Blog XVII: The exclusivity of inclusivity

As a society, we’ve made significant advances regarding racism or sexism where it’s no longer tolerated within public or private spheres. Although we’ve been taught sexism should not be tolerated and that everyone should be treated fairly regardless of sex or gender, this still isn’t always the case. It’s human nature to develop biases towards certain people as it’s part of a much larger psychological concept known as schema. Schema is the ability to categorize information for ease of retrieval whenever a situation demands for it (Myers, 201, p.187). However, our implicit biases can also harm other people and often we’re not aware of it (Nugent, Pollack, & Travis, 2016).

Relating back to sexism, biased behaviour is especially difficult to change because these stereotypes about females have been ingrained in both male and female psyche for centuries. In recent decades, new ideas about feminism have sprung up that have changed the way that we, as a society, should view females. These ideas can span the length of multiple books so for simplicity’s sake, I’ll briefly focus on strategies to address implicit exclusion of women in the workplace.

Nugent, Pollack, & Travis (2016) identified that although modern workplaces seek to include diversity and inclusivity in it’s hiring practices, our leaders who still have implicit biases towards make it so that this isn’t the case. Sometimes leaders may try to use inclusive language but often this has the opposite effect. Those they are trying to include may still feel excluded from the group because of the way they are addressed as different from everybody when really all they want is to be treated the same as everybody else (Nugent, Pollack, & Travis, 2016). Others times, leaders may hurt or exclude others implicitly when they don’t offer others the chance to speak or don’t take their opinion seriously (Nugent, Pollack, & Travis, 2016).

Nugent, Pollack, & Travis (2016) developed strategies to identify and address exclusion in the workplace. These strategies include holding private, individual meetings to better understand their employees thoughts, feelings or opinions in the workplace, seek feedback, give credit where credit is due, actively look to improve workplace systems, gather relevant information through employee surveys are just some examples (Nugent, Pollack, & Travis, 2016). Another interesting idea that I thought relates well to inclusivity, particularly with women, is an idea presented by Dr. Allyson Jule about female silence in the classroom (Trinity Western University, 2016). Dr. Jule explained that females have generally been socialized to remain quiet in the classroom, even in the highest levels of education. Teachers implicitly reinforce this by engaging more with males than females whenever they speak for example, or the significantly lesser amount of dialogue females have in the classroom compared to males (Trinity Western University, 2016). This phenomenon can easily be translatable to team meetings where leaders and managers reward engagement from males but shun females by talking less or referring to females using pronouns rather than their names (Trinity Western University, 2016).

I found Dr. Jule’s lecture extremely insightful and it’s helped me develop awareness of implicit behaviour that I, or society, may have towards females. Like many things, in order for people to effectively change their implicit behaviour towards females or other outgroups, the first step is help them develop awareness and sensitivity of their actions. From there we can begin to effectively implement strategies to mitigate our implicit biases and further develop inclusivity in the workplace.

References

Krauzo, D. (Photographer). (2018, February 5). Female Power. Are you sure? [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://dariakrauzo.com/female-power-sure/

Myers, D. (2011). Psychology (Eleventh Eds.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Nugent, J.S., Pollack, A., & Travis, D.J. (2016). Day-to-Day Inclusion and Exclusion: Employee Experience Matter [PDF]. Retrieved from https://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf

Trinity Western University (2016, November 24). Dr. Allyson Jule Lecture: Performing Gender in the Classroom [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwu4dKWcK70