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So, this is the third year I'm writing a post with this theme. You can find my previous posts from Dev. Here's the first post, which tells my story in general:
The second one is about my struggles after a brain injury:
I've been thinking about different themes which the title "Nevertheless, Eevis coded" would fit. Recently, I wrote a letter to myself five years ago for a Finnish blog, where I reflected on various obstacles I've faced in the past. One big theme that stands out is how I've been treated by some of my former (often, man) colleagues, and that's something I want to share.
Also, this year's International Women's Day theme is "Break the Bias." Writing this post is definitely about breaking the bias and describing events where I believe bias has played a role. The first step to breaking the bias is admitting it exists. The second step is to recognize situations where it has an effect.
Before diving into the stories, I want to say that this topic is very personal, and I really hope you won't come and comment on anything insensitive. I mean, really, please don't.
You Don't Know as Much as Men!
Once upon a time, I was working on a project. It was doomed almost from the beginning. I saw that and tried to speak up. They repeatedly dismissed my concerns and told me that there was no way the problems would be realized.
Let's skip a few months ahead to the point where everything fell apart. For them, it happened all of a sudden. I remember sitting in a room full of men panicking because we were screwed. I remember thinking that, oh well, if someone had just listened to me.
You Are Too Sensitive!
Once upon a time, I was working in a company. The whole working environment was toxic. Due to the leadership's ways of working, customers' unacceptable behavior, which the upper management silently accepted, and other reasons, I was close to burnout. I tried to speak up about the problems, but nobody listened to me. I was, as they said, too sensitive.
A colleague close to me, worried about me, started speaking about the problems. He raised the issue with relevant people (as I had tried before), and suddenly they listened to him. They also said they had never heard about these problems before he brought them up. I quit soon after.
You're Too Aggressive!
Once upon a time, I worked in a company where I had a colleague. He was sometimes rude, even sexist, and multiple people complained about his behavior to HR. The answer was "Boys will be boys," and his personality happens to be like that; there's no changing it.
There was another man in a company who was sometimes aggressive. One time, he was even kicking things (and almost a dog who was visiting the office) when he was furious. I felt scared at that point.
Then came a day when I was stressed out. I wasn't as constructive as I could and could have behaved a bit differently. But I wasn't aggressive, only a bit opinionated, and my opinions came out without carefully thinking how to say them so that I would be nice to everyone around me. I got instant feedback and was reprimanded by HR.
To this day, I still don't know the exact details of what was so problematic - HR couldn't give me any specific examples - just that I was being too aggressive. It was kind of funny (not in a good way) because it was far from the said colleague's behavior.
You Don't Deserve to Be Treated Fairly!
Once upon a time, I was working in a company, that didn't treat its employees well. It was a consultancy, and they were selling consultants by their CV. My CV was considered hard to sell. (In the next company, with basically the same CV, the clients were lining up to get me. So maybe, just maybe, it was the selling part, not my skills?) I decided to switch jobs.
Well, I got a new job, but the start date was 2,5 months away. I thought that a good employee would resign in advance, so I sent my letter of resignation and agreed that my last day would be in 2,5 months. Everything seemed to be okay.
That was until two days passed from my resignation, and I got an email from my future employer. They said that they had received an email from my current employer, asking if I could switch jobs earlier than in 2,5 months. I had no idea about this. After I started asking around, it turned out that the CEO, together with HR, had decided to send this email and said that "this is normal procedure." I've told about this to many, many people, and not one has said that this is normal. This group includes an occupational psychologist as well.
We agreed with the future employer that I'd start earlier if they could find me a project. A week later, the CEO of the old company told me that I needed to go to work on a project, using technologies I had no experience with, and that the deal was off, and I couldn't quit before the initially agreed date. They never informed the new company about this (I did, straight away).
We Don't Want to Pay You as Much as Men!
Once upon a time, a company hired me. Later, after talking to colleagues, I found out that my salary was noticeably lower than my man colleagues' salary. It was partly my fault, as I accepted the offer, so I didn't really do much about that.
Then came time for company-wide salary reform, where a group of people went over everyone's salaries. They realized that I was being paid way less than I deserved. However, when I asked for a raise from the people who made decisions about salaries (different group than those who did the salary reviews), I was told that there was no money to give me a raise.
A couple of weeks later, a man developer resigned and was offered something like 1000 euros more per month if he stayed.
Biases and How They Work
I've shared five stories from my career. I could share so many more, but I wanted to pick these. These are good examples of situations where I feel bias has played a role.
Let's talk more about bias. This topic concerns all of us - we all have (unconscious) biases towards different groups of people. The first step in not letting them affect how you interact with people is to admit you have them. It doesn't mean you're evil; it means you're human.
As this is a post published for International Women's Day, I'm concentrating on biases towards women. However, I want to note that the same principles apply when discussing other groups.
What is (Unconscious) Bias?
There are three aspects to look at when talking about biases. First, there are the types of biases: stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. The second aspect is whether the bias is conscious or unconscious. The third aspect is the target. Are we, for example, favoring the in-group or discriminating against the out-group?
In-group means the social group where a person identifies. That means, for example, family, community, peers, sports team, gender, religion, race, nation, profession, or some other group.
On the other hand, out-group means a group a person doesn't identify with. It can be, for example, a rival school or sports team, or another gender, religion, race, nation, profession, or some other group that person doesn't belong to.
I want to look deeper into the unconscious bias, as it is the more difficult of the two levels of consciousness. Being unconscious, it's more difficult for us to recognize ourselves.
Unconscious bias means attitudes and stereotypes that unconsciously affect our understanding, decisions, actions, etc. It leads to situations where we might unconsciously favor someone we see as being similar to us (in-group).
We all have unconscious biases - even towards our own "in-groups." In fact, a study by UNDP revealed that almost 90% of people have a bias against women. So, this includes women as well. I know I do, and I'm fighting against it every day.
Links in this section:
How to Break the Bias?
Infographic from the Catalyst shares how to combat unconscious bias as an individual. Unfortunately, the infographic doesn't have a text alternative, so I'll quote the most important things here:
Question your assumptions.
Start to ask yourself: Why am I thinking this way? Would I be drawing the same conclusions if this scenario involved someone of a different profile (e.g., a man instead of a woman, a person with no children instead of a mother)?
Analyze
Ask yourself if the forms of biases and covering (strategies people use to downplay a stigmatized identity) you are experiencing or enacting are consistent with your personal and organizational values. If they are not, identify opportunities to change.
Take a risk
Put yourself outside your comfort zone. Find people such as your manager, mentors, and sponsors who will help you work through those risks to make them worthwhile.
Disrupt the default
Challenge elements of the status quo that may perpetuate bias. For example, create connections across differences by finding a mentor or sponsor from a different demographic group than you, joining an ERG as an ally, or facilitating and/or participating in cross-group learning engagement.
Speak out
Discuss issues in ways that are comfortable to you (e.g., private conversations with a mentor, anonymous feedback on employee surveys, discussion points in an ERG meeting). Share your experiences with others to find common ground and start a dialogue that will generate solutions.
Hold yourself and others accountable
Hold yourself accountable for self-reflection, learning, and continually analyzing your behaviors and experiences. At the same time, interrupt when you see others engaging in biased behaviors by politely calling out their misstep and suggesting constructive alternative ways of thinking.
Source: Catalyst, how to combat unconscious bias as an individual (February 11, 2015).
Where I Can Learn More?
I'll list a couple of good resources about biases at the end of this section. But before that, I want to share an interesting tool for understanding and revealing your own biases.
Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a tool that measures the strength of associations between concepts (disabled people, black people) and evaluations or stereotypes (good, bad, athletic, clumsy). You can take the IAT test in 15 categories, including things like
- Asian - European American
- race (black-white)
- sexuality (gay-straight)
- disability (physically disabled - physically abled)
- gender-career (family and females - career and males)
- and so on
And the links to different sources to learn more (and links in this section):
- About Implicit Association Test (IAT)
- Take the IAT test
- Unconscious Bias Training by UCSF
- Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio - How Gender Bias Corrupts Performance Reviews, and What to Do About It
- Selina Millstam - Unconscious gender bias in the workplace: what it is, what it does and what to do about it
- Tiwonge Cohn - How unconscious gender bias affects all women across the workplace
Wrapping Up
So, in this blog post, I've shared some experiences from my career. I've seen a lot during these past five years. These stories are only the tip of the iceberg.
Sometimes, my work in male-dominant tech feels like an uphill battle against all the stereotypes of a software developer and biases against women. There are days I just want to scream after some encounters and gaslighting, which often happens after these incidents if I bring them up.
But there are good things, too, such as communities that I belong to. These amazing women help me carry on and help me see when the problem is not me but the biases. They're the reason I want to continue, despite the hard times and the biases I often encounter. They're the reason I want to break the bias.
Nevertheless, Eevis codes.
Links
- Previous years' "Nevertheless, she coded"-stories:
Literary Sources
Dovidio, J. F., & Gaertner, S. L. (2010). Intergroup bias. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 1084β1121). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470561119.socpsy002029
Top comments (1)
Love this - thanks for sharing your experiences and providing some great resources!