Science Project

My son had a science project due earlier this month. He had weeks and weeks to work on and write up his experiment. Getting it done in an orderly fashion over those weeks, of course, was not the reality. Nope. It was a race up until the deadline with the final touches put on the report mere hours before the morning school bell rang. Procrastination—now that’s a blog-worthy topic, but one for another day.

I made a mental note of his response when I reminded him to put his name on his project. His retort: “We’re not allowed to do that, mom. We’re supposed to just put a number on the back. They don’t want any unfair advantage.” (Yep, this is a quote from a 12-year-old boy.) Hmmm.

Now fast-forward to last week’s blog entry, Raising Hay. I don't normally refer to blog responses, but I feel compelled to do so this time around. You see, one internally-posted response caught my eye, and when connected with my son’s innocuous comment, opens up a large-as-life issue. It stated: "Shouldn't we also make efforts to have our male counterparts buy into this?" referring to the rallying cry to be compulsively transparent about how we each do all the things we need to get done to keep it all going. So?

Well, I was interested that this responder assumed that the cry was solely for women. Hmmm, why would this be? I can see that it takes various types of messaging and forums to reach different folks, but does a message like compulsively transparent need to be divided down the gender line? Why this assumption? Don’t men also disguise their clever, self-crafted balance solutions? Maybe it’s to play golf (certainly the stereotypical ruse) rather than to drop off a kid at school or some other activity (although this is clearly changing), but the manner in which it’s couched is often just as elusive as women’s…shhh.

The National Academy of Science released a report that, in part, touched upon the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated snippets—the implicit bias we each hold. What’s this? It’s bias that we don’t know we have that affects the way we evaluate and react without even realizing it—and this bias applies equally to men and women (which I guess makes it a human thing). It shows up in all kinds of ways. For instance, the number of women musicians selected for an orchestra increased demonstrably when the musicians were put behind a screen during auditions.

Some biases have mini implications, like the blog response, while others have super-sized ones. So the question is what can we do about it? Well, I suspect my son’s school is defending against bias by putting numbers rather than names on reports. A small step for sure, but one that acknowledges the issue—and that’s a big step. Awareness is key, followed by a commitment to challenge ourselves at every everyday decision point to fend off this very human propensity.

How about you? Do you have examples of implicit bias to share? And ideas for how to fend it off?

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Comments

[Katy from Silver Spring]

I've come across implicit (and explicit bias). Perhaps the most egregious example was one day when my husband and I were supposed to follow someone in our car. The guy we were supposed to follow came back to give us basic directions in case we got lost. Now, I was driving. He came to my window. But he spoke to my husband, across me, in the passenger seat. Now, possibly he thought that my husband's invisible steering wheel could magically get us where we were going. But I was outraged--the fact that even though I was clearly the driver this person
thought that my husband was the appropriate person to talk to...

I think the way to fight unfair bias is to make people aware of it. Of course, there is going to be some bias in certain things, and that is good. Job promotions and raises should be tied to more competent people, and that is a form of bias (although an earned form as opposed to an in-born one).

Also, thanks for a great blog!