The word “bias” itself already means something negative, and we are all aware of it, but why is bias still existing? I had never really paid much attention to it, although I have always been aware of its existence and how it undermines my thought process. It was not until I was suggested to consider ‘unconscious bias‘ for my Master’s dissertation that I actually started looking into it. It is shocking how much of a norm people have made it become in their lives. I am not here to lecture anyone on or to try to address the impacts of bias, because we have all probably already known the negativity it brings along. Rather, I just want to talk about it, and try to start a conversation (or two) about it.
Biases happen everyday and everywhere to everyone and they take place under so many different forms. While some benefit from it, some are not so lucky. One of the most common bias we have seen so far is most definitely beauty bias. I think so far, in terms of beauty bias, I have more often than not benefited from it. So many times, when you go to a job interview, people who are well-presented tend to get associated with nice characteristics, while people who do not pay so much attention to how they look can get associated with laziness, irresponsibility or even unintelligent. Oh if I got £1 for every time I see that happens, I would probably have more than enough money to pay for a monthly ticket for Lothian Buses 😐 (which is a lot of money, sadly). And so many times, you see people who are perceived as better looking than you (and yes, I still believe that everyone is beautiful in their own way—you can be bold and still be good-looking!) get treated differently. If you are one of those who are seen as better-looking than the majority of people in a public space, you are lucky. If you are not one of those, I can absolutely relate to how you feel. I am sad, but not shocked, how strangers treat me in and out of makeup (and yes, I know every time it is a different person), which literally makes me feel so uncomfortable that I can hardly go out without a thin layer of foundation anymore. And unfortunately, the majority of us are still doing this. You might not see that you are doing it, unconsciously, but you know you have the tendency to associate good-looking people with good thoughts rather than the other way around. But this is NOT to say that good-looking people have easier lives than others either! I have seen how pretty girls are referred to with slur-words and called names. In general, wherever your stance on beauty bias is, there is always the existence of the tendency.
Another form of bias, that I, so many times, experience – racial bias – or to put it bluntly, I experience racism. I know that at the moment, Coronavirus is causing a bit of a turbulence right now, but it is disgusting that people treat Asians like we intentionally want to be the cause of the whole epidemic. The other day, I was on the bus in Edinburgh, where I was offering a woman a seat next to me because there were only two seats left (note in mind, the other seat was occupied with a guy’s backpack), and she looked at me before deliberately turning to the other guy to ask if she could sit next to him. I know I might be stretching it, but the truth is that, she did not want to sit next to me. This kind of unspoken racism is upsetting, and it is going to take more than a long time for it to be uprooted. And if you are a person of colour, you will truly understand what I am talking about, which is how people seem polite to you, but the way they act towards you makes you sense an extent of racial bias. Just look at those lawsuits against Abercrombie, what an absolute disgrace.
One other form of bias that there will also never be enough words to discuss, which is gender bias (I am focussing on gender rather than sexuality just now). There is always a mindset that a man will definitely outperform a woman at work, hence why they deserve different levels of pay because of their performances. In certain contexts, like labour work where you have to carry 10 tons of things a day and although many women are physically capable, the majority of female workers cannot physically meet the same demands set out for men. It is a whole other argument to discuss about. However, for jobs that require intellect and creativity or in general, jobs that require your brain-work, women normally experience a horrible level of bias. There are just so many examples to back up my statement that it is just sad to have to list out how often women suffer from this discrimination. Even then, I read in an article about how there is a double standard for female interviewee. Specifically, if a woman is confident, she is deemed to not be a team-player and to be over-ambitious, while if she is more reserved, she is seen as incompetent. There is just never the perfect balance, is it? (Unless you are extremely pretty, which takes you back to the beauty bias right away).
Biases happen, and there is not much we can do to others to minimise it if we do not start with ourselves first. I am not acting as if I am much better than anyone else, because from time to time, I still base my decisions on factors that have absolutely nothing to do with the merits of a person. It is important, I think, that we start a conversation, and start to reflect inward ourselves every time a decision is made, to see whether you are judging people based on irrelevant factors.
I have not posted or even written anything in a very long time, and honestly, I missed it a bit. I love to have an outlet, on which I can express my opinions about something without the social obligations and the fear of getting into massive unnecessary arguments; because at the end of the day, we all have different points of view. In this case, when I was doing my research on biases, many academic authors actually agreed to that biases can be helpful, and it makes me critical towards every information I am seeing nowadays.
It is good to be back on my blog.
Hope you all have a fantas-bulous weekend!
"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
A Chaotic Soul 