I recently interviewed someone for a job. I was one of many conducting interviews. Among my observations was a difference in the candidate’s response to me and the male interviewer and also a reference to a group of technicians using a gendered term. I made it clear that my overall impression was positive, but thought those things bore mentioning.
One of my co-workers has latched on to this. He keeps bringing it up. He trivializes it. He denies the difference I noted. He asked why it mattered and I noted that in my experience such a difference in response correlated with those who made decisions based on stereotypes rather than the actual individuals involved, such as those that give technical assignments and training to males over females regardless of the individual’s past performance in technical matters.
I have noticed this before. People who on hearing someone mention facing a bias, must deny, trivialize, or one-up it to prove that no bias was experienced, or that somehow the bias was well deserved. Why do they do this?
Taking offense at the mention of bias typically means that 1) the person considers him/herself above that sort of thing and feels insulted at any implication that they might harbor bias, or 2) thinks “they” are gaining unfair advantage from being perceived as the victims of bias, or 3) is unashamedly biased and wants the current state of affairs to continue or worsen.
Well reading between the lines, it sounds like you are part of the group he is (reportedly) biased against?
I would also be suspicious of such a report if I didn’t observe it myself, thinking that perhaps you had taken a dislike to him (or he to you) and this was an “acceptable” was to express it as opposed to an undefinable “I don’t trust him”.
No I don’t know you, and this would be updated and altered the better I knew you or the more experience I had of working with you.
Since you don’t mention what you actually perceived as bias, it’s hard to judge whether it was actually trivial or not. For example, if the “gendered term” the candiate used when speaking of a group of technicians was “those guys,” I would agree your perceived bias was unfounded. But, without knowing the actual situation, it’s hard to say.
Jackmanii offers some good possible reasons, but I agree it’s not really possible to judge what happened based on the information you’ve given, lee. Can you flesh this story out?
This isn’t related to gender, but actually to race–I have noticed that a lot of times–both here on these boards and elsewhere–that people seem more upset at an accusation of racism than at the idea of racism. I know I shouldn’t give IMDb boards too much weight, but it’ll serve as an example–during the Real Housewives of DC (I know, I know), there was a housewife who came off as sort of racist or at the very least clueless, and the black housewife who brought up the fact that she seemed uncomfortable around black people was attacked and there was a lot of “OMG–the race card!” And I’ve seen that kind of thing on these boards, too–some people will go to ridiculous lengths to deny that racism happened. I’m thinking back to biggirl’s daughter getting called “you people” and many people just not getting it, though there are definitely other examples…like the ones involving the Tea Party.
As for WHY–I guess no one wants to think of themselves as a bad person. It definitely makes me really uncomfortable watching people getting SO angry at the idea that a minority feels they’ve experienced racism or bigotry. Like telling them, “No, you don’t really understand this thing your ancestors have been experiencing for hundreds of years.”
In my experience, there’s several possible reasons. A few that come to mind:
they expect to gain something from that bias,
they did not see it themselves and can’t believe that they missed something which took place in front of them; “if I did not see it, it can not have happened”
what they’re dismissing is the complaint, but instead of phrasing things as “noted, but I don’t think it’s relevant in this case” they go for “aw, don’t be such a wuss” and escalate to “you’re seeing things”.
I also agree with Freudian Slit’s observation that sometimes people are more offended by the idea of bias/bigotry than by the actual bias/bigotry; conversely, there are other times when they get completely hung up on the notion that any reference to a particular brand of bigotry must constitute than specific brand of bigotry (you dress as a KKK guy for Halloween? you’re a racist! Don’t bother saying that you were just dressing as a scary monster, nobody will believe you).
Can’t this just be healthy skepticism? You observed something that he didn’t observe. If you were claiming to have seen a ghost, you can’t expect him to take your story at face value. Is this special just because it’s about “bias?”
As to why he keeps fixating on this story, may I suggest that he’s simply a jerk?
These boards have a lot of people who will bend over backward to justify bias, sexist, and racist comments. I remember I started a pit thread when my SIL made a comment that was about “niglets,” and there was one member of this board who wanted to know why I supported my SIL’s young son when he expressed his disapproval of his mother’s comment because, paraphrased, why did I think the son knew better than the mother? That has always stood out to me as an example of someone who just doesn’t get what racism is.
Tbh, most of the times people have called bias in front of me, they have been reacting to something that wasn’t there.
There actually is a situation brewing in my social circle atm that features X bitching that certain people are against him because they are homophobic - completely ignoring that Y is also gay and everyone likes him.
Very often it is easier for people to believe that people are bigoted towards them, rather than acknowledge that they have serious flaws that might make others dislike them.
I think the Simpsons did it brilliantly in an episode with Artie Ziff.
Ouch. I found that thread and what creeped me out the most was the, “Well, what if that area really IS dirtier after the black kids use it? Hey! Maybe they came from Africa recently and they just don’t shower as much because of cultural reasons.” Yup, let’s bend over backwards to find a reason why the racist person is in the right…
Are you saying that anyone who claims to have observed bias must be agreed with?
I mean, I saw lots of racial bias in your post. I hope you don’t try to claim it isn’t there. And yes, I know I’m being facetious!
Sure, I guess some people will falsely claim that they observed no bias when they in fact know they did; plenty others will merely disagree with you about the presence of bias. Some may be wrong and simply didn’t notice it; others may be right.
The “idea” of racism? As opposed actual incidents of serious racial discrimination or bigotry? Replace “racism” with “murder”: No one got murdered, but someone did get falsely accused of murder. You may have overheard him jokingly say, “I’ll kill 'im” and you may have had a relative murderd long ago, but the real problem here is the false accusation.
A ridiculously insignificant slight and this is all you can think of in contrast to the very damning accusation of racism?
But this here is a tremendous source of bias. Obsessing over how long racism existed prior to the Civil Rights movement tells you nothing about how racist people living today are. When people are dead, they’re dead, and it’s bias to assume that white people are no different than their ancestors. Judging a situation by the feelings you’ve inherited from the past rather than the facts in the present is the very definition of subjectivity.
The racial landscape changed very rapidly in the 60s and 70s. Racism used to be like a brick wall blocking your way, and so it needed to be batterd down with a battering ram. But now it takes the form of sharp stones scattered amid the tall grass. Running around with a battering ram becomes useless and counter-productive.
lee mentions that there were other people doing interviews, and doesn’t mention that anyone else noticed any evidence of bias in the candidates. Maybe lee is the outlier.
That doesn’t mean she is automatically wrong, just that (perhaps) her observations are not normative.
I don’t think accusations of racism/sexism/homophobia/whatever need to be dismissed out of hand - neither should they necessarily be taken at face value.