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From All Your Friends at continued from page 42

These include:

• Assume a young woman with a family is not interested in traveling for work

• Make judgments of people based on what they wear, drive, or economic status

• Assume women don’t want a career pulling flatbeds, trailers or containers.

Dr. Tanya Mathew, Co-Chair of Cultural Competency and Anti-Bias Education at the Diversity Council at The Ohio State University, says implicit biases can reinforce existing inequities and stereotypes.

“It insidiously and automatically seeps into a person’s behavior, and is outside of the full awareness of that person,” Mathew says. “It’s shaping decisions made and how they evaluate and interact with people.”

She says people need to be more conscious of perceptions and actively push back on them to fight off implicit biases.

“Understanding what implicit biases are, how they can arise and how to recognize them in yourself and others are all incredibly important in working towards overcoming such biases,” Matthew says.

Voie says women that are constantly reminded of their gender inequalities and workplace status are more likely to let unconscious bias hold them back from promotions and other career advancements. Mathew says overcoming unconscious bias is not easy, and training programs have some potential to help individuals relearn and reshape their behaviors. However, when training will not work on its own, she says companies have to make an effort to do more to generate real change.

“This has to be an organizational priority at all levels with tangible investment and support from senior leadership,” says Mathew. “Otherwise it will be another performative action without real outcomes.”

She also says learning how to combat implicit bias has to continue beyond the workplace and should be further developed at home. “Mitigation has to become a daily practice and skill that needs to be continually developed,” she says. n