Episode 194: How to Confront Bias
/“There are thousands of biases you’re up against in the workplace. The point is to equip women with strategies and skills...so that they can keep going for it without being discouraged and pushed down by others’ bias.”
Aneeta rattan
raina brands
“We were sitting in a performance review meeting...and we both noticed that every time a man was reviewed, whoever was reviewing them would round out this summary assessment by saying, ‘and he’s just a really good guy.’ And of course that’s never ever said for the women.”
In this episode my guests Aneeta Rattan and Raina Brands share ideas about how to call out bias so it can’t sit there in the background, subtly undermining our progress. This is counter to a lot of advice about women and work, which is essentially that we should work within the system itself to make work work for us.
Confronting bias can seem intimidating to many women. It means awkwardness, and making people (including us) feel uncomfortable.
But as you heard if you listened to the last show with Raina, causing discomfort is no reason not to call out unfairness when we see it. And Aneeta describes how she treads the fine line between making others uncomfortable, versus continuing to exist in a biased system.
Raina and Aneeta are both professors who run the site Career Equally. This show is full of ideas on how to de-bias your career.
I’d love to know if any of you have tried their tactics in your own workplace, and if so, what was the response?
You can also read a transcript of the show.