Our Ingrained Bias

A father and his son are in a car accident. The father is killed and the son is seriously injured. The son is taken to the hospital where the surgeon says, "I cannot operate, because the boy is my son". This popular brain teaser was used by ADAM GRANT and SHERYL SANDBERG to show how our minds are discriminatory to women. Today, most people still cannot figure out the brain teaser, those who do solve it usually take a few minutes to fathom that the boy's mother could be a surgeon. As succintly put by GRANT and SANDBERG, "even when we have the best of intentions, when we hear "surgeon" or "boss", the image that pops into our minds is often that of a male. This cannot be unassociated with the fact that individuals culturally believe in the nortion that only men are capable of controlling some major positions in the state's economy. Going a little way back, talking about my encounter with a professor to a friend, he asked; "what's his name? Then it hit me, why would he just conclude its a male? After giving him details about the professor, to my further astonishment, he added that, "with her professorial title, to avoid confusing people, (Mrs. or ms.) is usually added between such titles". I asked if a man with same title also needs to add (Mr.) for clarification; then he objected, as it is naturally assumed that such titles are mostly associated with the males, he said. As lame as that assertion is, its implication is discriminatory when given a cursory look, and indeed to an extent shows the level of our cultural gender stereotypes in nigeria. Also sadening is the fact that despite the constitutional provision against discrimination on the basis of sex, some organisations still deny certain employments to women, or if given such employments, they are rarely allowed to occupy certain managerial positions. This is however, the result of the improvident acceptance that a woman taking such positions might be a set back to the management, especially when issues like maternity and nursing arise. To this, category of employers, the need to create awareness on bias is critical. Even our movie industries today encourage sexism in our society, this they do by making violent films mostly dominated by men whereas women are given the most passive of roles. Preaching against sexism is of a greater good. Instead of the idea that the female gender is inherently inferior to the male, individuals should be given equal treatments and opportunities. Lastly, while struggling for equal rights and opportunities, ladies should deter from behaviours which make them seemingly inferior to their male counterparts. This they can do by taking charge of their welfare, rejecting the opinion that women are supposed to be under the care of the men is a keystep. Family responsibilities should be evenly distributed and no expectations should be placed on the man to take more than the woman. It is believed that to get equal treatments, they need to act equally.

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