How to Reduce Gender Bias to Improve Diversity?

In this guide, you will learn everything about Gender Bias, including:

• Gender Bias Definition
• Gender Bias and Gender Equality
• Types of Gender Bias
• Causes of Gender Bias
• Gender Bias Examples

Gender bias affects at least half of the people in this world, or all. There are stereotype like male will do better in roles such as leadership position, or female will do better in other roles. In our knowledge society, and as technology advances, physical capability and capacity has become less important, but yet the stereotype has remained.

Gender Bias Definition

Gender bias is the act of favouring men and/or boys over women and/or girls, or vice versa. In today’s world, since we have many types of genders. In reality, it doesn’t limit to only male or female, gender bias applies to all type of genders in diversity. Gender discrimination describes the situation in which people are treated differently simply because they are male or female, rather than on the basis of their individual skills or capabilities. However, this is not always the case. In order to define gender bias completely, we first must make a distinction between the terms gender and sex.

Gender Equality and Sexism

The related term worth mentioning is Gender Equality, which is a natural right. When we use the term gender, we mean socially constructed expectations and roles for women and men, for girls and boys normally.  The fact that men occupy the majority of senior positions while not perceiving the same inequality as women do, may be critical when it comes to ensuring the fair ascent of women to senior positions in an academic system. A system that is not equal is usually caused by some sort of biased treatment. Sexism is typically defined as the subordination of one sex, usually female, based on the assumed superiority of the other sex or an ideology that defines females as different from and inferior to males. Therefore, Sexism should not be confused with gender equality.

Types of Gender Bias

There are different types of gender bias in different situations:

Gender Bias in the workplace is a usual type of most discussed type of gender bias.

Gender Bias in culture is the type of discrimination in the culture that women should not have the equal opportunities like men, gender-based opportunities include getting educations or driving in some culture.

Gender Bias in Healthcare happens when both genders are not offered equal quality treatment and care for the same medical complaints or when different manifestations of disease are not considered based on sex, we can expect patient outcomes to suffer.

Gender Bias in the Media means the mistreatment of women in the media, such as implying weakness on femail and worsen the situation of gender bias.

Gender Bias in education means when girls or boys don’t get equaly opportunities to go to school or obtain educations

Gender Bias Examples

• girls should stay at home and help with housework and childcare, should dress modestly and not stay out late at night. People are often judged by how well they adhere to the gender stereotypes. 
• Unequal pay or Gender pay gaps between men and women. Women are more likely than men to graduate from college, attend graduate school, and they now make up 56% of the professional workforce. But women continue to earn less than men in every industry. There is often a discrepancy — some report 77 cents on the dollar, others say 82 — but the fact remains: the gender pay gap remains alive and well.
• Gender Biased interview questions – questions like “are you planning to have kids, or how many children do you plan to have” are seldom asked to a man
• Diminished responsibilities by gender. At times, women are given less responsibility as gender-biased leader stereotypes women as weaker or less performance.
• Glass Ceiling in the workplace – It is unclear exactly who named the phenomenon, but the term was heavily used during the mid-1980s. The definition of glass ceiling is used to define a limit that is placed on either women or minorities, who are unable to advance in the workplace due to their gender and/or race.

Causes of Gender Bias

Gender stereotypes are one set of faulty decision rules that our brain has learned and they are also one of the main causes of gender discrimination in the workplace. Gender stereotypes have been learned. Misrepresentation is another cause of gender bias, many industries simply don’t have equal gender representation.

Another reasons for gender bias is objectification. Women are seen less as competent peers and more as pretty window dressing to be admired and sometimes even harassed. It’s an unfortunate situation where overcoming specific hurdles may do little for other women in the same position.

How to manage Gender Bias in the Workplace?

Many executives and our clients do understand the values and reasons to combat gender bias in the workplace. But how?

Here are some ideas to address Gender Bias in the workplace

• Self-awareness. In order to help your team to combat gender bias, you will have to teach them how to recognize the bias by making the unconscious bias conscious
• Support Ally. Look for ally in the company who share the same views and support each other

Best Gender Bias Videos

Here are some worth watching videos on Gender Bias: