Here is a sample of the lecture I gave at the
2018 CIRCUS WOMEN'S NORDIC CONSORTIUM.
- Unconscious Bias and how to unlearn the unknown -
Twenty six years ago was the year of the woman – , in the majority of developed countries, there was a huge push for more jobs of influence and power in society to be held by women. There was a real rise. And it reached 20 percent.
- Since then, this percentage has notably not increased. We are stuck.....
Why was a bit of a mystery.
The real reason for this is discovered and proven through multi million dollar investments into researching the subject, including at "The Institute for Gender Equality in the Media.
They proved that the reason we cannot break past 20 %, is simple.
It feels like half to us.
It feels normal, to you and me, and has most of our lives.
- Because we are all watching the same media, wherein women hold 20 % of spoken roles at best.
Often un-interestingly and not key to the story.
- They first carried out the largest study ever done of G rated movies from the ten largest film industries, by country.
And then many many more. Like the largest television industries on earth, by country.
- In their studies at the research institute, they look at the actual numbers of speaking women on screen the number of words they say, for how long they appear onscreen, the types of roles they are cast in, and how important to the overall plot these roles are. They look at amount of flesh showing compared to their male counter parts.
-The results are staggering:
For every 1 woman, there are 3 men who speak.
They hold Very few key roles, Especially not characters in roles of leadership
For non speaking roles, group or crowd scenes, only 17 % of people are women or girls.
In the US film industry, Female characters have more revealing clothing on and show more flesh in rated G, for general movies, than in rated R, for over 18.
So the Long term cycle is perpetuated.
And the people in power now hiring women and rather NOT hiring them, especially in the media, watched this media when they were young. And they create it further with these choices.
If the US continues to add women in Congress at the rate so far, gender parity with be achieved in 500 years.
This is powerful stuff.
The cause of unconscious bias is clear now.
So how do we change that, Some interesting stats as Example:
- By 2013 – of the top 100 grossing films of all time - only 4 passed the Bechdel's basic test.
Three simple questions....
Is there more than one woman who speaks, do these two speak to each other and do they speak to each about anything other than the men in the movie.
That is a very low bar to pass.
- Top 100 films of 2011 - 11 films have a female protagonist.
So as the REPRESENTATION in the media of women is deeply flawed in numbers, roles, value etc.... and has a key influence in ALL of our perceptions of the NORM. It is the direct cause.
And it is extremely unconscious.
More importantly - is what impact on our perceived value do these flaws in representation have? That are we second class citizens. Simply not as good at most things etc etc. Especially leadership.
That is unconscious. And yet very powerful. It is the reason why seeing a woman in leadership, is alien, uncomfortable and scary to us. It also is a large and direct contributor to the causes and to instances of and even our attitudes to violence / harrassment against women. 96 % percent of murders today are committed by men, 70 % of their victims are women.
______________________
So we all have a deeply flawed impression what "half" means or feels like. And the varying values of genders and races.
- So even though we may consciously want to change things. The unconscious conditioning is changing our bias in a massive way.
KEY CASE STUDY:
- In the 70 ‘s U.S. philharmonic orchestras began bling auditions, for eliminating the unconscious gender based variables.
They closed the curtains to not see but only hear the music.
There were no changes. But then someone had an incredible idea…. Lay carpet down.
Laying down carpet made the successful musicians, who were females, jump to 50 %.
Because even thought the Audition panel knew it wanted to orchestrate a situation with more equal chances for all, the unconscious bias within these individuals, heard their heels on the floor and began to hear them play though the filter of a value system that places women as lesser.
Gender expert, Professor Michael Kimmel of Stony Brook University in the US
Kimmel says recruiters and hiring managers – now they are aware of the issue of unconscious bias – have to ensure that “rugs” are laid down to ensure people are hired on their merit.
Despite the successes of anonymous recruiting, it is not without its faults or critics. Trials in Sweden and the Netherlands showed women were helped, but ethnic minority candidates were not. It was suspected that bias crept in during the interview process.
People can’t see their own biases
In the US, before “anonymous auditions” became commonplace in the 1970s, 85 per cent of the members of philharmonic orchestras were male, despite women outnumbering men (55 per cent) as graduates of premium music conservatories.
The reason these trials have to be run is that managers often have to be convinced that unconscious biases are corrupting the recruitment processes. They can’t see their own biases, however they can see the results when people no longer have the opportunity to apply those biases.
HILARIOUS EXAMPLE:
Leadership consultant, Avril Henry welcomes the adoption of anonymous recruiting. She trialled the idea 21 years ago when she was working at Westpac.
At the time, Henry was recruiting in Sydney for six call centre team leader roles and was trying to find a way to stop women from being excluded from the roles.
“I’d only been working in diversity for about 18 months. I didn't even know of the concept of unconscious bias,” she says.
“I had come out of finance and my view was, if people knew who the person was, could that potentially cause them to exclude those people?”.
The result of the anonymous recruitment was that nine of the 12 short-listed people ended up being female and one was over the age of 50.
The managers she was dealing with (all middle-aged men, except for a woman from HR), were stupefied by the results.
“People who were going to conduct the interviews were quite taken aback,” she says. They also complained that something must be wrong with her process because of the unusual result.
“For them, the fact that three-quarters were women was a mistake. And the fact that one of them was a woman, well over the age of 50, well, goodness me!”
She ran the same process when there was a “spill” of bank manager positions in Western Australia. Everyone was encouraged to apply for the 20 positions, 12 women applied and nine got the job.
Before the spill, there were no female branch managers for the bank in the State.
Clearly this is a real phenomena.
And as the Institute for gender equality in the media says: "If she can see it, she can be it."
Further key examples:
- Trop fest in Australia introduced anonymous film selection process - and the proportion of female finalists shot up from around 5 per cent to 50 per cent.
- But the work does not end here...
A study on bias in recruitment from the Australian National University, found Chinese applicants must submit 68 per cent more applications to get an interview than those with Anglo-Saxon names. People with Middle Eastern names must submit 64 per cent more, Indigenous 35 per cent more and Italian 12 per cent more.
- And further success stories include Martine Denewald - of TheatreForum festivals in Germany, she ran a private experiment for two years in her two festivals which she curates. She secretly only programmed women.
And NO ONE NOTICED.
She had to research 4 times as much to find the women, and travel 4 times as far to find one women's work in regular festivals, to see it, and then to chose them or not, but...
No one noticed any changes in the quality of the work.
As a maker of art on stages _ I am the creator of that unconscious bias also. As programmers, funders of art, film producers, we have a key influence of the norms unconsciously of the general population. And so a profound responsibility to make sure, we understand how to combat the whole phenomena within ourselves, how to check our own checks regularly . Act for change with blind selection processes and share this information as much as we can.
Other wise nothing changes. we have to count.
Like this guy:
https://jakobjacobsson.com/writing
Jacob Jakobson - A circus artist and researcher who decided to sit, and count the number of of male and female artist's on European and Canadian circus stages. And his results are harrowing.
We have to do better.
2018 CIRCUS WOMEN'S NORDIC CONSORTIUM.
- Unconscious Bias and how to unlearn the unknown -
Twenty six years ago was the year of the woman – , in the majority of developed countries, there was a huge push for more jobs of influence and power in society to be held by women. There was a real rise. And it reached 20 percent.
- Since then, this percentage has notably not increased. We are stuck.....
Why was a bit of a mystery.
The real reason for this is discovered and proven through multi million dollar investments into researching the subject, including at "The Institute for Gender Equality in the Media.
They proved that the reason we cannot break past 20 %, is simple.
It feels like half to us.
It feels normal, to you and me, and has most of our lives.
- Because we are all watching the same media, wherein women hold 20 % of spoken roles at best.
Often un-interestingly and not key to the story.
- They first carried out the largest study ever done of G rated movies from the ten largest film industries, by country.
And then many many more. Like the largest television industries on earth, by country.
- In their studies at the research institute, they look at the actual numbers of speaking women on screen the number of words they say, for how long they appear onscreen, the types of roles they are cast in, and how important to the overall plot these roles are. They look at amount of flesh showing compared to their male counter parts.
-The results are staggering:
For every 1 woman, there are 3 men who speak.
They hold Very few key roles, Especially not characters in roles of leadership
For non speaking roles, group or crowd scenes, only 17 % of people are women or girls.
In the US film industry, Female characters have more revealing clothing on and show more flesh in rated G, for general movies, than in rated R, for over 18.
So the Long term cycle is perpetuated.
And the people in power now hiring women and rather NOT hiring them, especially in the media, watched this media when they were young. And they create it further with these choices.
If the US continues to add women in Congress at the rate so far, gender parity with be achieved in 500 years.
This is powerful stuff.
The cause of unconscious bias is clear now.
So how do we change that, Some interesting stats as Example:
- By 2013 – of the top 100 grossing films of all time - only 4 passed the Bechdel's basic test.
Three simple questions....
Is there more than one woman who speaks, do these two speak to each other and do they speak to each about anything other than the men in the movie.
That is a very low bar to pass.
- Top 100 films of 2011 - 11 films have a female protagonist.
So as the REPRESENTATION in the media of women is deeply flawed in numbers, roles, value etc.... and has a key influence in ALL of our perceptions of the NORM. It is the direct cause.
And it is extremely unconscious.
More importantly - is what impact on our perceived value do these flaws in representation have? That are we second class citizens. Simply not as good at most things etc etc. Especially leadership.
That is unconscious. And yet very powerful. It is the reason why seeing a woman in leadership, is alien, uncomfortable and scary to us. It also is a large and direct contributor to the causes and to instances of and even our attitudes to violence / harrassment against women. 96 % percent of murders today are committed by men, 70 % of their victims are women.
______________________
So we all have a deeply flawed impression what "half" means or feels like. And the varying values of genders and races.
- So even though we may consciously want to change things. The unconscious conditioning is changing our bias in a massive way.
KEY CASE STUDY:
- In the 70 ‘s U.S. philharmonic orchestras began bling auditions, for eliminating the unconscious gender based variables.
They closed the curtains to not see but only hear the music.
There were no changes. But then someone had an incredible idea…. Lay carpet down.
Laying down carpet made the successful musicians, who were females, jump to 50 %.
Because even thought the Audition panel knew it wanted to orchestrate a situation with more equal chances for all, the unconscious bias within these individuals, heard their heels on the floor and began to hear them play though the filter of a value system that places women as lesser.
Gender expert, Professor Michael Kimmel of Stony Brook University in the US
Kimmel says recruiters and hiring managers – now they are aware of the issue of unconscious bias – have to ensure that “rugs” are laid down to ensure people are hired on their merit.
Despite the successes of anonymous recruiting, it is not without its faults or critics. Trials in Sweden and the Netherlands showed women were helped, but ethnic minority candidates were not. It was suspected that bias crept in during the interview process.
People can’t see their own biases
In the US, before “anonymous auditions” became commonplace in the 1970s, 85 per cent of the members of philharmonic orchestras were male, despite women outnumbering men (55 per cent) as graduates of premium music conservatories.
The reason these trials have to be run is that managers often have to be convinced that unconscious biases are corrupting the recruitment processes. They can’t see their own biases, however they can see the results when people no longer have the opportunity to apply those biases.
HILARIOUS EXAMPLE:
Leadership consultant, Avril Henry welcomes the adoption of anonymous recruiting. She trialled the idea 21 years ago when she was working at Westpac.
At the time, Henry was recruiting in Sydney for six call centre team leader roles and was trying to find a way to stop women from being excluded from the roles.
“I’d only been working in diversity for about 18 months. I didn't even know of the concept of unconscious bias,” she says.
“I had come out of finance and my view was, if people knew who the person was, could that potentially cause them to exclude those people?”.
The result of the anonymous recruitment was that nine of the 12 short-listed people ended up being female and one was over the age of 50.
The managers she was dealing with (all middle-aged men, except for a woman from HR), were stupefied by the results.
“People who were going to conduct the interviews were quite taken aback,” she says. They also complained that something must be wrong with her process because of the unusual result.
“For them, the fact that three-quarters were women was a mistake. And the fact that one of them was a woman, well over the age of 50, well, goodness me!”
She ran the same process when there was a “spill” of bank manager positions in Western Australia. Everyone was encouraged to apply for the 20 positions, 12 women applied and nine got the job.
Before the spill, there were no female branch managers for the bank in the State.
Clearly this is a real phenomena.
And as the Institute for gender equality in the media says: "If she can see it, she can be it."
Further key examples:
- Trop fest in Australia introduced anonymous film selection process - and the proportion of female finalists shot up from around 5 per cent to 50 per cent.
- But the work does not end here...
A study on bias in recruitment from the Australian National University, found Chinese applicants must submit 68 per cent more applications to get an interview than those with Anglo-Saxon names. People with Middle Eastern names must submit 64 per cent more, Indigenous 35 per cent more and Italian 12 per cent more.
- And further success stories include Martine Denewald - of TheatreForum festivals in Germany, she ran a private experiment for two years in her two festivals which she curates. She secretly only programmed women.
And NO ONE NOTICED.
She had to research 4 times as much to find the women, and travel 4 times as far to find one women's work in regular festivals, to see it, and then to chose them or not, but...
No one noticed any changes in the quality of the work.
As a maker of art on stages _ I am the creator of that unconscious bias also. As programmers, funders of art, film producers, we have a key influence of the norms unconsciously of the general population. And so a profound responsibility to make sure, we understand how to combat the whole phenomena within ourselves, how to check our own checks regularly . Act for change with blind selection processes and share this information as much as we can.
Other wise nothing changes. we have to count.
Like this guy:
https://jakobjacobsson.com/writing
Jacob Jakobson - A circus artist and researcher who decided to sit, and count the number of of male and female artist's on European and Canadian circus stages. And his results are harrowing.
We have to do better.
We wish to acknowledge the Butchulla people, the Yugambeh people, the clans that make up the Bundjalung Nations, the Turrbal and Yaggera people, as original custodians of the lands and seas where we often work.
Places where stories, culture and art have been made and shared for millennia. Recognising their ancestors, as well as past, current and future elders; whose sovereign country was never ceded.
Australia always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.