As a part of my ongoing studies, I recently finished reading a book called Gender-Responsible Leadership: Detecting Bias, Implementing Interventions“.
While I don’t consider myself gender-biased in any way (well, how many of us would admit or even recognize that?), the book was extremely interesting. It was quite eye-opening to see how small things can and do influence to create a gender-biased environment and how small things actually work to reinforce the status quo, despite people trying hard to be neutral. Consider an example from the book: why does a textbook on communication have a chapter on “Women in groups” — and no such chapter on men? Does it not imply that women are somehow a special case, men being the norm(al)? Authentic, real-life examples of both difficult to notice and more obvious kinds of bias and discrimination abound in this book, which I believe is a Very Good Thing.
It’s the small, barely perceptible, things that can in my opinion be the most dangerous. While the more blatantly open sexism also unfortunately is alive and well, I believe the small things are everywhere. And you don’t really notice them until you are aware that they exist. One thing I in particular like about this book is that it doesn’t stop at pointing out the injustices, but it offers a wide selection of intervention tactics that can be used to correct the situation.
Definately one of the more interesting and useful books I’ve read lately.
Overall 4.5 out of 5
