The difference in tone behind those chunks of feedback and contrasting connotations in the contextual uses of the word ‘assertive’ illustrate some of the biases women face in positions of power (4). In Iris Bohnet’s book What Works: Gender Equality by Design she talks about an experiment conducted in Harvard Business school: students were split into two groups; each was given the profile of a hypothetical venture capitalist and asked whether they would want to work with them: both candidates had exactly the same professional background and qualifications, the only difference was that one was a man called Howard, the other a woman called Heidi. The students in both groups recognised their candidates to be qualified, but those who had Howard were far more likely to want to work with him than those who had Heidi. Psychologists explain this as there being a disconnect between our perceptions of women’s roles, and the qualities required for a “typically male role”; in other words, Heidi’s competence in what is mostly seen as a ‘male job’ means she “no longer fits our mental model of the ideal woman.” Bohnet puts it more bluntly: “When performance is observable, successful women are rated as less likeable than men.”(5)

Maria discusses the mixed feedback in her HR meeting and agrees to focus on active listening and give people space to voice their ideas; deep down though, she feels those are things she already does, and she wonders whether some of her colleagues’ comments are rooted in judgements on how they believe she should act as a woman in the workplace, rather than observations on her actual behaviour and competence as a manager.

 A meeting overruns and Maria leaves work a little later than usual, at 6:30. She rushes to pick her children up from afterschool and day care. In the UK, most formal childcare is only available from 8 am to 6 pm, despite 75% of lower- and middle-income families working outside standard hours (6). She drives everyone home and starts making dinner. Rita sets the table. Julio is too young to do chores, but Maria makes a mental note to herself to make sure her children help out equally around the house when Julio is old enough. Studies show that girls do more household chores than their brothers starting from age of 5 (3).

 Maria asks Rita about her day at school and her basketball practice. When Rita first expressed that she wanted to play basketball, Maria did research and found there were limited options for junior girl team sports compared to boy teams. Rita is disappointed because her practice was cancelled; the boys team needed the court for an impromptu pre-match practice, despite already having twice as many practices as the girls.

A survey by the Sports and Clubs Division in Gothenburg, Sweden found that, of the money invested into sports facilities and activities, 37% went to girls, and 63% went to boys; in all, the boys’ clubs in Gothenburg received 15 million kroner more than the girls’ clubs (7). And this is just one example of the overwhelming gap in funding between women’s and men’s sport. Exercising has many benefits for mental health and has been shown to increase bone density, particularly when practiced before puberty (8). Being active can play an important role in reducing osteoporosis (a condition where bones become more fragile and prone to fracturing), which affects women at a rate four times higher than men (9).

 That night, in bed, Maria’s head is whirring with the stressors she’ll face tomorrow: cleaning, cooking, self-consciousness at work, facing her colleagues, finding a new sitter for her Friday evening work party after Annie cancelled, the thought of having to skip the party if she doesn’t find one, wishing Luca wasn’t still on night shift duty. Some of those are normal challenges of a busy life, but the biased environment she lives in makes everything that much more challenging.

We know that eliminating bias is very difficult, perhaps even next to impossible. Our minds are masters at grouping, stereotyping, and oversimplifying. So how do we address bias? Is blocking it out the solution? Major US orchestras in the 1970s put curtains in auditions to make the selection process as unbiased as possible; as a result, the number of women accepted went up by 30% (10).

But is that really a solution? We can’t just shut the curtains and anonymise the whole world to stifle our biases. And we shouldn’t have to. We need to be open to identifying and gradually unlearning our biases for a more fair, inclusive and equal world.