Addressing Unconscious Bias

This is actually a really good video. Lots of times, videos of this nature are hyperbolic, to make a point. But I didn't feel that there was anything exaggerated for humor's sake at all. I've had every single one of these conversations (except the one about maternity leave, since I'm childfree by choice).

The most striking conversation for me was the one entitled "wow, three men on one team!" I work in a male dominated field. It's heavy labor, mathematical, rational, engineering, technical - all stuff associated with men's interests. So, even though plenty of my coworkers state emphatically how much respect they have for women and tell stories about how much they prefer to work with women because we work harder and do our jobs better (seriously, that's what is said), there is still often surprise when women show up for work and especially when the number of women on a crew reach some magical critical number. Suddenly it's all "wow, so many women on the crew! That's amazing!"

Except women have been involved in entertainment, and in particular backstage work, for ages. Women quite often dominate lighting specifically, which is one of the more manual labor-heavy departments. I am quite often on all female lighting crews. Now, since there are like 5 other departments, the women might still be a minority when you add up everyone all together, but it's really not unusual to see quite a few women working backstage anymore. But the perception remains that backstage is men's domain and women who join it are aberrations.

And what many of my well-meaning colleagues don't see to understand is that this kind of singling out, even complimentary as it can be (see above women work harder comments) is part of what makes the environment uncomfortable for women. In order for a woman to make this industry her career, she has to be really passionate about what she's doing, to overcome all the little microaggressions and mini slights.

Because, you see, making a point to notice our gender makes many of us uncomfortable. And I'm not talking about eradicating flirting either, because a lot of women who are drawn to this line of work are drawn to the bawdy, rough-and-tumble environment. We like the dirty jokes and the flirting too, for the most part. Most of the guys I know flirt with each other on the job too, because it's a *joke* and not to be taken seriously. We all know that. No one is asking anyone to somehow *unsee* our gender or to treat us with kid gloves. But many of us would be a whole lot happier if you'd quit reminding us of our gender when it's not relevant. When I'm at work, I'm a stagehand first and everything else second.

There's a study going around that I don't have at my fingertips that shows that when women make up something like 30% of the group, men (and I think women too) see the group as being overrun by females, and when women talk something like 30% of the time, men (and I think women too) think that women dominate the conversation.

This is related. When the number of women reach a critical mass on the job, suddenly it's all "whoa, look at all the women around here!" Dude, just stop that. We make up more than 50% of the population. So yeah, some of us are going to want to work in thus-and-such industry. You don't need to point it out to us, just fucking treat us like colleagues.