BreakingTheBias - or at least #RecognisingTheBias and #TalkingAboutTheBias which must come first. And must happen immediately - and without end.?

*The Lean In Women in the Workplace 2021

** The Lean In Women in the Workplace 2021

*** UN report

**** and ***** The McKinsey Podcast