D I V E R S I T Y
Diversity is defined as a mix of social identities; your race, gender, age and personal characteristics; your education, marital status, occupation, but I think it is more than that. I think diversity is not only this big generic buckets, its is also the little things - what we like and don't like, our interests, our hobbies. Anything that make us different from someone else. Some of these factors matter more in the work place than others, but what should they matter at all?
Diversity is a double-edge sword. On one side is it something we are so proud off because it is our roots, where we came from, and who we are, but on the other it is what makes people judge us and how the perceive us before they even know us.
This perception is know as an unconscious bias, where out mind makes decisions for us before we even know what is going on.
Here is an incredible video about the reality of the unconscious bias.
What does my headscarf mean to you? | Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Many companies have anti-discrimination clauses in their by-laws, but they rarely help diversity. It must companies they are only there to prevent lawsuits, rather than actually improve the diversity of a company. And it's really not a surprise that diversity challenges have improved at all, because we haven't tried any new types of diversification tactics since the 60's!
Yassmin makes a point in her video that to help diversify our companies and ourselves that we should try and mentor someone that is completely different than we are. I think this is a really cool idea and that we should all try this at least once in our life. For me, I was lucky enough to have to experience to a small extent. Where I am employed, I was the first intern hired that was not an engineer I had a business background. So for the first few months of my internship it was a lot of trying to figure how to combine engineering trained minds with a business trained mind. This led to a lot of improvements (and a few challenges) but in the end it was all worth it, and now I have been with the company going on six years, and I love every day of it. I think we all need to try and take a step back and try to mentor, or enter a situation that is different for us to help improve the diversity in our workplaces.
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