Janet Crawford hits a great point on gender inequality, that we (men and women) all have biases. Often times it is easy to see someone talk about gender inequality and begin to blame men for it. After all, the statistics show that men reap many more benefits than women do just for being men. It is an ascribed status that tends to be treated like an achievement. Janet made the point that before we can all address gender inequality, we must all face our biases. She talks about the implicit biases that many people develop, including gender bias. She gets into where these biases may come from, as they are unconsciously developed. A large portion of these biases come from media. We live in a world where women are degraded for simply being women. We use feminine words to make things seem weaker or worse. It’s not just men who do this. When everyone accepts that they contribute to gender inequality then more people can commit to fighting this inequality. Janet challenged everyone to be observant of biases around us. We should become aware of it. That is what we have been talking about throughout this class: awareness. We need to open our eyes and see that there are problems and we need to figure out what the problems are before we try to solve them. I love that Janet ended her talk encouraging the men and letting them know that they are not to blame. I think it is really easy for us to see that women aren’t being treated equally so we just blame all men. This not only develops our own biases, but it also makes improvements more difficult. If we stopped trying to make men feel bad for the power that they hold and and start encouraging them to use it to get more women into power, we could see improvement. Fixing gender equality isn’t a job for women and it isn’t a job for men. It is a job for our nation. Everyone must work together and do their part in making it happen. -M&M123
This topic really hit home for me because I have studied gender bias and the causes and experienced them first hand. The most frustrating thing about gender bias or any bias for that matter is there is no easy solution. This talk does not provide a clear answer to the problem of gender bias but it does allow those fighting for gender equity some important tools in guiding conversation about gender bias. I was required to write blog posts about gender bias for this project and share them with my classmates. My classmates would comment in complete agreeance with me while I knew that they themselves were participating in alienating almost sexist behavior. These classmates and I were part of an organization in high school that had some problems with sexism. I participated in this problem all my years of high school and every year the leadership would not only be extremely male centered but also the positions that female held were solely stereotypical gendered roles. In my last three years of high school females only held the secretary and reporter positions of leadership. Every year there would be well qualified and very active females that ran for president, vice president and treasurer roles that every year they would be placed in the secondary roles of secretary or reporter. It’s important to note that these offices were not elected by popular vote rather they were selected by a panel of previous officers and alumni of the organization. I noticed this pattern fairly early on especially when I ran for president two years in a row and received the reporter position. According to this video I made the two basic mistakes when dealing with gender bias or sexism. I didn’t talk about it. I mentioned it to some of my close female friends and to my family but I never addressed the issue with the head of the organization or my fellow male officers. But not speaking about this issue I did an incredible injustice to not only my current fellow female officers and members of the organization but also to all future members as this problem still persists even today. The other problem that I caused is I blamed the male members of the officer team, the alumni and the the leader of the organization instead of recognizing this was everyone’s problem no one person could be to blame. If I could go back and do this all again I would speak up and try to have a blameless conversation about the injustices occurring in the organization. - Glass123
I thought this video brought up some interesting points. She is right in saying that we all have subconscious biases, and I think that some of us are more aware of it than others. With that being said, I also think that with her past experience at Berkley having to constantly deal with the sexist comments it made her biased towards men. I also think that for women it is hard not to be. They have the advantage in a lot of things that the women do get the shorter stick on, but is it really their fault or is it something that the media/society is portraying. An example of this is the magazine cover that she showed in the video. It was a blonde lady who was pretty and was also the CEO of a major fortune company. She made a witty comment about it while showing the slide that was intended to be funny, but for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way. Janet Crawford wants us to take this topic seriously, so I feel like the tone she sent while making that comment changed the way I viewed it. I get that she was trying to portray how the media was displaying the front page, but I think she should have taken it more seriously. Although, I do have to give her credit at the end of the video she made a shout out to the men saying that inequality was something that women needed help with, and that it’s a problem we should fight together. And she’s right, the only way this is going to end is if we ALL put a stop to it. Another thing I liked about the video was when she referenced how men are thought of as these macho, alpha men who are slightly aggressive, and that is excluding a huge margin of men who aren’t like that at all. But as she stated in the beginning, we all have ingrained, subconscious biases. sunflower123
Gender inequality and bias, even in a high income country, is very real. My mom has always told me something I think I will carry with me all my life, “hot women get promoted.” This is so true. I see gender inequality constantly at work. If I want to move up the ranks, I have to work twice as hard as the man competing with me and look nice while I do so. My mother is an extremely successful and educated woman, and her truths about gender inequality really resonate with me. In the video, the speaker showed a picture of the bathroom lines at a business conference, and it was the only time in my life I had ever seen no line for the women’s bathroom and a line for the men’s bathroom. The people professionally networking were men, and it just shows who the companies want to send to a conference to represent them. Culturally, men are taken more seriously than women, and if a woman were to act seriously or demanding in the same way a man is acting, she is labelled a *female dog. These biases are developed unconsciously beginning at birth. There is some biological component to these tendencies. The woman has to stay home after childbirth because that is quite a feat to recover from and the baby needs food unless you birthed a robot. The man most likely goes to work during that time because the family still needs an income. Those roles later develop into ‘female is nurturing’ and ‘male is the breadwinner’ ideologies. This mentality gives women a disadvantage, especially in the workplace, because the person who is hiring could want a commanding employee to work for the company. The speaker tells us of a story where when no names are attached to job applications, the people chosen for the job usually have a 50/50 ratio men to women, but when names are attached, the ratio shifts to about 90/10 men to women. That is unconscious gender bias in the flesh. aardvark123
Gender inequality is a topic that is commonly talked about but never really resolved. It is something that many people speak on and talk about how unfair it is, however is it ever changing? Yes it may be getting better in some areas, but that doesn’t fix the problem at hand. We are still not treated EQUALLY. There is absolutely no reason for a man to be paid more or to have special treatment because they are a male. That does not make them a superior gender, it does not make them smarter than women, and it defiantly doesn’t make them so much better that they should be paid more for the same amount of work. In the video she states that only 5% of fortune 500 CEOs are women and 18% of congress. That right there is such a low percentage. That percentage should make a difference to people. It should show how women are not treated as fair as men are in the work force. More women make up our world than men yet more men are in charge or hold higher positions than women. The fact that everyone associates the words “leader”, “strong”, and “protective” with men is something that needs to change. Women can be very strong leaders and very protective. Those don’t have to be attributed just to men. My own mother is one of the strongest and most protective person I know. And I don’t know about everyone else’s households but my mother is the leader of our household over my father. She makes many great point about subconscious bias’s as well. They don’t just judge people, these bias’s direct our life choices. I think that is a really powerful statement. I don’t think many people view the world like that, however it is a very real problem in our society. Litv123
This TED talk obviously is going to be revolving around the world of gender inequality. The woman speaking, Janet Crawford, talks about her times in school back in the eighties and how she had to struggle with rough sexism all throughout that path. Even though she was being harassed and such by male colleges, she still saw this as an uprising for women. It was now the time for women to be proud and rise in this field. Sadly though, thirty years later nothing has changed much when it comes to the conversation. Yes, more women are in deed in the field now, but it does not change the sexist behavior that surrounds it. Only five percent of women are CEOs and eighteen percent are in congress, this is a pretty low number for the year 2015 (the year this video was published). This is even more low when you consider the fact that women make up about fifty-one percent of the population. So shouldn’t more women be in pour according to these statistics? I believe that many women are seen as a joke when they want to pursue a career such as politics or high government related jobs at all. For some reason, we have this belief as a society that a man should be the figurehead for big jobs and companies opposed to seeing a woman. This leads me into Crawford’s next point about how both men and women can be gender biased. She says that we go about our days with the unconscious bias that we stay put in our gender roles. We say and do things all day without realizing we are staying in our boundaries as men and women. Which I can understand, not everyone wakes up and thinks “I’m gonna stir up some trouble today”(meaning go against the gender norm). Just the way someone’s dresses before they leave the house already has the unconscious bias of staying in their roll. rosethorns123
This video was about a woman narrating on how she though gender inequality would have changed by now over 30 years. Janet Crawford gave information some researchers of how gender inequality has not changed. It was found that 5% of women are in the corporate world and only 18% of women make up congress. With the gender inequality men have the finger being pointed at them, but in society we all are bias. Crawford explained on how the brain works daily. She explained that we as human beings decide based of a conscious and rational process of deliberation. Outside of our awareness our brain is scanning for repeated patterns and stores them of how things should be in life. So that comes in play of what a child’s morals and values consist of. Sometimes environmental behavior can have a profound effect of how one may think things are supposed to go in life. The IAT is what is used to measure unconscious decisions. It is imagery that we see in media that our brain us unconsciously in our calculations of who belongs where and what confidence looks like. Crawford explained how there was a study on male and females putting in applications anonymously and according to their gender. Studies showed that when the applications were submitted anonymously the one with the most education was picked. Now when the applications were turned in identifying them as male or female the application with male was picked. This shows how society is being bias within the workforce against women. I don’t think gender inequality would never end. Especially in the workforce. Whether we agree or not many Americans feel that men are supposed to provide and the women are supposed to be the care-taker of the home. On the other hand, women can do the same things that men can do. They have always been able to perform the same way or even better than a man. I feel that gender inequality should be changed. All men and women are equal. Rendezvous123
I have always found with TED talks that I either love them or hate them. With this one in particular I found Janet Crawford's annotation of implicit gender bias to be quite fascinating actually and seemingly practical in the outside world. Through the centuries and even from the day a child is born they are taught to respect all people equally and use good manners; however, what they are not taught is how to avoid the implicit gender biases between men and women that they see growing up. As a child grows up they may witness men in a stronger working position than women. It's not necessarily that women aren't capable of doing these jobs or don't want to do them, but rather that in the male dominated world we live in they just can't get those jobs. Crawford also notes the importance of neuroscience in implicit based decisions regarding how a certain gender feels when they see or hear a member of the opposition gender from across a crowded room. Implicit gender bias or just general bias in general is not just a one-sided toss of the coin either, both men and women are equally as guilty of gender bias when examining a member of the opposite sex. Going back to the idea of sociological imagination, there is a vicious cycle that is created by men and women when they base their actions on the realization of a gender bias over the interaction or communication with a member of the opposite sex. There are a whole lot of men and a whole lot of women who would like to make a realization about a member of the opposite sex before conducting a thorough examination and communication process with the individual themselves. This ties into the vicious cycle of Implicit gender biases and their trying implications within the sociological imagination of a society.-MrG123
The presenter made many interesting and valid points about gender inequality. One of the points that it is pretty well known is when she mentioned that there is still a pay gap between men and women. Women earning less than a man working the same hours doing the same job. She also mentioned that there are still more male CEO's than female CEO's. I have heard a few people say that sometimes, female bosses are better to work for than for male bosses. Maybe it could be because women are less aggressive with leadership positions or they understand and handle situations better. The reasoning behind that? I haven't a clue. One statistic that she made was that even though women make up about 51% of the population, only 15% of them are cast as the lead role in a film. One of the things that I found interesting is when she searched female executives on the internet, one of the pictures was a little "sexy." remember in class there was a point in our textbook where women are most associated as a sex symbol. That point popped in my head when I saw that picture. Sometimes we cannoit help making these gender associations because according to her when you see those associations outside it unconcioulsy enters your brain. "Your brain is always scanning for repeated patterns" she says. Since gender inequality is still evident then that is a repeated pattern hence us making these associations. At the end of her speech she says, "No one is to blame for the problem, but we are responsible for the solution." I agree and I can see that point. panda123
I have listened to a variety of different TED talks in high school and in church. Janet Crawford believed all gender inequality would be demolished thirty years ago. Much to her disappointment and sorrow, she believes nothing has changed. Only five percent of CEOs are women. Only fifteen percent of women have lead roles in movies. Honestly, those statistics saddened and angered me. I like the point Crawford made that we should not always blame males for the sexism. Without being aware of it, both males and females have a certain amount of gender bias. A person's IAT is what makes unconscious decisions for us. People have an easier time correlating specific words to either males or females. Nurture, care taker, and words like that are more geared towards females. For men, we think of leaders, power, and decision makers. If you were to google images female executives, the results would shock you. Crawford displayed it during her video. Twenty-two images came up with only two of them being females. There are gender norms in our society today that may or may not ever change because they are so wired in both men and women's minds. Gender equality is not a woman's issue, according to Crawford. Men would also benefit from this equality. Some men do not have muscles, power, or high executive jobs. There are single parent fathers who are great at being a care taker, for example. The frustrating thing about gender bias and inequality is that there are no quick or easy solutions to put a stop to it. It will take time. Sociological imagination is a large part of gender inequality and biases. It is a vicious cycle that is passed down from generation to generation. Questioning are actions, thoughts, and confronting others (in a respectful manner) about their own about gender biases, will help solve this problem of gender inequality. -softball_savvy123
I thought this tedtalk addressed more implicit biased habits like we talked about in class today. I liked the example she gave about the study that had companies review two different applications and then chose who they would hire for a certain position. The results showed that the companies overwhelmingly preferred the candidate that had more education when the name was not attached to the application. However, when the names of the applicants were given, the company overwhelmingly chose the candidate that had a male name. That study there exactly shows subconscious biases that we have in our society. The speaker further went on and briefly discussed what occurs in our minds when we develop implicit biases. Typically, we are associating certain patterns that we see often and we are subconsciously storing those patterns in our brains. For example, a common pattern that we see in men is that they are leaders or that they take on more science related occupations. We store these certain patterns so that we are able to make a quick decision when we recognize those patterns in the future. I think think this whole concept relates to our primal instincts and our fight-or-flight response. Back when human beings used basic instinct to survive, we used remembered patterns to make sudden decisions that determined whether or not we stabbed an incoming bear or disregarding from eating the funny looking berry that may have caused a stomach ache in the past. When watching this tedtalk, I additionally liked how the speaker made the point that we shouldn’t be pointing our fingers at all the men and blaming them for creating the societal norms that make it okay for gender inequity. The speaker addresses that we all must work together to create a societal change and not fight over it. Society consists of men and women. Though men may be dominating society over the past hundreds or years, women have made it okay for them to do so. It was only in the 20th and 21st century that we all realized that gender inequity is something that needs to be ridden of. Check123
I found Janet Crawford’s Ted Talk very interesting. While most talks on gender equality discuss how women should just simply be treated the same as men and we should stop viewing women and men the way we do, Janet discusses how many of our biases are unconscious. We have this unconscious bias that we can never get rid of no matter how impartial towards the sexes we think we may be. She discussed how men and women usually associate words such as “strong”, “leader” and “protective” towards men and “nurturing”, “emotional” and “fragile” to women. This lead her to the conclusion that if you grew up in a culture similar to the United States (patriarchal) then you will most likely have these unconscious biases. Women are constantly having to prove themselves that they are the “real deal” as Forbes said it. I found this especially interesting because last semester I studied the amount of women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs. In one study I read, it stated that 74% of young girls state their favorite subjects are STEM but in contrast only 29% of women choose to pursue STEM fields when going to college. While no parent told their daughter to shoot small - hopefully - the young ladies still never chose to pursue the path they once loved. It shows that there is some kind of unconscious bias that Janet is talking about that is held against women in positions of power or male-dominated occupations. She wraps up her talk by stating we cannot just try to end the overt sexism seen across the country. She states that we must be a good observer of our environment. She says that if you see sexism, you must call it out and talk about it. That is the only way to attempt to change. SAS123
The speaker Janet Crawford was speaking about gender inequality. She tells about how she attended UC Berkeley thirty years ago and how back then she struggled in gender inequality even in college. She thought that some thirty years later the social norm for gender inequality would be obsolete or at least diminished some. The fact of the matter is that it hasn’t changed much since then. She gives statistics like only five percent of Fortune 500 Companies are ran by female CEOs and only eighteen percent of Congress is made up of women. Even though that women make up 51 percent of the nation's population. She also says that only fifteen percent of the lead roles in movies are women. There is also the fact that women only make about seventy to eighty percent of what a man would make for doing the same job, working the same amount of hours. There was even a study done where some applications for a job were submitted without names being on the application. The applications that were selected were the one’s with the highest level of education. When a name or gender was associated with the application the male was selected. She goes on to say that it is not only men’s fault. Everybody has a subconscious bias which helps to drive this gender inequality. It is present everywhere in our society. It is in magazines, television, and on the internet. Here when we see women in power they are usually shown as sex symbols. It is almost everywhere you go. So believing that inequality exists is not enough to help the situation. Plus women cannot take this on alone. I think it will take everyone to help eliminate this problem. Women are able to take on larger roles in our society. We need to eliminate our gender biases and give ladies a fair chance at their careers. Diver123
In this video, Janet talks about how every person is unconsciously gender biased. I think this is very true because no matter how much people try to accept transgenders, there will always be a thought that it is abnormal in society. This is because we are all extremely used to the characteristics associated with being male or female from the day we are born and are wrapped in a pink or blue blanket. She explains that our unconscious associations act as a learning ladder to what we believe is right. What people see repetitively in society eventually is considered normal to someone’s subconscious. After watching her explanation of the Implicit Association Test, I understand more how it works into your subconscious beliefs. The faster you associate words with a subject proves how strongly you believe that is the norm. I found it interesting that a magazine had to assure the audience on the front page that the woman being featured was the real deal because people might not take her seriously because of her attractive physical qualities. This statement being wasted on the front cover as the caption when it could have been used as saying something more interesting about her career is disturbing. It proves how great the gender bias is in our country. When she said that women college students had less of a preference of a science field just due to the nerdy masculine environment they were learning in, I thought it showed how a stereotype can really become a person. If girls felt more prone to be themselves in a more feminine environment, then they think that they can only be themselves if they are acting as women should act. The men students were no affected by the change in environment. I think this is because men do not feel limited to expressing a career interest just because they are in a certain environment because the stereotype makes them feel entitled to that career. I like that she says every gender is biased and it affects men and woman negatively. This acceptance causes us to want to change the problem. -Kiwi123
Janet Crawford has a very interesting insightful way to look at gender inequality in our world today. We all have biases in our heads already set in stone by the society and our life experiences. Most people are going to associate words like leader, strong, and protector towards men and words like nurture, passionate, and emotional towards women. This is just how we see things. I love that she really digs deep into gender equality and tell us some biology behind why it happens. There is a biological explanation behind the biases we have. Our brain is constantly looking for patterns, storing them in a reservoir of associations. These associations are what we use to make meaning of the world and form responses. The implicit association test is a very cool test used to measure implicit associations in the brain. It is a very simple set of questions meant to open up those associations and have us use them without knowing it. It is amazing the biases we give to males and females when you really step back and see what society has done. The fact that you can look up a female business executive and one of the pictures be a woman with what looks like a skimpy Halloween costume is ridiculous. We really don't give woman any credit. I could see how woman could be scared to go for jobs that men mostly occupy because they would receive so much unnecessary sexism from all the men. I guess I do not think about that enough because I am a man and do not have to deal with situations like that, or am never involved in situations like that. I believe fully that anything a guy can do a girl can do too. I know we want to think that we are moving in the right direction of gender equality but from Janet's statistics it doesn't sound like we are. I hope we do get to that point of gender equality in the near future. Scuba123
Janet Crawford took an interesting stance on gender inequality. She starts the TED talk explaining her background at Berkley. She said she experienced raw sexism upfront, and this was because her generation was the first where women graduating universities outnumbered men. This caused her to believe her generation would be the one to rid the world of gender equality. Now thirty years later, women are still getting paid less, only 5% of fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 18% are in congress even though we make up about 51% of US population. Crawford suggests that this is going on because both men and women unconsciously have gender bias. Most people believe that all the decisions they are making are conscious and logical. However, our implicit biases effect our everyday life unknowingly. Crawford states that as human, we have a vast reservoir of unconscious bias, because our brains are constantly scanning for reoccurring patterns. When the brain finds these patterns, it stores them as the way things are or ought to be. The brain doesn't take into account equality or the fairness of society, and it uses these patterns to make sense of life around us. By making ourselves aware that we have these unconscious biases using IATs, we can start to challenge gender inequality. These implicit biases most likely come from social media and society around us. The brain unconsciously picks up that women are supposed to be nurturing, fragile, and emotional and that men are to be strong and powerful. Crawford goes on to explain a few experiments during her TED talk, and the one I found to be most interesting was the University of Washington's decor experiment. There were two classrooms used, one decorated with "male paraphernalia" and one decorated neutrally. For the groups of female college students, the male decorated room made the women prefer the computer science field less than the women who studied in the neutral room. For the groups of males, the room decor did not effect their preference for the computer science field. This goes to show that if women feel that a field is male dominated, they are less likely to enjoy that field of study. Gender inequality shoes up in everyday life, and it should not be seen as just a women's issue. Crawford ends her TED talk by saying that women can't and shouldn't have to take on this challenge alone because no one is to blame, but we are all responsible for a solution. I couldn't agree with her more. Once both sides of the equation are made aware of their implicit gender biases, we as a society can start to discuss these issues and push for change together. Daisy123
Females constitute somewhere around 53% of the population. In the 2012 Presidential election, 71 million women voted compared to the 61 million men who voted. If women are not, technically speaking, the minority, why are they still treated as such? As Janet Crawford point out, gender inequality is not only a women’s issue, it is also an issue for men. Crawford states sexism has gone both ways recently and points to mandatory sexual harassment training as evidence. I personally was a recipient of such biases when, while I was attending Eureka College, I was forced to do Title IX training not once, not twice, but three times. Once because all incoming Freshmen were mandated to do so; I was fine with that. But then I had to go through it a second time because I was participating in a collegiate sport; that seemed to me as if we were being profiled. And finally, the third time was because I was on a dorm floor with all males so we all had to have another chat when all of us had already received at least one course on Title IX already. It was ludicrous and demeaning that the Title IX coordinator profiled us simply because we were men or because we played a sport. Although I know it probably does not compare, that is how I imagine many women feel when they have gender roles placed upon them unwillingly. On one hand, you are powerless in the sense that you simply cannot change an entire society’s view on gender inequality by yourself. On the other hand, if you do take a stand by yourself you will often be ostracized or labeled as a fanatic feminist or SJW. It is a vicious Catch-22. -ThreeTwo123
The tedtalk given by Janet Crawford was extremely interesting to listen to as it brought up many points about gender inequality and inequality in general that I had not considered before. She talks about how our mind makes associations just as things are associated in the world. It is a natural part of how our brain is able to process the information, but it can unfortunately cause biases. This made me think about another problem. Our natural instincts cause us to be aware of danger as a top priority and it is not as crucial to be aware of pleasant things. If we draw associations from our environment that are negative, we tend to pay more attention to those than we would the positive associations. This could make us more prone to making negative associations about people rather than positive ones. For example, say there is a very nice looking business women in your office and you assume she is a good person. Except then you notice a devil tattoo on her wrist. This one little negative association in your head can sway your opinion of a person from good to bad because of a little mark that could have been from years ago. We are all guilty of this and as Janet says in her video, “we are all responsible for the solution.” I think it is important to note that this transformation from gender inequality requires everyone's involvement, not just women. It is very difficult to overcome the implicit bias that we have, but we have to break the cycle somewhere. It may be easy to point our fingers at men for the cause of this bias, but in truth everyone is responsible. No amount of pointing fingers will solve this inequality, we must all take action in our everyday lives. -Chameleon123
Gender inequality exists in all aspects of our lives from the way a person prepares their food to the way people drive (males like to attach a negative connotation to females such as saying you drive like a girl). Although men are primarily to blame for the gender, I would go to say that some women victimize other females due to social ranking and having a superiority mind frame. Janet made an interesting statement when she explained that the when we see things we scan and file them away in the back of our minds which plays a role in the way we view things or how we become biased towards certain issues or people in our lives. Implicit biases play an important role in how we all unknowingly treat people from different walks of life based on how they were perceived during a previous interaction or what we may have seen on TV or what heard from other people. It is easy to point out how misogynistic people can be but do we realize how we may come off to the next female? Just because females live in this society it is easy to conform to the ways of the world and may find ways to fit in with the guys (since it is a patriarchy in the workplace). But once people become aware of their surroundings, it will make it easier to change our mindsets and set a standard for how we treat human beings within our society. As people learn to change the way they think of certain people and start to recondition their minds to the positive things that person has to offer is what we should retain and then once we have stored enough of the positive images then is when we will have positive images of whatever we may have initially been biased against. Benoodles123
Janet Crawford hits a great point on gender inequality, that we (men and women) all have biases. Often times it is easy to see someone talk about gender inequality and begin to blame men for it. After all, the statistics show that men reap many more benefits than women do just for being men. It is an ascribed status that tends to be treated like an achievement. Janet made the point that before we can all address gender inequality, we must all face our biases. She talks about the implicit biases that many people develop, including gender bias. She gets into where these biases may come from, as they are unconsciously developed. A large portion of these biases come from media. We live in a world where women are degraded for simply being women. We use feminine words to make things seem weaker or worse. It’s not just men who do this. When everyone accepts that they contribute to gender inequality then more people can commit to fighting this inequality. Janet challenged everyone to be observant of biases around us. We should become aware of it. That is what we have been talking about throughout this class: awareness. We need to open our eyes and see that there are problems and we need to figure out what the problems are before we try to solve them. I love that Janet ended her talk encouraging the men and letting them know that they are not to blame. I think it is really easy for us to see that women aren’t being treated equally so we just blame all men. This not only develops our own biases, but it also makes improvements more difficult. If we stopped trying to make men feel bad for the power that they hold and and start encouraging them to use it to get more women into power, we could see improvement. Fixing gender equality isn’t a job for women and it isn’t a job for men. It is a job for our nation. Everyone must work together and do their part in making it happen. -M&M123
ReplyDeleteThis topic really hit home for me because I have studied gender bias and the causes and experienced them first hand. The most frustrating thing about gender bias or any bias for that matter is there is no easy solution. This talk does not provide a clear answer to the problem of gender bias but it does allow those fighting for gender equity some important tools in guiding conversation about gender bias. I was required to write blog posts about gender bias for this project and share them with my classmates. My classmates would comment in complete agreeance with me while I knew that they themselves were participating in alienating almost sexist behavior. These classmates and I were part of an organization in high school that had some problems with sexism. I participated in this problem all my years of high school and every year the leadership would not only be extremely male centered but also the positions that female held were solely stereotypical gendered roles. In my last three years of high school females only held the secretary and reporter positions of leadership. Every year there would be well qualified and very active females that ran for president, vice president and treasurer roles that every year they would be placed in the secondary roles of secretary or reporter. It’s important to note that these offices were not elected by popular vote rather they were selected by a panel of previous officers and alumni of the organization. I noticed this pattern fairly early on especially when I ran for president two years in a row and received the reporter position. According to this video I made the two basic mistakes when dealing with gender bias or sexism. I didn’t talk about it. I mentioned it to some of my close female friends and to my family but I never addressed the issue with the head of the organization or my fellow male officers. But not speaking about this issue I did an incredible injustice to not only my current fellow female officers and members of the organization but also to all future members as this problem still persists even today. The other problem that I caused is I blamed the male members of the officer team, the alumni and the the leader of the organization instead of recognizing this was everyone’s problem no one person could be to blame. If I could go back and do this all again I would speak up and try to have a blameless conversation about the injustices occurring in the organization. - Glass123
ReplyDeleteI thought this video brought up some interesting points. She is right in saying that we all have subconscious biases, and I think that some of us are more aware of it than others. With that being said, I also think that with her past experience at Berkley having to constantly deal with the sexist comments it made her biased towards men. I also think that for women it is hard not to be. They have the advantage in a lot of things that the women do get the shorter stick on, but is it really their fault or is it something that the media/society is portraying. An example of this is the magazine cover that she showed in the video. It was a blonde lady who was pretty and was also the CEO of a major fortune company. She made a witty comment about it while showing the slide that was intended to be funny, but for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way. Janet Crawford wants us to take this topic seriously, so I feel like the tone she sent while making that comment changed the way I viewed it. I get that she was trying to portray how the media was displaying the front page, but I think she should have taken it more seriously. Although, I do have to give her credit at the end of the video she made a shout out to the men saying that inequality was something that women needed help with, and that it’s a problem we should fight together. And she’s right, the only way this is going to end is if we ALL put a stop to it. Another thing I liked about the video was when she referenced how men are thought of as these macho, alpha men who are slightly aggressive, and that is excluding a huge margin of men who aren’t like that at all. But as she stated in the beginning, we all have ingrained, subconscious biases.
ReplyDeletesunflower123
Gender inequality and bias, even in a high income country, is very real. My mom has always told me something I think I will carry with me all my life, “hot women get promoted.” This is so true. I see gender inequality constantly at work. If I want to move up the ranks, I have to work twice as hard as the man competing with me and look nice while I do so. My mother is an extremely successful and educated woman, and her truths about gender inequality really resonate with me. In the video, the speaker showed a picture of the bathroom lines at a business conference, and it was the only time in my life I had ever seen no line for the women’s bathroom and a line for the men’s bathroom. The people professionally networking were men, and it just shows who the companies want to send to a conference to represent them. Culturally, men are taken more seriously than women, and if a woman were to act seriously or demanding in the same way a man is acting, she is labelled a *female dog. These biases are developed unconsciously beginning at birth. There is some biological component to these tendencies. The woman has to stay home after childbirth because that is quite a feat to recover from and the baby needs food unless you birthed a robot. The man most likely goes to work during that time because the family still needs an income. Those roles later develop into ‘female is nurturing’ and ‘male is the breadwinner’ ideologies. This mentality gives women a disadvantage, especially in the workplace, because the person who is hiring could want a commanding employee to work for the company. The speaker tells us of a story where when no names are attached to job applications, the people chosen for the job usually have a 50/50 ratio men to women, but when names are attached, the ratio shifts to about 90/10 men to women. That is unconscious gender bias in the flesh. aardvark123
ReplyDeleteGender inequality is a topic that is commonly talked about but never really resolved. It is something that many people speak on and talk about how unfair it is, however is it ever changing? Yes it may be getting better in some areas, but that doesn’t fix the problem at hand. We are still not treated EQUALLY. There is absolutely no reason for a man to be paid more or to have special treatment because they are a male. That does not make them a superior gender, it does not make them smarter than women, and it defiantly doesn’t make them so much better that they should be paid more for the same amount of work. In the video she states that only 5% of fortune 500 CEOs are women and 18% of congress. That right there is such a low percentage. That percentage should make a difference to people. It should show how women are not treated as fair as men are in the work force. More women make up our world than men yet more men are in charge or hold higher positions than women. The fact that everyone associates the words “leader”, “strong”, and “protective” with men is something that needs to change. Women can be very strong leaders and very protective. Those don’t have to be attributed just to men. My own mother is one of the strongest and most protective person I know. And I don’t know about everyone else’s households but my mother is the leader of our household over my father. She makes many great point about subconscious bias’s as well. They don’t just judge people, these bias’s direct our life choices. I think that is a really powerful statement. I don’t think many people view the world like that, however it is a very real problem in our society. Litv123
ReplyDeleteThis TED talk obviously is going to be revolving around the world of gender inequality. The woman speaking, Janet Crawford, talks about her times in school back in the eighties and how she had to struggle with rough sexism all throughout that path. Even though she was being harassed and such by male colleges, she still saw this as an uprising for women. It was now the time for women to be proud and rise in this field. Sadly though, thirty years later nothing has changed much when it comes to the conversation. Yes, more women are in deed in the field now, but it does not change the sexist behavior that surrounds it. Only five percent of women are CEOs and eighteen percent are in congress, this is a pretty low number for the year 2015 (the year this video was published). This is even more low when you consider the fact that women make up about fifty-one percent of the population. So shouldn’t more women be in pour according to these statistics? I believe that many women are seen as a joke when they want to pursue a career such as politics or high government related jobs at all. For some reason, we have this belief as a society that a man should be the figurehead for big jobs and companies opposed to seeing a woman. This leads me into Crawford’s next point about how both men and women can be gender biased. She says that we go about our days with the unconscious bias that we stay put in our gender roles. We say and do things all day without realizing we are staying in our boundaries as men and women. Which I can understand, not everyone wakes up and thinks “I’m gonna stir up some trouble today”(meaning go against the gender norm). Just the way someone’s dresses before they leave the house already has the unconscious bias of staying in their roll. rosethorns123
ReplyDeleteThis video was about a woman narrating on how she though gender inequality would have changed by now over 30 years. Janet Crawford gave information some researchers of how gender inequality has not changed. It was found that 5% of women are in the corporate world and only 18% of women make up congress. With the gender inequality men have the finger being pointed at them, but in society we all are bias. Crawford explained on how the brain works daily. She explained that we as human beings decide based of a conscious and rational process of deliberation. Outside of our awareness our brain is scanning for repeated patterns and stores them of how things should be in life. So that comes in play of what a child’s morals and values consist of. Sometimes environmental behavior can have a profound effect of how one may think things are supposed to go in life. The IAT is what is used to measure unconscious decisions. It is imagery that we see in media that our brain us unconsciously in our calculations of who belongs where and what confidence looks like. Crawford explained how there was a study on male and females putting in applications anonymously and according to their gender. Studies showed that when the applications were submitted anonymously the one with the most education was picked. Now when the applications were turned in identifying them as male or female the application with male was picked. This shows how society is being bias within the workforce against women. I don’t think gender inequality would never end. Especially in the workforce. Whether we agree or not many Americans feel that men are supposed to provide and the women are supposed to be the care-taker of the home. On the other hand, women can do the same things that men can do. They have always been able to perform the same way or even better than a man. I feel that gender inequality should be changed. All men and women are equal. Rendezvous123
ReplyDeleteI have always found with TED talks that I either love them or hate them. With this one in particular I found Janet Crawford's annotation of implicit gender bias to be quite fascinating actually and seemingly practical in the outside world. Through the centuries and even from the day a child is born they are taught to respect all people equally and use good manners; however, what they are not taught is how to avoid the implicit gender biases between men and women that they see growing up. As a child grows up they may witness men in a stronger working position than women. It's not necessarily that women aren't capable of doing these jobs or don't want to do them, but rather that in the male dominated world we live in they just can't get those jobs. Crawford also notes the importance of neuroscience in implicit based decisions regarding how a certain gender feels when they see or hear a member of the opposition gender from across a crowded room. Implicit gender bias or just general bias in general is not just a one-sided toss of the coin either, both men and women are equally as guilty of gender bias when examining a member of the opposite sex. Going back to the idea of sociological imagination, there is a vicious cycle that is created by men and women when they base their actions on the realization of a gender bias over the interaction or communication with a member of the opposite sex. There are a whole lot of men and a whole lot of women who would like to make a realization about a member of the opposite sex before conducting a thorough examination and communication process with the individual themselves. This ties into the vicious cycle of Implicit gender biases and their trying implications within the sociological imagination of a society.-MrG123
ReplyDeleteThe presenter made many interesting and valid points about gender inequality. One of the points that it is pretty well known is when she mentioned that there is still a pay gap between men and women. Women earning less than a man working the same hours doing the same job. She also mentioned that there are still more male CEO's than female CEO's. I have heard a few people say that sometimes, female bosses are better to work for than for male bosses. Maybe it could be because women are less aggressive with leadership positions or they understand and handle situations better. The reasoning behind that? I haven't a clue. One statistic that she made was that even though women make up about 51% of the population, only 15% of them are cast as the lead role in a film. One of the things that I found interesting is when she searched female executives on the internet, one of the pictures was a little "sexy." remember in class there was a point in our textbook where women are most associated as a sex symbol. That point popped in my head when I saw that picture. Sometimes we cannoit help making these gender associations because according to her when you see those associations outside it unconcioulsy enters your brain. "Your brain is always scanning for repeated patterns" she says. Since gender inequality is still evident then that is a repeated pattern hence us making these associations. At the end of her speech she says, "No one is to blame for the problem, but we are responsible for the solution." I agree and I can see that point.
ReplyDeletepanda123
I have listened to a variety of different TED talks in high school and in church. Janet Crawford believed all gender inequality would be demolished thirty years ago. Much to her disappointment and sorrow, she believes nothing has changed. Only five percent of CEOs are women. Only fifteen percent of women have lead roles in movies. Honestly, those statistics saddened and angered me. I like the point Crawford made that we should not always blame males for the sexism. Without being aware of it, both males and females have a certain amount of gender bias. A person's IAT is what makes unconscious decisions for us. People have an easier time correlating specific words to either males or females. Nurture, care taker, and words like that are more geared towards females. For men, we think of leaders, power, and decision makers. If you were to google images female executives, the results would shock you. Crawford displayed it during her video. Twenty-two images came up with only two of them being females. There are gender norms in our society today that may or may not ever change because they are so wired in both men and women's minds. Gender equality is not a woman's issue, according to Crawford. Men would also benefit from this equality. Some men do not have muscles, power, or high executive jobs. There are single parent fathers who are great at being a care taker, for example. The frustrating thing about gender bias and inequality is that there are no quick or easy solutions to put a stop to it. It will take time. Sociological imagination is a large part of gender inequality and biases. It is a vicious cycle that is passed down from generation to generation. Questioning are actions, thoughts, and confronting others (in a respectful manner) about their own about gender biases, will help solve this problem of gender inequality.
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I thought this tedtalk addressed more implicit biased habits like we talked about in class today. I liked the example she gave about the study that had companies review two different applications and then chose who they would hire for a certain position. The results showed that the companies overwhelmingly preferred the candidate that had more education when the name was not attached to the application. However, when the names of the applicants were given, the company overwhelmingly chose the candidate that had a male name. That study there exactly shows subconscious biases that we have in our society. The speaker further went on and briefly discussed what occurs in our minds when we develop implicit biases. Typically, we are associating certain patterns that we see often and we are subconsciously storing those patterns in our brains. For example, a common pattern that we see in men is that they are leaders or that they take on more science related occupations. We store these certain patterns so that we are able to make a quick decision when we recognize those patterns in the future. I think think this whole concept relates to our primal instincts and our fight-or-flight response. Back when human beings used basic instinct to survive, we used remembered patterns to make sudden decisions that determined whether or not we stabbed an incoming bear or disregarding from eating the funny looking berry that may have caused a stomach ache in the past.
ReplyDeleteWhen watching this tedtalk, I additionally liked how the speaker made the point that we shouldn’t be pointing our fingers at all the men and blaming them for creating the societal norms that make it okay for gender inequity. The speaker addresses that we all must work together to create a societal change and not fight over it. Society consists of men and women. Though men may be dominating society over the past hundreds or years, women have made it okay for them to do so. It was only in the 20th and 21st century that we all realized that gender inequity is something that needs to be ridden of. Check123
I found Janet Crawford’s Ted Talk very interesting. While most talks on gender equality discuss how women should just simply be treated the same as men and we should stop viewing women and men the way we do, Janet discusses how many of our biases are unconscious. We have this unconscious bias that we can never get rid of no matter how impartial towards the sexes we think we may be. She discussed how men and women usually associate words such as “strong”, “leader” and “protective” towards men and “nurturing”, “emotional” and “fragile” to women. This lead her to the conclusion that if you grew up in a culture similar to the United States (patriarchal) then you will most likely have these unconscious biases. Women are constantly having to prove themselves that they are the “real deal” as Forbes said it. I found this especially interesting because last semester I studied the amount of women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs. In one study I read, it stated that 74% of young girls state their favorite subjects are STEM but in contrast only 29% of women choose to pursue STEM fields when going to college. While no parent told their daughter to shoot small - hopefully - the young ladies still never chose to pursue the path they once loved. It shows that there is some kind of unconscious bias that Janet is talking about that is held against women in positions of power or male-dominated occupations. She wraps up her talk by stating we cannot just try to end the overt sexism seen across the country. She states that we must be a good observer of our environment. She says that if you see sexism, you must call it out and talk about it. That is the only way to attempt to change. SAS123
ReplyDeleteThe speaker Janet Crawford was speaking about gender inequality. She tells about how she attended UC Berkeley thirty years ago and how back then she struggled in gender inequality even in college. She thought that some thirty years later the social norm for gender inequality would be obsolete or at least diminished some. The fact of the matter is that it hasn’t changed much since then. She gives statistics like only five percent of Fortune 500 Companies are ran by female CEOs and only eighteen percent of Congress is made up of women. Even though that women make up 51 percent of the nation's population. She also says that only fifteen percent of the lead roles in movies are women. There is also the fact that women only make about seventy to eighty percent of what a man would make for doing the same job, working the same amount of hours. There was even a study done where some applications for a job were submitted without names being on the application. The applications that were selected were the one’s with the highest level of education. When a name or gender was associated with the application the male was selected. She goes on to say that it is not only men’s fault. Everybody has a subconscious bias which helps to drive this gender inequality. It is present everywhere in our society. It is in magazines, television, and on the internet. Here when we see women in power they are usually shown as sex symbols. It is almost everywhere you go. So believing that inequality exists is not enough to help the situation. Plus women cannot take this on alone. I think it will take everyone to help eliminate this problem. Women are able to take on larger roles in our society. We need to eliminate our gender biases and give ladies a fair chance at their careers. Diver123
ReplyDeleteIn this video, Janet talks about how every person is unconsciously gender biased. I think this is very true because no matter how much people try to accept transgenders, there will always be a thought that it is abnormal in society. This is because we are all extremely used to the characteristics associated with being male or female from the day we are born and are wrapped in a pink or blue blanket. She explains that our unconscious associations act as a learning ladder to what we believe is right. What people see repetitively in society eventually is considered normal to someone’s subconscious. After watching her explanation of the Implicit Association Test, I understand more how it works into your subconscious beliefs. The faster you associate words with a subject proves how strongly you believe that is the norm. I found it interesting that a magazine had to assure the audience on the front page that the woman being featured was the real deal because people might not take her seriously because of her attractive physical qualities. This statement being wasted on the front cover as the caption when it could have been used as saying something more interesting about her career is disturbing. It proves how great the gender bias is in our country. When she said that women college students had less of a preference of a science field just due to the nerdy masculine environment they were learning in, I thought it showed how a stereotype can really become a person. If girls felt more prone to be themselves in a more feminine environment, then they think that they can only be themselves if they are acting as women should act. The men students were no affected by the change in environment. I think this is because men do not feel limited to expressing a career interest just because they are in a certain environment because the stereotype makes them feel entitled to that career. I like that she says every gender is biased and it affects men and woman negatively. This acceptance causes us to want to change the problem. -Kiwi123
ReplyDeleteJanet Crawford has a very interesting insightful way to look at gender inequality in our world today. We all have biases in our heads already set in stone by the society and our life experiences. Most people are going to associate words like leader, strong, and protector towards men and words like nurture, passionate, and emotional towards women. This is just how we see things. I love that she really digs deep into gender equality and tell us some biology behind why it happens. There is a biological explanation behind the biases we have. Our brain is constantly looking for patterns, storing them in a reservoir of associations. These associations are what we use to make meaning of the world and form responses. The implicit association test is a very cool test used to measure implicit associations in the brain. It is a very simple set of questions meant to open up those associations and have us use them without knowing it. It is amazing the biases we give to males and females when you really step back and see what society has done. The fact that you can look up a female business executive and one of the pictures be a woman with what looks like a skimpy Halloween costume is ridiculous. We really don't give woman any credit. I could see how woman could be scared to go for jobs that men mostly occupy because they would receive so much unnecessary sexism from all the men. I guess I do not think about that enough because I am a man and do not have to deal with situations like that, or am never involved in situations like that. I believe fully that anything a guy can do a girl can do too. I know we want to think that we are moving in the right direction of gender equality but from Janet's statistics it doesn't sound like we are. I hope we do get to that point of gender equality in the near future. Scuba123
ReplyDeleteJanet Crawford took an interesting stance on gender inequality. She starts the TED talk explaining her background at Berkley. She said she experienced raw sexism upfront, and this was because her generation was the first where women graduating universities outnumbered men. This caused her to believe her generation would be the one to rid the world of gender equality. Now thirty years later, women are still getting paid less, only 5% of fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 18% are in congress even though we make up about 51% of US population. Crawford suggests that this is going on because both men and women unconsciously have gender bias. Most people believe that all the decisions they are making are conscious and logical. However, our implicit biases effect our everyday life unknowingly. Crawford states that as human, we have a vast reservoir of unconscious bias, because our brains are constantly scanning for reoccurring patterns. When the brain finds these patterns, it stores them as the way things are or ought to be. The brain doesn't take into account equality or the fairness of society, and it uses these patterns to make sense of life around us. By making ourselves aware that we have these unconscious biases using IATs, we can start to challenge gender inequality. These implicit biases most likely come from social media and society around us. The brain unconsciously picks up that women are supposed to be nurturing, fragile, and emotional and that men are to be strong and powerful. Crawford goes on to explain a few experiments during her TED talk, and the one I found to be most interesting was the University of Washington's decor experiment. There were two classrooms used, one decorated with "male paraphernalia" and one decorated neutrally. For the groups of female college students, the male decorated room made the women prefer the computer science field less than the women who studied in the neutral room. For the groups of males, the room decor did not effect their preference for the computer science field. This goes to show that if women feel that a field is male dominated, they are less likely to enjoy that field of study. Gender inequality shoes up in everyday life, and it should not be seen as just a women's issue. Crawford ends her TED talk by saying that women can't and shouldn't have to take on this challenge alone because no one is to blame, but we are all responsible for a solution. I couldn't agree with her more. Once both sides of the equation are made aware of their implicit gender biases, we as a society can start to discuss these issues and push for change together. Daisy123
ReplyDeleteFemales constitute somewhere around 53% of the population. In the 2012 Presidential election, 71 million women voted compared to the 61 million men who voted. If women are not, technically speaking, the minority, why are they still treated as such? As Janet Crawford point out, gender inequality is not only a women’s issue, it is also an issue for men. Crawford states sexism has gone both ways recently and points to mandatory sexual harassment training as evidence. I personally was a recipient of such biases when, while I was attending Eureka College, I was forced to do Title IX training not once, not twice, but three times. Once because all incoming Freshmen were mandated to do so; I was fine with that. But then I had to go through it a second time because I was participating in a collegiate sport; that seemed to me as if we were being profiled. And finally, the third time was because I was on a dorm floor with all males so we all had to have another chat when all of us had already received at least one course on Title IX already. It was ludicrous and demeaning that the Title IX coordinator profiled us simply because we were men or because we played a sport. Although I know it probably does not compare, that is how I imagine many women feel when they have gender roles placed upon them unwillingly. On one hand, you are powerless in the sense that you simply cannot change an entire society’s view on gender inequality by yourself. On the other hand, if you do take a stand by yourself you will often be ostracized or labeled as a fanatic feminist or SJW. It is a vicious Catch-22.
ReplyDelete-ThreeTwo123
The tedtalk given by Janet Crawford was extremely interesting to listen to as it brought up many points about gender inequality and inequality in general that I had not considered before. She talks about how our mind makes associations just as things are associated in the world. It is a natural part of how our brain is able to process the information, but it can unfortunately cause biases. This made me think about another problem. Our natural instincts cause us to be aware of danger as a top priority and it is not as crucial to be aware of pleasant things. If we draw associations from our environment that are negative, we tend to pay more attention to those than we would the positive associations. This could make us more prone to making negative associations about people rather than positive ones. For example, say there is a very nice looking business women in your office and you assume she is a good person. Except then you notice a devil tattoo on her wrist. This one little negative association in your head can sway your opinion of a person from good to bad because of a little mark that could have been from years ago. We are all guilty of this and as Janet says in her video, “we are all responsible for the solution.” I think it is important to note that this transformation from gender inequality requires everyone's involvement, not just women. It is very difficult to overcome the implicit bias that we have, but we have to break the cycle somewhere. It may be easy to point our fingers at men for the cause of this bias, but in truth everyone is responsible. No amount of pointing fingers will solve this inequality, we must all take action in our everyday lives. -Chameleon123
ReplyDeleteGender inequality exists in all aspects of our lives from the way a person prepares their food to the way people drive (males like to attach a negative connotation to females such as saying you drive like a girl). Although men are primarily to blame for the gender, I would go to say that some women victimize other females due to social ranking and having a superiority mind frame. Janet made an interesting statement when she explained that the when we see things we scan and file them away in the back of our minds which plays a role in the way we view things or how we become biased towards certain issues or people in our lives. Implicit biases play an important role in how we all unknowingly treat people from different walks of life based on how they were perceived during a previous interaction or what we may have seen on TV or what heard from other people. It is easy to point out how misogynistic people can be but do we realize how we may come off to the next female? Just because females live in this society it is easy to conform to the ways of the world and may find ways to fit in with the guys (since it is a patriarchy in the workplace). But once people become aware of their surroundings, it will make it easier to change our mindsets and set a standard for how we treat human beings within our society. As people learn to change the way they think of certain people and start to recondition their minds to the positive things that person has to offer is what we should retain and then once we have stored enough of the positive images then is when we will have positive images of whatever we may have initially been biased against. Benoodles123
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