Hello #AcademicMastodon @academicchatter ! I am part of a jury that selects students for our master program (application review + interviews). What are your tips for reducing #genderbias and all forms of #discriminations to a minimum? (@jesswade maybe?)
@leovarnet My tip for reducing #genderbias consist in just doing everything normal but with the restriction of seeing everyone as humans instead of using labels as man or woman, girl or boy: to see people as folks' consciousness, you know? Thinkers with expectations...
@danielyuksek Unfortunately, I am afraid that these biases and stereotypes are deeply rooted and that you cannot just decide to be gender-blind or color-blind... Worse, this approach may have the opposite effect, because it makes you less aware of your own biases...
@leovarnet I agree with you on the idea that -indeed- we do have unaware personal biases, which are defined by our prejudices that are restricted by the subconscious decisions of our true nature: do you know why you prefer chocolate over vanilla? Said that, I think it is easy to deal with personal biases when you understand who you are and where you come from. In real-life situations, seeing people disliking people because of natural differences is normal in an anthropological fashion or sense, understanding this when you are the weak leads you to the point where you have to be stronger and defend what you are. But there is a trick: you cannot get angry because you can understand that someone else sees what you see normal as something different, and it is normal, because nothing is really normal when you take serious assumptions such as time or matter. Wanna invalidate gender bias? Make people care about things that are more valuable and that they haven't noticed yet, and make it something profitable because if something does not have profit no one gives it a try, so give people new reasons to care over common senses interactions so that natural prejudices lose importance in everyone psiques
@danielyuksek Thank you for reviving this topic! One limit I see to this line of reasonning is that it assumes that biases are related to the perspective of the individual, and not to that of society itself. If you think of gender biases as a difference in individual values/point of view, how would you explain that, in a jury, female faculty exhibit a bias against female applicants? (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1211286109). This being said, I agree with you that being aware of its own bias plays an important role in dealing with them! (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0686-3)
@leovarnet yeah friend, I agree with you. You know when something fair is said it develops something that later appears. I think is a good start to recommend checking personal biases before checking on the social biases that change from region to region, maybe nobody is right and that is the fair thing that nobody says