To reduce gender biases, acknowledge them

August 22, 2017


This is an orchestra. ((link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjw/113093984/ text: Grant Williamson))

Grant Williamson

I was asked by the journal Nature to write an editorial on how gender bias shapes the way we see the world, often unknowingly, and what we can do about it.

But there is a third argument that I make for people with scientific and technical backgrounds: if you value rationality and objectivity, you need to engage with gender bias. That’s because bias is part of us: we live in a world steeped in conventional gender roles. To borrow a metaphor from computing, biases have root privileges in our brains.