“The single story creates stereotype and the problem with stereotype is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete, they make one story become the only story“
– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What is Stereotyping?
Stereotyping is a natural mental habit, it is a combination of our first thoughts and impressions when we interact with people. When we face people who we do not know, or we have a limited information about, our brain naturally chooses the laziest and the easiest way: putting that person in a cognitive box which is known to us beforehand. It is important to know that all of us have unconscious biases that make us attribute certain things to certain people.
Why talking about Stereotyping is important?
Unconscious bias and stereotyping impacts almost all parts of our interaction with people in our daily life and at the workplace. It affects our decision making at different levels from choosing a friend to recruiting and hiring, choosing our team members and other certain decisions. When we are not even aware of the forces that dominate the choices we make, how can we make the best decisions? It is important to recognize our unconscious biases which make us do stereotype and it is crucial to try and learn to overcome them.
How can we overcome our unconscious bias?
To overcome stereotyping, the first step is to be fully aware that we all have unconscious biases and we all do stereotype. The next step is to monitor our minds to find out what our stereotypes are. We need to know people and get enough information about them before putting them in a specific category. Through the monitoring process, we may notice that we are looking for consistency; it means that we have the same reaction to members of a given group each time we encounter them. We may acknowledge that we have these reactions before giving us a chance to know those people. Here is the moment we should report ourselves and let our unveiled and unconscious biases become veiled.
What did we do in the workshop?
Taking part in the workshop was an enthusiastic group who talked about all of these issues. We discussed the stereotypes each of us deals with, in our daily life. In groups of two and three, we practiced and discussed the techniques which help us to avoid stereotyping others, as well as the techniques we need when other people stereotype us. The groups came up with several useful techniques such as, “give facts,” let it go”, “not overthink”, “use humor” as ways to handle a situation when being stereotyped by others.
Finally, we ended the workshop by reminding ourselves that to overcome unconscious biases we need to practice. Just as stereotyping is learned through repetition, we need to repeatedly practice the habit of not boxing others into “we and them” and instead be curious about people’s full stories.
