Chapter Three
Occupational Bias
In the book that preceded this one, Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships across Differences, the very first exercise we featured was called Job Association. We listed a handful of occupations then left a blank space for people to write the first word or phrase they associated with the named occupation. The examples included teacher, doctor, lawyer, politician, and used-car salesman.
People typically make associations with jobs and job titles. Sometimes they are limited to gender expectations and sometimes, as in the case with used-car salesman or politician, people’s assumptions include values-based judgements of character. A great example of this is the oft-told riddle about the man and his son who were in a car accident. The son was badly injured and the father died. When the boy was taken to the emergency room the surgeon said, “I cannot operate on him, he is my son.” The question is who is the surgeon? The boy’s father died in the car accident. If you don’t know the answer we will give you a moment.
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We have watched people spin their wheels on this and come up with everything from, “The boy had two dads, they were a gay couple,” to “The dad was resurrected as an angel or a vampire.” Have you figured it out yet? Did you guess correctly immediately? The surgeon was the boy’s mother. How many of us immediately picture a woman when someone says “surgeon”? Of course, we can argue that all of our biases are rooted in historical facts. In the past, it was uncommon for women to be surgeons, it’s true. But we are long past those days and if we don’t break those habits of picturing what a job candidate or expert should look like, we will continue to perpetuate cycles of exclusion.
Another example of occupational bias is the often-undervalued role of homemaker and/or stay-at-home parent. Whether male, female, or nonbinary gender–conforming, people tend not to identify work that occurs in the home “real work” unless it’s a work-from-home job. Anyone reading this who has been a homemaker or a stay-at-home parent knows exactly what we’re talking about. Both of the authors of this book have enjoyed the unique privilege—and the utter insanity—of domestic work. We both agree that it’s the hardest job we’ve ever had. The sleepless nights, the nonstop cleaning, organizing, feeding, chauffeuring, bathing, negotiating, debating … it’s enough to drive you batty. It’s also incredibly rewarding when it’s your family, and your house. One easy litmus test for whether homemaking or stay-at-home parenting is a real job is by asking: “Would anyone, outside of family, do it for free?”
Since we all know that the answer is a resounding NO WAY, we will just agree that domestic work is real work and should not be treated as anything different. The reason this matters so much is because when a person decides to re-enter the workplace outside the home, the period of domestic work typically counts against them. Why are we penalizing people (most often women, but increasingly other genders) for taking care of their homes and families? Whether it’s children, parents, spouse or other family members, shouldn’t we value those people more highly when they look for traditional employment? The amount of dedication, empathy, organization, care, and compassion required to do those jobs is immeasurable.
People, especially women, are beginning to fear the consequences of motherhood more and more. Some people are choosing not to have children for fear of derailing their careers. That’s a massive consequence. Working class families are getting smaller, families are having babies later and later in life. Delays in child-bearing increase the occurrence of birth complications during and after pregnancy. We believe that occupational bias is part of what is driving women to delay growing their families.
Stories like the aforementioned occupational bias that affects homemakers are often easy to empathize with when you or someone close to you has been affected by a similar situation. One of the important aspects of bia work involves seeking out and listening to other people’s stories. As you open yourself up to the fullness of the human experience, you will reduce your own bias and its impact on institutions you influence.
Occupational Bias in Tech and Recruiting
A dear friend and personal inspiration of Tiffany Jana’s wrote the following when asked how institutional bias has affected her. Andrea Goulet, CEO of the software maintenance tech firm Corgibytes said,
The first time I wrote a job description, I noticed that pretty much only men were applying. When I started to dig into why, I realized I was playing into institutional bias in the way I wrote the job description. I actively sought feedback and was able to significantly change the ratio of women on our team. We also required everyone to take unconscious bias training so that we can be aware during recruiting.
Andrea is a well-established diversity and inclusion champion. She is certainly not the type of person who would set out to exclude people. Nonetheless, her default mode mimicked the behavioral patterns that have been informed by historical institutional bias. What Andrea did correctly was that she investigated the data. She noticed only men were applying so she sought to get to the bottom of why women failed to respond. The mistake most people make is failing to investigate the data.
People in organizations typically just notice the phenomenon and either feel helpless to affect a change or feel absolved from any responsibility to do so. People think that since they advertised the job, anyone could have applied. Andrea was open to the idea that maybe something she was doing could have contributed to the problem. We need more people to own the idea that it’s not just about negligence or failure to do something proactive. Institutional bias can be perpetuated by our actions, patterns, and behaviors regardless of conscious intent.
Moving to solutions in the institutional bias space does not have to be overly complicated. You have to realize that institutional bias is complex, multifaceted, and reinforced by the people and systems that support it, but as long as one person is willing to stare down the problem, name it, and recruit others in an effort to rebuild less biased systems, the obstacles are surmountable. Before we look at how Andrea erased one occupational bias within her organization, let’s review the four preliminary steps.
1. Evaluate your (old) role in perpetuating systemic bias.
Andrea came up in the age of engineering where women were in a tiny minority. As a result, the organizational standards were historically developed to accommodate the needs of men. Andrea’s behavior defaulted to the established male-oriented standards. She likely perpetuated the male perspective because it was the dominant framework to which she had become accustomed.
2. Define your (new) role in breaking down systemic bias.
Andrea is a born change-maker. She doesn’t focus on obstacles, she orients herself toward solutions. She decided that she could be the one to rewrite the norms and compose a female- and parent-centric narrative. She defined a proactive role in breaking down systemic bias by becoming the person who wrote the new job descriptions and spearheaded women-centric programs in tech environments.
3. Cultivate allies.
As a leader, Andrea is good at getting people on board with ideas. She was able to point out the problem and help people understand her desire to find solutions. She got her team behind her and ran her thoughts by others in the field who acknowledged the validity of the bias issue she had identified.
4. Create a movement.
Andrea became a champion for women’s advocacy in tech. She started with her own company and spread her thought leadership throughout the industry by doing keynotes, writing articles, and taking the lead by personally funding initiatives that benefit women and people with children.
These preliminary steps help people get their ducks in a row. It helps ensure that you are personally grounded, invested, and committed to the process. Attempting to erase institutional bias will be exhausting, so you have to do the personal work first. Once you have sufficient support, you can proceed with the following six steps that Andrea took.