Unconscious Bias
- Soumya Agastya
- Jun 16, 2017
- 3 min read
Coming from the theater or music world, I haven’t experienced any bias on gender. Anyone can direct, produce, sing, act, dance or lead an activity or be involved in various aspects of production. We are open-minded and don’t judge people due to their gender. If a girl wants to help with sets as you are interested in carpentry, you are welcome – I started working on sets in the third play of Naatak in 1997 when we built the thatched roof of a hut, painted rangolis for decoration, stood on tall ladders to paint flats, learnt to lift heavy items building strong biceps and triceps :)
In the workforce, yes I saw a lots of bias - unconscious or not. When you are confident, people allowed you to do the job but you have to be proactive in asking for the job. Being a girl, any "hot" jobs doesn't come naturally. They immediately gave the opportunity to a male even if he is not as qualified as you. I can explain in small stories.
While I was still an individual contributor, I was motivated to mentor young interns, give technical presentations for customers, do script reviews, help write specifications etc. write TCL code, RTL and taught others on how to do it and work on RTL2GDSII solutions. When there was a chance for hiring people in the team, the immediate action was to put them under a colleague ,who was a male, though I knew he was less qualified in mentoring or guiding based on his personality. Immediately it stung me – I felt extremely hurt. But I took the courage to ask why this decision was made – my manager was nice enough to take a poll amongst many team members and other cross-functional groups – and lo behold, my name came in the top and he gave me 2 interns after justifying these results amongst the team in an informal way. Thus started my managerial career. So it did not come naturally for them though I was qualified. So my request to you all managers - don’t be biased by the gender – give the right person the right job. Think twice if it is a conscious or unconscious decision you are making. There are many women who are collaborative by nature, good at multi-tasking, project management, results oriented but need an opportunity to show this.
Another such incident was an opportunity to go to another country – without thinking twice my boss sent my colleague – travel incentive - networking possibility. He was extremely happy. Again I was hurt as my customer had offices in that region and could've helped proliferate our product - so I took up the courage and asked why I wasn't selected. My boss had changed - this is yet another problem in the tech world - manager changes pretty much every year and we have to prove ourselves again and again – his answer was “I thought you wouldn’t want to travel as you are a mom”. I felt bad that decisions were made on my behalf without even checking with me based on unconscious bias of the gender. I did lose an opportunity to network with my cross-ocean colleagues, or work with those customers in a different country. I was very passionate about my product and sales folks always gave me kudos after presentations, so I knew I would’ve done extremely well for the company and the product. But without giving me a chance – how could I?
It is not that they mean bad, their upbringing, culture affects the decisions. And it does affect our growth and reputation - if I may call that. These opportunities don't come often and with change in management - it starts all over again.
But having said this, they have been times during my career where once they know you, your passion and impact you can bring, the opportunities were given to me. But being from the minority gender - we have to ask for it rather than it come naturally. Lets all change this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-EVbjUjuhc&t=23s
Comments