Recognising, Acknowledging, and Addressing unconscious bias

Unconscious bias is difficult to address in oneself; by definition it is an unconscious process. Thus it is all the more important that when we do catch ourselves, we should recognise, acknowledge, and address it.

The article photograph appears above a news item entitled “Sabine Weyand: the EU Brexit negotiator with a British sense of humour”.

Being in a hurry, I did not read the helpful caption to the photo, and just dived into the article. And ground to a halt with confusion at the start of the third paragraph “Whether she has uttered that word[...]”. She?

Being face-blind I didn't recognise Michel Barnier in the photo. Being more ignorant by far than I should be about other EU countries, the name “Sabine” carried no gender weighting for me. And having skipped the caption, all that was left was my unconscious assumptions.

I stumbled over the word “she” and was quite taken aback to realise that I had assumed that the article was about the man on the left of the photo. Of course, Sabine Weyand is the lady on the right. And I'm very jealous of her phone's ringtone (see the article!)

By recognising and acknowledging this unconscious bias, maybe I can begin to address it.

I did try it on my kids, but although both present picked the correct person from the photo, I had to disqualify them from being valid tests. One said “Sabine is obviously a female name” (with an accompanying withering look... makes me so proud), the other said “You wouldn't be asking if it was the obvious one” (unhelpful, but well-trained). Thanks kids! #sciencefail.