“Replacing the old story of separation with the new story of unity and embracing radical pluralism is the imperative of our time.” — Satish Kumar, One Earth, One Humanity, One Future.
2020 will be remembered as a watershed in the development of humanity. The current Covid-19 crisis is not restricted to health and the global economy. We are also experiencing a crisis of meta-narratives — the great ideas that aim to explain the functioning of the world, or represent an absolute and timeless truth about the universe. The voices behind these narratives that build our perception of the world are increasingly questioned. Where is the plurality of knowledge on the diversity of our planet being contemplated?
As every crisis is also an opportunity, the scenario is favourable to redefine the oppressive paradigms that construct our society. But there is a huge gap between becoming aware of the need for change and how much change happens in reality.
“You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
Creating a new model starts by changing mindsets. For a subject as complex as structural prejudice against vulnerable groups, it is essential to explore thoughts and actions that consider this challenge in its multidimensionality.
How neuroscience explains our prejudices
Prejudice is a quick response from our unconscious. It is an anticipated judgment that does not go through reason and forms our mental models, which, according to Peter Senge, are:
“Images, assumptions and stories that we bring in our minds about ourselves, other people, institutions and every aspect of the world. Like a pane that frames and distorts our vision, mental models determine what we see.”
From our mental models arise our unconscious biases (stereotypes of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, age, etc), which are based on both our life experiences and environments, and on the primitive and ancestral inheritance of the way our unconscious brain functions.
Our thoughts are the result of work taking place in two parts of the brain: the primitive “reptilian” brain and the prefrontal cortex. The first is linked to survival instincts, so it brings a quick response to dangerous or habitual situations. The second, the analytical and rational brain, is slow and spends a lot of energy to form new thoughts.
To save this energy, 98% of what we do comes from memories recorded in the unconscious, which means that we operate most of the time reproducing attitudes that do not require rational thought.
The study Vieses Inconscientes (“Unconscious Biases”, Gender Equity and the Corporate World) completed by Insper, Movimento Mulher 360, PwC and UN Women Brazil, shows that in a selective process, unconscious bias can reveal itself through implicit preference given by the interviewer to a candidate based on gender, education, race, or other factors.
Reprogramming our belief system to stop reproducing automated thoughts is tiring, as it demands energy to build new synapse arrangements in each situation. As biological beings, we are always trying to conserve energy. And the older we get, the less likely we are to change. Professor Regina Madalozzo, co-author of the study, describes the weighting biases on issues of female representation in companies and especially in the area of sciences. According to data from CNPq, only 23% of female researchers are able to reach the highest level in their careers.
“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
— Frank Outlaw
The historical construction of our prejudices: where does our monoculture mentality come from?
Western philosophy, based on the principles of René Descartes in the 16th century, gave rise to the current scientific model, characterised by mechanistic and linear thinking. Despite contributing enormously to the development of our society, the main criticisms of Cartesianism are the predominance of reason over subjective thinking and the observation of phenomena in isolation, disregarding the complexity of the systems in which they are inserted.
“The fragmented linearity of knowledge breaks the integrations between systems (…) The dominant scientific knowledge creates a mental monoculture by removing the space for local alternatives, much like that of imported plant monocultures, which lead to the replacement and destruction of local diversity.” — Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind
This method of reasoning, created mostly by white, European, heterosexual men, observed the world from its own particular perspective of people and culture, applying standardisation and binary thinking. This was the origin of the supposed universalism of the concept of humanity, which excludes the different or “other”.
According to Ailton Krenak, environmentalist and indigenous leader, the construction of this paradigm is the basis of social oppression:
“The human being detached itself from nature and persists in the colonising European conception of ‘humanity’. In fact, it constitutes a select group that excludes a variety of sub-humanities, rural coastal inhabitants, Indians, quilombolas, aborigines, who are collectives linked to their ancestry. This group also excludes 70% of the populations uprooted from the countryside and forests, which are on the peripheries, alienated from the minimum exercise of being, without references that support their identity.They are thrown in this blender called humanity.”
The belief that there is a sex superior to the other (sexism), a race or ethnicity superior to the others (racism), a country or culture superior to the others (xenophobia), a sexual orientation superior to others (heterosexism) and, therefore, the right to dominate, has led to institutionalised oppression. It has also led to epistemicide, or cultural genocide. Through what perspective is our story told: through that of the coloniser or the colonised?
The danger of the unique story
The dominant form of intellectual production contributes to the creation of stereotypes that displace people from their particularities and contexts, reducing them to a singular aspect.
“This is how a single story is created: show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they will become.” — Chimamanda Adichie
Therefore, it is not a question of just analysing, but of attacking the construction of the social imagination by groups of power. Retelling the stories from the narrative of vulnerable groups is essential to remove the distorted lenses that have been placed on us, elaborated over centuries of cultural dominance.
More than to reflect, it is urgent to act
Becoming aware of our automated ways of thinking and the origins of our belief system is essential, but no reflection has an effect in itself — only if it becomes a repeated practice of new habits.
This is why it is important to go to different places, live with different people, read different content, and not only that which reinforces our opinions — especially because online algorithms increasingly blind ourselves to what goes beyond our own bubbles.
I could talk about a vast list of topics and attitudes to be changed. In an exercise of synthesising, rather than prioritising, I chose two of them to explore in more detail:
1. Women and the stigma of fragility
In Brazil, only 13% of CEO positions are held by women, and this falls drastically to 0.04% when considering only black women. In addition, women earn 21% less than men in all occupations across the country.
Underneath this data are prejudices about characteristics commonly attributed to women (for example, delicacy and sensitivity) and how these prejudices have a direct impact on women’s confidence about their abilities. Often, women who reach high positions reproduce traits more associated with the masculine, such as having a “firm hand” and a high sense of self-worth.
This is not the case with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who, with her caring and empathic way of leadership, has gained prominence for her strategies adopted to face the pandemic. Ardern is among the few women who feel confident in revealing a style that differs from the traditional masculine pattern of exercising power.
Reversing the current scenario demands a reconfiguration of the parameters and metrics that define professional success. If the characteristics required of a leader contain patriarchal biases, then female skills will not meet the expectations of performance and KPIs. In addition, this feeds a vicious circle, as it leads to the woman’s underestimation of herself and lack of self-confidence, which directly affects her performance.
The result is a system that is deeply flawed in creating safe spaces for women to express the best version of themselves. The question that remains is: who is willing to lose control and open up to new possibilities that generate different results?
2. Structural racial prejudice
Philosopher Djamila Ribeiro argues that there is a romantic myth that Brazil is a racial democracy because of miscegenation, a narrative that leads to the negation of race conflict in the country. According to her, it is essential to understand racism not only as an individual moral behaviour, but also as a system of oppression that structures all social relations and permeates the public and private spheres.
If blacks make up 56% of the Brazilian population, why are they underrepresented on television programs and in the cinema? Why do they occupy only 5% of the leadership positions of the 500 largest companies, 27% of the legislative government positions and a very small part of the Brazilian judiciary?
This prejudice is centuries old. It will not be remedied any time soon without objective actions to accelerate the inclusion of people who reflect the country’s ethnic-racial reality into positions of decision-making authority. For this, it is urgent to adopt public and private policies of affirmative actions, such as quotas in universities, minimum quotas for Afro-Brazilians candidates in elections, and policies for inclusion in companies, especially in high-ranking positions.
Finally, it is vital to deconstruct the discourse of meritocracy, which is part of a narrative for maintaining the status quo of privileged groups.
The diversity revolution
As my colleague at Mandalah Murilo Bueno explains in The Innovator’s Mindset, nature teaches us that diversity strengthens life. The current terrain is fertile for retelling stories through a plurality of voices, by those who have always been silenced. There are other narratives and they are powerful.
Recognising and addressing the deep roots that hinder the flourishing of diversity can be the beginning of a revolution. The next step is not to conform, but to act. This article is about the beginning of the change. It describes the tip of the iceberg of a deeply complex topic. It is an invitation to protagonism, as it is not enough to stop being prejudiced; it is essential to be anti-racist, anti-misogynist, anti-homophobic and not participate in the perpetuation of the mental and social structures that reproduce exclusion.
And for those who suffer from some prejudice, the change also comes from the way we look at ourselves, from an exercise in self-compassion, from the recognition that we are unique beings of incredible richness. This exercise in self-esteem is essential, as we cannot wait for the world to be fair in order to start to be seen.
I would like to thank all the voices that contributed in some way to the reflections and construction of this article. I could not write about a topic as delicate as diversity without having listened carefully to a plurality of perceptions, which enriched my repertoire and my soul.
| by Renata Cabrera, Mandalah São Paulo.
