Unconscious Gender Bias

The_Valeyard

Just heard this on the news.
What in the name of mental gymnastics is this?
Is it a genuine term or one of these new makey up conditions.

Its in relation to the new CSO figures released today on gender roles. Some interesting stats relating to stay at home dads, education, jobs and wages.

Are Am Eye

I think this is where a man has been clubbed over the head and knocked out and then in receipt of unfair and unearned favouritism.

antodeco

Basically it's where you unconsciously judge someone based on their gender. (Eg: Why would I hire a female for this mechanics job? It's a male profession)

Unconscious race bias is where you automatically assume judge someone from a particular race (eg: Don't hire a Nigerian for a bank as he will try scam people).

myshirt

You might be a misogynist and not even know it.

It's this intentionally androcratic society that all us men are complicit in. The secret is out.










What a crock of sh't.

It's this thing that humans have done for millions of years, but now it means you're a horrible person.

Wibbs

If I'm being honest with myself I'd exhibit some gender biases. Not in work/career related area, though again TBH if I was hiring I'd probably be wary of women who might be at an age where a family is on the horizon. Simply because I'd be thinking of the bottom line and a good worker lost for a period of time and the need for a replacement. Depends entirely on the size of the company mind you. A small business would be hit much harder than a large corporation. And the nature of the work too. Many careers could be pursued around young kids. But overall I'd have no job/career bias, unless it involved repeated heavy lifting, though I'd be just as biased agin a weedy looking bloke in the same setup.

In other areas? I would give more leeway to women than men on emotional grounds as a general rule. That would be my main bias. Another one is that I generally find and expect the average woman to be more practical and TBH more intelligence than the average man. Though at the very top(and bottom) end of smarts I have found more men in that zone. I'd expect more passive aggression and emotional "trickery" by women than men, but more physical aggression with men. Those have been my experiences, YMMV. Maybe I have other unconscious biases, I probably do, but none spring readily to mind.

And of course we all have biases of different sorts. Race, gender, age, politics, religion(or no), class, educational status, culture etc. Many are sinners, but almost nobody gets out smelling of sainthood either, no matter what they claim.

bodice ripper

Of course unconscious gender bias is a thing. For everybody. What sort of self congratulatory loon would you need to be to believe that you have escaped it?

It's up there with "I don't see race". Fuuuck off.

Omackeral

antodeco wrote: »

Basically it's where you unconsciously judge someone based on their gender. (Eg: Why would I hire a female for this mechanics job? It's a male profession)

I've never seen a female worker collecting wheeliebins.

Working class heroes

Omackeral wrote: »

I've never seen a female worker collecting wheeliebins.

I've never seen a female putting rubbish in one...

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Tigger

antodeco wrote: »

Basically it's where you unconsciously judge someone based on their gender. (Eg: Why would I hire a female for this mechanics job? It's a male profession)

Unconscious race bias is where you automatically assume judge someone from a particular race (eg: Don't hire a Nigerian for a bank as he will try scam people).

well i'm gonna say that i here this far more from women than men
women comment on women and on men and the appropriatriness of their occupation far more than men do
men comment on wheterer they would or they wouldnt

wakka12

Men and women are different in many ways, physically and mentally.No two ways about that. If differences do exist betweeen them then obviously bias will also exist and it will be impossible to eliminate it

Wibbs

wakka12 wrote: »

Men and women are different in many ways, physically and mentally.No two ways about that. If differences do exist betweeen them then obviously bias will also exist and it will be impossible to eliminate it

For me, I'd say differences among people are more marked than by gender. That's what I've found anyway. I have found broad gender diffs in my experience, but individuals vary. A lot. EG in my own life the most Sheldon Cooper near spectrum(if not actually) behaviour and attitude I've ever met was a woman and about the most emotionally flakey was a man.

"Race"?. I think of culture far more. EG I would have far more in common with a Black/Asian/Italian/Polish born and bred Dubliner than I would with a White Zimbabwean. Or Frenchman. Would I think that different human populations with different environmental stresses over thousands of years might exhibit different responses to such stresses that may come out as an average as "cultural"? Yes, TBH. It's largely an unspoken debate and for obvious bloody reasons, considering the obscene treatment of people according to "race"(including the Irish) in the past and down to today. However if we acknowledge local physical adaptations to local environments, it seems daft to ignore the possibility of local mental and cultural adaptations to local environments.

I'll be honest, my interest in watching women playing sports is limited. Have seen the odd great tennis match, one thinks of the Navratilova, Evert, Graf era. And women's athletics can be great. But Gaelic football, camogie, soccer, golf, boxing, the recent efforts to push women's rugby on us because we won a match 2 or 3 years ago and it's all RTE can afford...not for me.

I guess that's an unconscious gender bias there.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Permabear

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

In the case of rugby it's probably because they dream of marrying some guy named Bod or Rodge or that Kearney guy.

There, more unconscious gender bias!

Outlaw Pete

Maybe with regards to expectations but I find I treat both sexes the same, to the degree that I often get pulled up on in it. I hold doors open for everyone and am, I think at least, nice to everyone, unless they give me reason not to be. If I am angry with someone, how I express it doesn't depend on what gender they are. I find that a lot of people (men and women) that say they are against sexism, actually want and engage in a huge amount of it.

I talked about this in tGC but I find what kind of secondary school someone attended (with regards to if it was single sex or mixed) has a lot to do with a person's gender bias. Before secondary school I put girls on a pedestal as I guess I bought into the whole Sugar and Spice nonsense (maybe even the Snails and puppy dogs' tails bit too) but then I went to a community college and mother be holy, I was suddenly sitting beside girls that were farting, being sexually explicit (about Bros mainly) and were stabbing each other with compasses and that was just the first morning.

I of course have some gender bias but not unfair or unrealistic ones. People that think either gender have the monopoly on almost anything bugs the fcuk out of me and of course you have certain people claiming gender bias where there is none and that's a whole other minefield. Truth be told I'm too old to be even thinking about this stuff now. Good luck young people. You've inherited a hot potatoe which has been baking away now for around 40 years or so. Bon appetit.

server down

We wouldn’t know if we unconscious biases would we? Once they surface they are conscious.

Greenmachine

It not a new thing op. Is it something to worry about maybe, maybe not. Whether that bias affects the frame of your thought or those behaviours in a given situation would determine that. I almost always take out the trash rather than my missus. Incidentally, it is herself who is a huge F1, fan, but she scoffed when I asked if I asked if she would watch a female F1 driver. "Who would, want to watch that" were her words
I am sure I have my own unconscious biases myself. If I named them they wouldn't them, they would be unconscious.

Irish Guitarist

Should that not be subconscious?

Am I the only one that's kind saddened when I see the likes of women in the ufc?..women fighting..its just not right..

kstand

Well I really need to check my white privilege first before I can even start to consider this.

Malayalam

Don't worry. There will be classes for it. Courses that all children will be obliged to take in school and they will be properly sorted out before long, and gender bias (:rolleyes:) will die out with us dinosaurs. I foresee an industry in it, lots of work for counsellors, activists, analysts, media personnel, administrators, lobbyists, etc etc - one with bridging potential to the recently spawned (and sprawling) hormones / intervention for children industry.

whiskeyman

Always found this interesting...

A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital, and will need immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."

So, the question is, how is this possible?





The answer is simple: the doctor is the boy's mother. This riddle has been told for a long time, to illustrate how common gender stereotypes are in our society. What's fun, is to tell this to closet feminists like my mother or sister, and watch them fail to get past the stereotype of thinking "doctor" implies "man".

I despise getting served by a man at a deli. Women choose to work at a deli, men end up there because it's all they could get. :pac:
Seriously though, 90% of men working at delis are just so bloody slow, awkward and stingy with fillings.

tea and coffee

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I despise getting served by a man at a deli. Women choose to work at a deli, men end up there because it's all they could get. :pac:
Seriously though, 90% of men working at delis are just so bloody slow, awkward and stingy with fillings.

The implication being that it's ok for a woman to choose a badly paid menial job but not a man.

server down

whiskeyman wrote: »

Always found this interesting...

A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital, and will need immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."

So, the question is, how is this possible?





The answer is simple: the doctor is the boy's mother. This riddle has been told for a long time, to illustrate how common gender stereotypes are in our society. What's fun, is to tell this to closet feminists like my mother or sister, and watch them fail to get past the stereotype of thinking "doctor" implies "man".

Must try that with my 7 year old niece. Bet she’ll get it.

tritium

Is unconscious gender bias a thing? Yes, pretty well established too One of lots of unconscious biases everyone has.

What grates with me about it though is how a bunch of folks in an ivory tower have misrepresented it as something that only negatively affects one group and only positively affects another group.

An example would be the tender years doctrine (and the related notion that women are better/more capable parents then men? Unconscious gender bias (as a dad this one really grates with me)

Another one; te idea that men are 'always up for it' or women cant be capable of unprovoked domestic violence- unconscious gender bias, but one that has influenced police and legal thinking.

There's lots (more on both sides). Unfortunately the term has become somewhat hijacked in recent years. Actually even the notion that unconscious gender bias has a disproportionately negative effect on one group over another would tend to be unconscious gender bias rather than any empirical finding.

givyjoe

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

You sexist pig bear!

tea and coffee

tea and coffee wrote: »

The implication being that it's ok for a woman to choose a badly paid menial job but not a man.

Not really, women just tend to do so more often. Also men who choose menial jobs tend to pick "manlier" ones than working at a deli counter.

weldoninhio

tea and coffee wrote: »

The implication being that it's ok for a woman to choose a badly paid menial job but not a man.

Yeah, like all those female bin-persons and lackeys on building sites.

Shenshen

whiskeyman wrote: »

Always found this interesting...

A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital, and will need immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."

So, the question is, how is this possible?





The answer is simple: the doctor is the boy's mother. This riddle has been told for a long time, to illustrate how common gender stereotypes are in our society. What's fun, is to tell this to closet feminists like my mother or sister, and watch them fail to get past the stereotype of thinking "doctor" implies "man".

I had thought of the same thing when I read the thread title

I'm sure there are differences between men and women, as they are between people from Ireland and people from Germany, for example.
I'm just not entirely convinced what proportion of those differences are down to nature, and what proportion are down to nurture. And I'm very wary of statistics in this area, as small difference between two groups can be displayed and communicated as much more impactful in a nicely tailored statistic. I do tend to believe that the difference between one man and another can be greater than between one man and one woman. Individual capabilities and failings don't translate well into statistics focusing on averages.

Would I be without bias? F*ck no! I fell for that "How can that be the doctor's son" riddle just as I suspect most people did the first time I heard it.
I would be adventurous, though, by nature - if I found a female mechanic, I would probably bring my car to her just to see. And I'd be massively disappointed if she did a bad job, actually much more so than I would be if a male mechanic did a bad job. That's some form of bias, too, I suppose.

I do find it pretty hard to watch old films, where the role of the "heroine" consists entirely of screaming her head of in as high a pitch as she can manage, interspersed by the occasional hysterical fit of crying, only to be shaken and slapped by the hero to calm her down. I realise that that's how women were seen back then, but it makes those films unwatchable for me now. So I'm actually grateful that this, at least, has changed a bit by now.

B0jangles

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

So how exceptionally good at trading would a woman have to be to overcome your 'lived experience'

How exceptionally good at administration would a man have to be to do the same?

What you are describing is not unconscious bias, it's just straight-forward bias based on your own preconceptions.

diomed

Is it when the sewers are blocked and you assume a team of women will arrive to unblock them?

optogirl

Omackeral wrote: »

I've never seen a female worker collecting wheeliebins.

I have.

Call Me Jimmy

I have seen stuff online before about this crap but assumed we in Ireland were safe from it, found out recently its starting to kick into hr departments here. Very worrying pathology.

givyjoe

B0jangles wrote: »

So how exceptionally good at trading would a woman have to be to overcome your 'lived experience'

How exceptionally good at administration would a man have to be to do the same?

What you are describing is not unconscious bias, it's just straight-forward bias based on your own preconceptions.

Eh not really, what do you reckon the percentages are of men working in trading roles and women in admin? Arguably an accurate observation trying to explain the statistical facts that more men working in trading and more women work in admin.

B0jangles

givyjoe wrote: »

Eh not really, what do you reckon the percentages are of men working in trading roles and women in admin? Arguably an accurate observation trying to explain the statistical facts that more men working in trading and more women work in admin.

Ok, so say you were a qualified male nurse and went to a job interview. Your interviewer makes it clear that based on their experience, women are just fundamentally better suited to the role, so hard cheese, no job for you?

Would you accept that their experience makes their judgement perfectly valid or would you seek legal advice?

Does it suddenly stop being biased behaviour if they don't actually tell you this is what they think, they just don't hire you?

givyjoe

B0jangles wrote: »

Ok, so say you were a qualified male nurse and went to a job interview. Your interviewer makes it clear that based on their experience, women are just fundamentally better suited to the role, so hard cheese, no job for you?

Would you accept that their experience makes their judgement perfectly valid or would you seek legal advice?

Does it suddenly stop being biased behaviour if they don't actually tell you this is what they think, they just don't hire you?

Right, would you please care to explain why there might be some anomalies in the balance of so many different roles? Do you honestly believe that the strengths and weaknesses of men and women are EXACTLY the same (on average across the genders)? Do you disagree with the idea that there may be some roles which men or women are inherently more suited to/better at?

I believe there are many reasons why there may be imbalances in certain sectors (I don't claim to know them all) but I do believe that the example given earlier is possibly a valid reason contributing to such imbalances.

B0jangles

givyjoe wrote: »

Right, would you please care to explain why there might be some anomalies in the balance of so many different roles? Do you honestly believe that the strengths and weaknesses of men and women are EXACTLY the same (on average across the genders)? Do you disagree with the idea that there may be some roles which men or women are inherently more suited to/better at?

I believe there are many reasons why there may be imbalances in certain sectors (I don't claim to know them all) but I do believe that the example given earlier is possibly a valid reason contributing to such imbalances.

Why do you want to switch to talking about broadstrokes statistical trends when we were originally talking about the preconceptions and biases that an individual has, that affect their judgement when it comes to interviewing job applicants?

Permabear outlined his personal preconceptions about what roles best suit men, and what roles best suit women. I would not like to be up for interview with him if I did not match those preconceptions.

suicide_circus

Deleted User wrote: »

It's this thing that humans have done for millions of years, but now it means you're a horrible person.

Bingo

givyjoe

B0jangles wrote: »

Why do you want to switch to talking about broadstrokes statistical trends when we were originally talking about the preconceptions and biases that an individual has, that affect their judgement when it comes to interviewing job applicants?

Permabear outlined his personal preconceptions about what roles best suit men, and what roles best suit women. I would not like to be up for interview with him if I did not match those preconceptions.

He did not say what roles best suit men, he offered an opinion on the performance of those who in his experience working with them.. had done best. At no point (unless Ive missed it), did he say he wouldn't hire a man or a woman for a role, simply because they were a man or a woman. But please, by all means ignore simple and obvious facts and look for ways to be outraged at 'discrimination'. Neither he, nor me are suggesting that men or women shouldn't be employed in certain roles.

Simple question, do you believe that are no roles in any sector which women are 'better at' then men?

Wibbs

Shenshen wrote: »

Would I be without bias? F*ck no! I fell for that "How can that be the doctor's son" riddle just as I suspect most people did the first time I heard it.

I would say that one is nurture alright. For an example, that riddle didn't phase me the first time I heard it. Why? There were women who were doctors in my family when I was growing up. My first experiences of doctors were women. Indeed it was slightly odd going to my first male doctor, I saw it as a "woman's job". so that unconscious bias of mine going the other way meant I didn't see that story as a riddle.

Though as far as behaviour goes, I would believe there's as much nature going on as nurture.

B0jangles

givyjoe wrote: »

He did not say what roles best suit men, he offered an opinion on the performance of those who in his experience working with them.. had done best. At no point (unless Ive missed it), did he say he wouldn't hire a man or a woman for a role, simply because they were a man or a woman. But please, by all means ignore simple and obvious facts and look for ways to be outraged at 'discrimination'. Neither he, nor me are suggesting that men or women shouldn't be employed in certain roles.

Simple question, do you believe that are no roles in any sector which women are 'better at' then men?

People tend to use past experience to make current decisions and future plans. If someone truly believes 'women are better at X, men are better at Y', then they will inevitably see evidence which supports their preconceptions and ignore evidence that does not.

If a job applicant does not match those preconceptions, then they will be at a disadvantage, that's how bias works.

And, no, I do not believe that there are roles out there that women are fundamentally 'better at'. Not at all. Everyone should be judged as an individual.

pwurple

whiskeyman wrote: »

Always found this interesting...

A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital, and will need immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."

So, the question is, how is this possible?

This one got flipped on it's head for me when my eldest had to go to hospital for something. She threw a total wobbler when the doctor on the ward came to examine her. "He CAN'T be the doctor, only GIRLS are doctors". In her limited 4 years on this planet, she had literally never encountered a male doctor. Our GP is a woman, our family members who are doctors are all women, the doctor who saw us in the A&E was a woman. Doc McStuffins cartoon is a girl I think?
So, yes, we're just a function of our own very limited set of experiences.

server down

B0jangles wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Permabear is giving his statistical understanding of what he sees in his industry but you are right he shouldnt apply that to the next individual he meets or interviews.

If he was working in a shop and noticed that the "take-things-down-from-the higher-shelves" workers ( thats an actual role in this thought experiment) were predominantly male and surmised that that was because of height, and you needed people of 5'10" to work that role, he should therefore make the bias against height not gender. So if a 5'10" woman pops up he should hire her over the 5'9" guy. In general he would end up hiring more men though.

Thats hard to do in an interview outside this thought experiment. Like traders and agression.

The thing is to be aware of the bias and train the mind to be neutral.

Malayalam

Studies (which I cannot link to as they seem to be behind paywalls) seem to suggest that gender DIFFERENCE is most pronounced in countries where governments have made the most effort to stamp out gender bias, thus in Scandinavian countries women still choose more often to be nurses and men still choose more often to be welders, but not only that, women in these prosperous countries choose more often than in less egalitarian places to work part time in order to stay home more. They will also choose not to advance to higher positions in companies, even though gender quotas have them within reach of the higher management echelons, probably because they realise that it is bloody hard and thankless work for endless hours at the top, a stressful, competitive, unpleasant environment, and they would prefer to have an actual life. It seems regardless of efforts to eliminate gender differences, most women prefer to work with people and most men prefer to work with things. Of course, there will always be a vocal minority in opposite camps, but hey....shrugs.

_Dara_

bodice ripper wrote: »

Of course unconscious gender bias is a thing. For everybody. What sort of self congratulatory loon would you need to be to believe that you have escaped it?

It's up there with "I don't see race". Fuuuck off.

And "advertising doesn't work on me". Yes, you're special. Because that one ad annoys you, no advertising ever works on you.

_Dara_

Omackeral wrote: »

I've never seen a female worker collecting wheeliebins.

Working class heroes wrote: »

I've never seen a female putting rubbish in one...

Really? I've worked in different fields where everyone mucks in with bin stuff. Retail, pubs, restaurants, laboratories, especially laboratories. And you were expected to, rightfully. No exceptions for women.

Pintman Paddy Losty

_Dara_ wrote: »

Really? I've worked in different fields where everyone mucks in with bin stuff. Retail, pubs, restaurants, laboratories, especially laboratories. And you were expected to, rightfully. No exceptions for women.

He's talking about the people who collect bins off the street. Almost no women employed in that field.

optogirl

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

He's talking about the people who collect bins off the street. Almost no women employed in that field.

Greyhound definitely have or had