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Published : 09 Mar 2022, 03:15 AM
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. And that is the very beginning of bias. Our biases may be conscious or unconscious or subconscious. However, that makes us not only perceive the world just through our personal prism; but also impedes us from soul searching. Often, we are biased because we do not listen or do not want to listen with open hearts and minds. Time and time again, we are biased as we are not ready with humility to learn from and work with others. Often, we are biased as we forget the importance of respect and how we should reciprocate the respect we expect from others. Hence, when we aspire to break the bias, we have to be respectful and perseverant, humble yet diligent. In one of his songs, Rabindranath Tagore wrote: "Step out of your self". As women, regardless of our age, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, personal and political views, social or professional identities, we have been put into boxes of social conformity. And due to this, we have all experienced bias in our own ways. Yet surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) we make our own rigid boxes of conformity or just simple right or wrong to perceive others and judge others.
As a daughter of a working mum growing up in the '80s and '90s, I have seen how our surrounding society was judgemental about how much of a 'good' mother my mum was. We three siblings often faced questions about whether my mum was able to manage her motherhood and family duties as a working mother. Many years later, when I became a mother myself, a working woman was not a rare scene but had rather become very common. Yet I faced a lot of judgements in relation to why I took only three months maternity leave when I could get a much longer one. That ongoing view itself put a question mark on my sense of responsibility and doubt on the love for my child as a mother. It was a reminder for me at that point that whether it was in the '80s or years later in the noughties, women's actions are often consistently judged and at times even demeaned. Strong women are often criticised for not being sensitive enough while emotional women are labelled as hysterical. If a woman is ambitious, she can be seen as ruthless. A woman with strong leadership qualities is frequently called 'bossy'. To many people, smart women can be intimidating.
The problem is often the societal thought process that positions men and women as opponents. We tend to think only 'men' are branding women in such a way. I would call this is also a bias. This is not the 'men', rather the patriarchal thought process so inherently ingrained in us, regardless the gender, people perceive women in such a way. And that is why words such as 'bitch', 'witch', 'slut', 'whore' still exist in our vocabulary, and are only used to describe women, while few other derogatory and offensive words can be associated only with men. Even in this day and age, we judge a female prime minister differently than a male prime minister. It never bothers us to make derogatory comments about women in any leadership positions, be it at the national level, at the institutional level or at the social level, just because we see them as women, not as humans. Still, in our subconscious mind, the word 'surgeon' is associated with a male while 'nurse' is with a woman. Novelist or journalist or soldier still encapsulates a male image.
And this is true regardless of the geographical location of countries, socioeconomic status of individuals, an abundance of historical and cultural heritage. Such mindsets, prejudices, predispositions exist everywhere around the globe. Whether it is a conscious or an unconscious or even a subconscious bias, this often allows such stereotypical thoughts to persist in every sphere of our lives even within an ever-growing diverse society, undermining our voices, suppressing our ability to progress. Therefore, as a migrant woman living in an adopted country of mine, this year's International Women's Day theme — 'Break the Bias' — accords with my heart in many different facets.
As 'immigrant' women, as women living in the diasporic society, we have stories to tell but our stories are not the same. Often, I find, there is another type of bias attached with the word 'immigrants' which put us in one rigid box of social conformity. The social discourse often ignores the facts that immigrants are neither a homogeneous group nor are the reasons and contexts for our migrations are similar. Even despite coming from the same language and cultural backgrounds, does not necessarily make our stories similar. Every single immigrant has different struggles and challenges, different ways of adapting to a new country, different visions and different expectations. And gender plays a crucial role in this personal experience. While most immigrant women need to achieve some kind of financial security to survive and sustain themselves in their adopted country, they need to make new social connections and community networks as support systems. They also need to raise a family where they crave to maintain their inherent language and culture. Hence, their struggles are versatile and multifaceted.
Being a hyphenated-American is such a complex thing.
I'm a person beyond where I'm from.
Like, stop tryin' to box me.
…
I hate when people try to box me
because there's so much more to my identity than the labels.
Know people without looking at their skin tone, their immigration status, their education.
And I think for me that's one thing I'd like for people to know.
These are the very powerful words of an unidentified American–Bangali woman who was a part of a research project. As she rightly describes 'Being a hyphenated-American is such a complex thing', summarises the way many of us may feel.
There are aspects of multiplicity and diversity within every such story, as we all construct our identity, our sense of 'self' in a different way. Identity is a very fluid concept and it keeps changing as we grow as a person. Then again there are different layers we create around the question of who we are and how we want others to perceive us. Our sense of self is multi-layered and it has different facades. While at times, our language, cultural codes, historical experiences provide us with the sense of 'oneness' in terms of who we are and where we belong; our personal experience and emotions continuously review, reconstruct and reposition our sense of self. And that identity constitutes both 'what we really are' and 'what we have become'. Our sense of self is a matter of 'becoming' as well as of 'being' as it belongs to the future as much as it does to the past. This is why our individual stories are multi-layered. However, there might be differences in those layers, which can somehow connect us too in our diasporic story.
A daughter, a wife, a sister, a mother – all these are attached to my identity as a woman. However, my gender plays a crucial role in terms of my sense of self as an academic, as a researcher. While my academic knowledge, its interpretation and my critical thinking ability and wisdom are deeply rooted in my linguistic and cultural background 'what I am' – a Bangali woman, this has helped me to appreciate 'what I have become'- an 'Australian Bangladeshi'. And my sense of 'becoming' has shaped my 'being' as a singer, a writer. Then again when I sing, I write, I speak I represent my womanhood which is central to my identity.
I am also mindful of the fact that the answer to the question of 'what I am' can be very different for another Bangali-Australian woman. Therefore, her perspectives around the question 'what I have become' will also be very different from mine. As our identities are layered, despite these differences, we might be able to relate to each other at different levels in different ways. That is how and why our stories are so distinctly diverse yet still so important to be shared. This sharing will create an avenue through which we can connect with others to construct our own support network and community.
Such connections and support networks are very important for any woman regardless of linguistic and cultural background. And this is even more crucial for immigrant women who do not have extended family support available in their adopted country. There is a common misconception about women's camaraderie. Often in the popular media or in the social discourse, it is portrayed in such a way that women can never support other women, they cannot be leaders and women cannot form an alliance or network. Animosity, envy, malice and meanness are often attached to female characteristics. Thus, it is quite common to undermine the intention and effort of women building a sense of sisterhood and creating a mutual support network.
Have a bias toward action – let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
Picking up from the wise advice of Indira Gandhi who broke lots of bias and glass ceilings in her life, I would add that we, the women have to gather our courage and work in unity to break the bias and social glass ceilings imposed on us.
As we celebrate International Women's Day for 2022, with the key theme of 'Breaking the Bias' this week, it is fitting to acknowledge and pay our respects to the strong and fierce women who came before us and relentlessly fought against all forms of injustice, biases, social stigma to pave the paths for women like us. In a similar way, we have to take this mantle and assist in whatever way we can to make a better, more equal, unbiased world for the generations that come after us. Women before us showed us how they used their courage, determination and grit to create a better world for us. Now it is our turn to break own biases we pose to others while we fight the predisposition and prejudices we face in our everyday life. I take my inspiration from Rabindranath Tagore's song [*Translation by Deepankar Chowdhury]:
*I aspire to be liberated in the glorious lights lit up in the skies
I aspire to be liberated in the specks of dust spread on the grass
Far beyond the mind and body I tend to lose myself
Amongst the strains of melody I tend to rise myself
My salvation exists in the hearts of general plebeians
Belittling sorrows and perils in arduous mission.
