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A Book By Anthony Greenwald And Mahzarin Banaji : Hidden Biases Of Good People

Decent Essays

A book by Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji titled Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People states that people are subconsciously racist, sexist, ageist, etc. In the book, there were tests where the reader would have to associate certain objects or jobs with a certain race or gender. For example, there would be a test that would try to show how most people associated violence with people of color rather than to white people, or matching women to more domestic jobs and men to more business related jobs. Although this may show what people think automatically, is it a test of what we truly believe or what we’ve been taught? If we’ve spent our entire lives surrounded by the idea that blue is more masculine and pink is more feminine, or the roles of men and women in the workforce, how can we break that cycle of conditioning? Gender roles are an idea that men and women have certain duties, jobs, clothes, emotions, etc, according to their gender. The social idea that women are inferior to men has always been around. In ancient cultures, males were mainly sent out to do the hunting while women were to stay at home and watch the children and do all the domestic duties. What is often forgotten is that women were also left to do all the governing of the tribe. These women were in charge of the group and controlled what happened. Today, we often picture some standard white male in a suit in charge of a big business or leading a group. When girls grow up thinking they can only have

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