Ground Control to Major Jane
My youngest daughter (4), isn’t yet old enough to identify with the biases my oldest daughter (7) is just now discovering. They don’t much seem to think of themselves explicitly as female, as much as just “kids” who like to do, think, play, whatever it is they like to do, or think, or play. But that will all change soon enough. Without active intervention, they will be told explicitly, as well as learn by osmosis, that girls are supposed to behave certain ways, be interested in specific things and be beautiful according to particular guidelines.
Knowing these two, clever little people will soon start kicking against the pricks of gender expectations and biases gives me some flavor of existential anxiety.
Some of these biases are overt, of course, but those are the easy ones to talk about. Others are so subtle that they worm their way into places you would least expect to find them. For instance, the International Space Station. The first all female space walk (yay!) was canceled (boo!) because there weren’t enough properly sized space suits to accommodate two female astronauts simultaneously (…what?). I wonder what the logistics for the emergency plan look like?
“Sorry, Jane. It looks like you’re going to have to take one for the team. We just don’t have enough suits that fit and Sally got here first. Thank you for your service, you’re a credit to humanity and your country.” — Ground Control
Or, how about voice recognition capabilities in smart speakers and the like?
Automakers have admitted for years that their speech recognition doesn’t work as well for women. The recommended remedy has been that women do extensive training (“Women could be taught to speak louder, and direct their voices towards the microphone…”) that their male peers don’t have to do. Same for minorities and people with non-standard accents. — HBR
In a twist of irony, maybe encouraging girls to speak louder and more directly into the collective microphone about gender imbalances isn’t such bad advice.
Which brings me to the whole point of writing this.
Women’s History Month is over, but the issues we dedicate 8% of the annual spotlight to don’t go away at the end of March. Which is why I’m re-publishing (with permission) a great essay written by Alina von Davier (twitter = @AlinaVdav) who leads my group ACTNext, the innovation R&D unit at ACT. It was originally published on our company intranet, but it deserves a much wider audience. Please help me share it: Claiming the Right to Variance, by Alina von Davier.
