In class we covered a couple of videos and a couple of articles. The general theme of this content was gender bias in design, as well as explicit and implicit bias. While these problems are real, some of the information and ideas conveyed in this content did not necessarily strike me as being helpful or true, and in one case actually seemed actively destructive. Other aspects were more helpful.
One of the videos we watched was called “The Mask You Live In”, and attempted to explain the problems with the current conception of masculinity and describe alternatives. While there are problems with how we conceive masculinity and there are many bad actors in the world that do harm to developing kids by being too toxic or harsh, I think this video was at many times hypocritical and in at least one case quite destructive. The initial claim in this piece was that young men are being forced into a paradigm of masculinity that is only equated with toughness and lack of emotional expression. This claim I do somewhat agree with, in that any person that has only those two defining characteristics is definitely incomplete, and there are many more good personality traits to be had in this world. Adherence to merely those two is destructive to those around you. They follow this claim with another, more implied claim: men need to be gentler and more sensitive across the board, more emotionally expressive, and reject all aspects of the initial claim. I see this as being destructive and hypocritical. I certainly do not think that there are not men that need to be more gentle or sensitive, but the equation of “tough” with “male” is patently false and is hypocritically negated within the very same video. Many of the men in the video credit their mothers, who stepped up when their fathers failed, as getting them through because they were so tough. These women are celebrated because of their toughness. It seems obvious to me that what gets you through difficult times is toughness, and that everyone, of any gender, could benefit from having some degree of inner strength. To be clear, however, I think there is some nuance to be had here: I think that you can be a sensitive, empathetic human being while also being tough. What concerns me is that this video does not seem to elaborate on that nuance. Another thing that struck me as being bad was a claim made by one of the people that was interviewed within the video: “There is no such thing as natural masculinity”. This seems patently false, from even a scientific point of view. People that are born biologically of one sex or another have different biochemical situations that do make for differences in emotion and behavior. An individual that naturally has high testosterone and low estrogen is going to feel and act different than a person with high estrogen and low testosterone. This is natural and not controlled by the individual, and begins to happen to them in their adolescence. I can’t imagine telling a young person that the moods they experience as they develop are not normal or real. This seems to be damaging rather than helpful.
We also read an article titled “Gender equality in design: fighting implicit bias with empathy”. I think that this article was looking more in the right direction in terms of progress. One of the initial claims of the article was that as time has gone on, progress has definitely been made in terms of bias, there are still issues. The author outlines the difference between “explicit bias” (derogatory terms, sexual harassment) and “implicit bias” (internal attitudes towards the opposite gender). They explain that while over time explicit bias has reduced, implicit bias is still very much real, and that according to their research this is due to lack of empathy. They hypothesize that the best way to decrease implicit bias is to have people interact with each other to learn more, and so are in the process of “gamifying” interaction. I personally very much appreciated this article because of the clear premise and lack of an accusatory tone. I also think that the idea of making empathy building into a fun exercise as opposed to a lot of finger-wagging will be much more effective in the long run. I think this outlines a crucial area where people get mixed up with social progress. For social progress to work, the task is to sell an idea to an audience that does not currently have that idea. The target audience disagrees with you from the get go, or at best is not educated in the topic. Where many activists fail is regarding their own audience as the enemy or being out of line. This attitude is immediately conveyed to the target audience whether the activist likes it or not; the target audience is not stupid. Don’t scold your target audience, they will just be more satisfied with their current view. Make your idea sellable, make it fun and interesting and enriching.
liamtwall 