Diversity
In this HBR article Maxine Williams (Facebook’s global director of diversity) is talking about her own journey as a black female and why it is so important for companies to acknowledge that bias against minorities exists. According to Maxine, using people analytics (especially with the help of external data) might help companies to improve diversity & inclusion.
Gender
Very interesting! The Turkish language is gender neutral, so instead of the pronouns “he”, “she” or “it” they have a single pronoun, “o”. Earlier this week the writer Alex Shams shared on Twitter what happened when he entered a Turkish gender neutral poem into Google Translate to translate it into English– suddenly, everything was given a gender and the doctor became male and the nurse female. This is due to existing biases in our language and Google is actively working on addressing this.
Racism/Discrimination
A new study conducted at the University of Yale looked at the basis for prejudice and discrimination of minorities. In the past, scientists assumed that this is mainly based on the human flight-or-fight response, but the researchers found now that it might actually be an aversion to “broken patterns”.
Gender
Earlier this year we spoke about Getty Images, changing gender models and the trend for “women and STEM” searches. Getty Images has now shared how pictures of dads have changed over the years, and while 10 years ago the most downloaded pictures of fathers showed them engaging in very masculine activities, they now show the dads with their daughters, painting nails or baking.
Diversity and Inclusion 