#UsToo: How Gender Biased are You – Really?

#UsToo is a phrase I coined to bridge the growing gender divide. Am extremely proud of the women (and men) who came forward and broke the silence about abuse and sexual harassment and other horrors that have come to light in recent months. I have zero tolerance for those who use their power to dominate others. Both as someone who experienced a #MeToo incident as a teenager, and as a champion for justice and fairness.

That being said, I have noticed with some alarm that the pendulum is swinging, sometimes so violently, that men have been cast in the role of universal villain. This is input received over and over again, in keynotes, emails, calls and informal conversations. Am completely aware that this is a controversial viewpoint, so my request of the reader is “Can you listen as if you might be wrong?” Not are wrong, but might be wrong? Regardless of where you lie on the gender identity spectrum. I believe in the approach of inclusion for all.

As a female, particularly one who works in the gender equity and diversity space, only someone like me can write this article without appearing defensive.  So here goes.

I have achieved whatever has happened so far by climbing on the shoulders of both men and women. The engineer in me says that we cannot logically talk about gender inclusion by excluding about 50% of the population, or by the implicit assumption that all men are inherently ‘bad’ compared to all women who are either heroes, victims or martyrs.

This series of articles is designed so each of us, man or woman, gets to first look deeply into their own self and analyze their deep rooted bias. And then decide which inclusion strategies they can work on, as individuals, to close this gender gaps

This article focuses on uncovering, before reducing, our own biases and prejudices against men or women.

The tool we will use is the Five Judgments (an original bias and stereotyping framework from Unleash the Power of Diversity, 2013)[1]. I ask you to apply it specifically to gender bias. The principles apply for race, generation, style and other aspects – but let’s focus on gender for now  Do not assume that you will be biased against the opposite gender alone.

When I wrote my first book, my editors told me that every time I spoke about someone in power, I used the pronoun ‘he’. This was a sign of my own, unconscious bias that people in power would be men. So take the self-assessment and be open to what it shows you.

The Five Judgements:

There are five judgments that we make about people, several of which have nothing to do with the caliber of their work or their output.  They are:

Reputational Currency: Long before you personally interact with a person, you have preconceived notions about the group that they belong to. This could be based on your values, parental and peer group influences, word of mouth, or social media. If there is no data about this person, you will make the first judgment based on stereotyping and unconscious biases. So the question is, what is your belief about gender? How would you fill out the sentence “like a girl/boy is _____ and like a woman/man is _______ to me”? If a female executive is strong, is she ‘aggressive’? If a male nurse attends to you, is his choice of career ‘feminine”? Only you will answer this, be brutally honest.

Physical Impact: As soon as you interact with this person, you form a second judgment based on two key components of physical impact: your visual appeal and your freshness quotient. Visual appeal relates to your innate physical appeal, as well as attire and accessories. “Should” a woman be slim? Does a man with white hair look ‘distinguished’ ... or old? Apparent age range, perceived attractiveness, trendiness, power, physical stance and presence are all part of this judgment. What role should physical impact have on a person's success?

By the way, as you are analyzing how you judge men and women based on these judgments, assess yourself also. What are the tired stereotypes in your mind about how you should look and dress? Apply this to all the judgments.

Auditory Cues: The third judgment is formed based on pitch and tone of voice, giggles versus laughter, as well as the volume, speed, and number of words used. Unconsciously held beliefs cause us to judge the same thing differently depending on our frame of reference. There is a gender context to auditory cues: women tend to apologize more than men, reducing their perceived power. How do you judge others based on how they sound? How do you think you sound in terms of power? Are you concise or long winded? People will judge you based on whether you interrupt, or apologize or even how high pitched your voice is. Superficial? Yes. Happening? Also yes.

Distinguishing Markers: What is unique or different about the opposite gender? Your gender? This fourth judgment is particularly critical in gender exploration. A distinguishing marker in one situation may not be categorized as such in another. Distinguishing markers can be behavioral, situational, physical. It is the reason I am doing so much work on the impact of media on gender bias. What is your distinguishing marker? Are you a person of great talent, who has obsessed about some small physical imperfection for decades?

If a lead actress’ distinguishing marker is almost always her beauty and youth, and a lead actor’s distinguishing marker is how well he acts – there is clearly something wrong with the system and society that put these unspoken rules in place.

Judge yourself by your own standard, not society’s gender stereotype of who or what you are or should be.

Work Product: The fifth judgment relates to our output: its quality and how original it is as well as how much we can produce in a given amount of time. The most interesting learning here is that, typically, four judgments occur before one even starts to examine a person’s output.

These judgments result in an overall “score” and placement of that individual, which can have a powerful effect on their success or failure. This critical first impression is supplemented over time by perceived future behavior and performance. First impressions are often more important than actual results.

To summarize.

Using the Five Judgments, how do you look at people with a gender lens. How do you view yourself?

I will be publishing one article every few weeks until April, when '#UsToo: Bridging the Gender Gap' is released. If you would like to give us your personal answers to the questions “What does like a girl/boy/man/woman mean to you’, please email our team at [email protected] The next article in this series will talk about solutions – what does one do when one realizes how deeply one’s gender stereotypes run.

Thanks in advance for asking ‘what else might be true’? A powerful question I learned from my mentor, for when one has a gut reaction and wants to form a cemented us vs. them position.

As always, your inputs and comments welcome. If you share this article, please use #UsToo so we can all learn from each other.

[1] .  https://amzn.to/160FcZz