What does my headscarf mean to you? | Yassmin Abdel-Magied — Transcript

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1. 0:13Someone who looks like me walks past you in the street.
2. 0:18Do you think they're a mother,
3. 0:20a refugee
4. 0:22or a victim of oppression?
5. 0:24Or do you think they're a cardiologist,
6. 0:26a barrister
7. 0:27or maybe your local politician?
8. 0:30Do you look me up and down,
9. 0:32wondering how hot I must get
10. 0:33or if my husband has forced me to wear this outfit?
11. 0:38What if I wore my scarf like this?
12. 0:43I can walk down the street in the exact same outfit
13. 0:46and what the world expects of me and the way I'm treated
14. 0:49depends on the arrangement of this piece of cloth.
15. 0:52But this isn't going to be another monologue about the hijab
16. 0:55because Lord knows, Muslim women are so much more than the piece of cloth
17. 0:59they choose, or not, to wrap their head in.
18. 1:03This is about looking beyond your bias.
19. 1:08What if I walked past you and later on
20. 1:10you'd found out that actually I was a race car engineer,
21. 1:13and that I designed my own race car and I ran my university's race team,
22. 1:17because it's true.
23. 1:19What if I told you that I was actually trained as a boxer for five years,
24. 1:24because that's true, too.
25. 1:26Would it surprise you?
26. 1:29Why?
27. 1:31Ladies and gentlemen, ultimately,
28. 1:33that surprise and the behaviors associated with it
29. 1:36are the product of something called unconscious bias,
30. 1:39or implicit prejudice.
31. 1:40And that results in the ridiculously detrimental
32. 1:43lack of diversity in our workforce,
33. 1:45particularly in areas of influence.
34. 1:47Hello, Australian Federal Cabinet.
35. 1:50(Applause)
36. 1:52Let me just set something out from the outset:
37. 1:55Unconscious bias is not the same as conscious discrimination.
38. 1:58I'm not saying that in all of you, there's a secret sexist or racist
39. 2:02or ageist lurking within, waiting to get out.
40. 2:04That's not what I'm saying.
41. 2:06We all have our biases.
42. 2:08They're the filters through which we see the world around us.
43. 2:11I'm not accusing anyone,
44. 2:13bias is not an accusation.
45. 2:15Rather, it's something that has to be identified,
46. 2:17acknowledged and mitigated against.
47. 2:21Bias can be about race,
48. 2:22it can be about gender.
49. 2:23It can also be about class, education, disability.
50. 2:27The fact is, we all have biases against what's different,
51. 2:30what's different to our social norms.
52. 2:33The thing is, if we want to live in a world
53. 2:36where the circumstances of your birth
54. 2:39do not dictate your future
55. 2:41and where equal opportunity is ubiquitous,
56. 2:44then each and every one of us has a role to play
57. 2:47in making sure unconscious bias does not determine our lives.
58. 2:52There's this really famous experiment in the space of unconscious bias
59. 2:55and that's in the space of gender in the 1970s and 1980s.
60. 2:59So orchestras, back in the day, were made up mostly of dudes,
61. 3:03up to only five percent were female.
62. 3:06And apparently, that was because men played it differently,
63. 3:09presumably better, presumably.
64. 3:12But in 1952, The Boston Symphony Orchestra
65. 3:15started an experiment.
66. 3:17They started blind auditions.
67. 3:19So rather than face-to-face auditions, you would have to play behind a screen.
68. 3:22Now funnily enough,
69. 3:24no immediate change was registered
70. 3:26until they asked the audition-ers to take their shoes off
71. 3:29before they entered the room.
72. 3:31because the clickity-clack of the heels
73. 3:33against the hardwood floors
74. 3:35was enough to give the ladies away.
75. 3:37Now get this,
76. 3:39there results of the audition showed
77. 3:41that there was a 50 percent increased chance
78. 3:44a woman would progress past the preliminary stage.
79. 3:47And it almost tripled their chances of getting in.
80. 3:51What does that tell us?
81. 3:53Well, unfortunately for the guys, men actually didn't play differently,
82. 3:56but there was the perception that they did.
83. 3:59And it was that bias that was determining their outcome.
84. 4:03So what we're doing here is identifying and acknowledging
85. 4:06that a bias exists.
86. 4:07And look, we all do it.
87. 4:08Let me give you an example.
88. 4:10A son and his father are in a horrible car accident.
89. 4:14The father dies on impact
90. 4:16and the son, who's severely injured, is rushed to hospital.
91. 4:20The surgeon looks at the son when they arrive and is like,
92. 4:23"I can't operate."
93. 4:25Why?
94. 4:27"The boy is my son."
95. 4:30How can that be?
96. 4:32Ladies and gentlemen,
97. 4:33the surgeon is his mother.
98. 4:36Now hands up -- and it's okay --
99. 4:38but hands up if you initially assumed the surgeon was a guy?
100. 4:42There's evidence that that unconscious bias exists,
101. 4:45but we all just have to acknowledge that it's there
102. 4:48and then look at ways that we can move past it
103. 4:51so that we can look at solutions.
104. 4:54Now one of the interesting things
105. 4:57around the space of unconscious bias is the topic of quotas.
106. 5:00And this something that's often brought up.
107. 5:02And of of the criticisms is this idea of merit.
108. 5:05Look, I don't want to be picked because I'm a chick,
109. 5:09I want to be picked because I have merit,
110. 5:11because I'm the best person for the job.
111. 5:13It's a sentiment that's pretty common among female engineers
112. 5:16that I work with and that I know.
113. 5:18And yeah, I get it, I've been there.
114. 5:20But, if the merit idea was true,
115. 5:22why would identical resumes, in an experiment done in 2012 by Yale,
116. 5:27identical resumes sent out for a lab technician,
117. 5:32why would Jennifers be deemed less competent,
118. 5:35be less likely to be offered the job,
119. 5:37and be paid less than Johns.
120. 5:42The unconscious bias is there,
121. 5:43but we just have to look at how we can move past it.
122. 5:46And, you know, it's interesting,
123. 5:47there's some research that talks about
124. 5:49why this is the case and it's called the merit paradox.
125. 5:52And in organizations -- and this is kind of ironic --
126. 5:54in organizations that talk about merit being their primary value-driver
127. 5:58in terms of who they hire,
128. 6:00they were more likely to hire dudes and more likely to pay the guys more
129. 6:03because apparently merit is a masculine quality.
130. 6:07But, hey.
131. 6:08So you guys think you've got a good read on me,
132. 6:10you kinda think you know what's up.
133. 6:14Can you imagine me running one of these?
134. 6:17Can you imagine me walking in and being like,
135. 6:20"Hey boys, this is what's up. This is how it's done."
136. 6:23Well, I'm glad you can.
137. 6:31(Applause)
138. 6:37Because ladies and gentlemen, that's my day job.
139. 6:40And the cool thing about it is that it's pretty entertaining.
140. 6:43Actually, in places like Malaysia,
141. 6:44Muslim women on rigs isn't even comment-worthy.
142. 6:47There are that many of them.
143. 6:48But, it is entertaining.
144. 6:49I remember, I was telling one of the guys,
145. 6:52"Hey, mate, look, I really want to learn how to surf."
146. 6:54And he's like, "Yassmin, I don't know how you can surf
147. 6:57with all that gear you've got on,
148. 6:59and I don't know any women-only beaches."
149. 7:02And then, the guy came up with a brilliant idea,
150. 7:04he was like, "I know, you run that organization
151. 7:06Youth Without Borders, right?
152. 7:08Why don't you start a clothing line for Muslim chicks in beaches.
153. 7:13You can call it Youth Without Boardshorts."
154. 7:15(Laughter)
155. 7:17And I was like, "Thanks, guys."
156. 7:19And I remember another bloke telling me that
157. 7:22I should eat all the yogurt I could
158. 7:24because that was the only culture I was going to get around there.
159. 7:29But, the problem is, it's kind of true
160. 7:32because there's an intense lack of diversity in our workforce,
161. 7:35particularly in places of influence.
162. 7:37Now, in 2010,
163. 7:39The Australian National University did an experiment
164. 7:41where they sent out 4,000 identical applications
165. 7:45to entry level jobs, essentially.
166. 7:48To get the same number of interviews as someone with an Anglo-Saxon name,
167. 7:53if you were Chinese, you had to send out 68 percent more applications.
168. 7:57If you were Middle Eastern -- Abdel-Magied --
169. 8:00you had to send out 64 percent,
170. 8:02and if you're Italian, you're pretty lucky,
171. 8:04you only have to send out 12 percent more.
172. 8:07In places like Silicon Valley, it's not that much better.
173. 8:10In Google, they put out some diversity results
174. 8:12and 61 percent white, 30 percent Asian and nine, a bunch of blacks, Hispanics,
175. 8:19all that kind of thing.
176. 8:20And the rest of the tech world is not that much better
177. 8:23and they've acknowledged it,
178. 8:24but I'm not really sure what they're doing about it.
179. 8:27The thing is, it doesn't trickle up.
180. 8:29In a study done by Green Park,
181. 8:31who are a British senior exec supplier,
182. 8:35they said that over half of the FTSE 100 companies
183. 8:39don't have a nonwhite leader at their board level,
184. 8:42executive or non-executive.
185. 8:43And two out of every three don't have an executive
186. 8:47who's from a minority.
187. 8:49And most of the minorities that are at that sort of level
188. 8:52are non-executive board directors.
189. 8:54So their influence isn't that great.
190. 8:57I've told you a bunch of terrible things.
191. 8:59You're like, "Oh my god, how bad is that? What can I do about it?"
192. 9:03Well, fortunately,
193. 9:05we've identified that there's a problem.
194. 9:07There's a lack of opportunity, and that's due to unconscious bias.
195. 9:13But you might be sitting there thinking,
196. 9:15"I ain't brown. What's that got to do with me?"
197. 9:20Let me offer you a solution.
198. 9:22And as I've said before,
199. 9:23we live in a world where we're looking for an ideal.
200. 9:27And if we want to create a world
201. 9:29where the circumstances of your birth don't matter,
202. 9:31we all have to be part of the solution.
203. 9:33And interestingly, the author of the lab resume experiment
204. 9:36offered some sort of a solution.
205. 9:38She said the one thing that brought the successful women together,
206. 9:42the one thing that they had in common,
207. 9:44was the fact that they had good mentors.
208. 9:46So mentoring, we've all kind of heard that before,
209. 9:49it's in the vernacular.
210. 9:52Here's another challenge for you.
211. 9:54I challenge each and every one of you to mentor someone different.
212. 9:59Think about it.
213. 10:00Everyone wants to mentor someone who kind of is familiar,
214. 10:04who looks like us,
215. 10:04we have shared experiences.
216. 10:06If I see a Muslim chick who's got a bit of attitude,
217. 10:09I'm like, "What's up? We can hang out."
218. 10:10You walk into a room and there's someone who went to the same school,
219. 10:14you play the same sports,
220. 10:15there's a high chance that you're going to want to help that person out.
221. 10:19But for the person in the room who has no shared experiences with you
222. 10:22it becomes extremely difficult to find that connection.
223. 10:25The idea of finding someone different to mentor,
224. 10:27someone who doesn't come from the same background as you,
225. 10:30whatever that background is,
226. 10:31is about opening doors for people who couldn't even get
227. 10:35to the damn hallway.
228. 10:38Because ladies and gentlemen, the world is not just.
229. 10:41People are not born with equal opportunity.
230. 10:43I was born in one of the poorest cities in the world, Khartoum.
231. 10:46I was born brown, I was born female,
232. 10:49and I was born Muslim in a world that is pretty suspicious of us
233. 10:52for reasons I can't control.
234. 10:56However, I also acknowledge the fact that I was born with privilege.
235. 11:00I was born with amazing parents,
236. 11:01I was given an education
237. 11:03and had the blessing of migrating to Australia.
238. 11:06But also, I've been blessed with amazing mentors
239. 11:08who've opened doors for me that I didn't even know were there.
240. 11:11A mentor who said to me,
241. 11:13"Hey, your story's interesting.
242. 11:14Let's write something about it so that I can share it with people."
243. 11:17A mentor who said,
244. 11:18"I know you're all those things that don't belong on an Australian rig,
245. 11:22but come on anyway."
246. 11:23And here I am, talking to you.
247. 11:25And I'm not the only one.
248. 11:26There's all sorts of people in my communities
249. 11:28that I see have been helped out by mentors.
250. 11:31A young Muslim man in Sydney
251. 11:32who ended up using his mentor's help
252. 11:35to start up a poetry slam in Bankstown
253. 11:39and now it's a huge thing.
254. 11:41And he's able to change the lives of so many other young people.
255. 11:44Or a lady here in Brisbane,
256. 11:45an Afghan lady who's a refugee,
257. 11:47who could barely speak English when she came to Australia,
258. 11:50her mentors helped her become a doctor
259. 11:52and she took our Young Queenslander of the Year Award in 2008.
260. 11:55She's an inspiration.
261. 12:02This is so not smooth.
262. 12:06This is me.
263. 12:08But I'm also the woman in the rig clothes,
264. 12:11and I'm also the woman who was in the abaya at the beginning.
265. 12:15Would you have chosen to mentor me if you had seen me
266. 12:18in one of those other versions of who I am?
267. 12:20Because I'm that same person.
268. 12:24We have to look past our unconscious bias,
269. 12:27find someone to mentor who's at the opposite end of your spectrum
270. 12:30because structural change takes time,
271. 12:32and I don't have that level of patience.
272. 12:36So if we're going to create a change,
273. 12:38if we're going to create a world
274. 12:40where we all have those kinds of opportunities,
275. 12:42then choose to open doors for people.
276. 12:44Because you might think that diversity has nothing to do with you,
277. 12:48but we are all part of this system
278. 12:50and we can all be part of that solution.
279. 12:52And if you don't know where to find someone different,
280. 12:54go to the places you wouldn't usually go.
281. 12:56If you enroll in private high school tutoring,
282. 12:59go to your local state school
283. 13:00or maybe just drop into your local refugee tutoring center.
284. 13:03Or perhaps you work at an office.
285. 13:05Take out that new grad who looks totally out of place --
286. 13:08'cause that was me --
287. 13:09and open doors for them,
288. 13:11not in a tokenistic way, because we're not victims,
289. 13:13but show them the opportunities
290. 13:15because opening up your world
291. 13:18will make you realize that you have access to doors
292. 13:20that they didn't even know existed
293. 13:22and you didn't even know they didn't have.
294. 13:25Ladies and gentlemen,
295. 13:28there is a problem in our community with lack of opportunity,
296. 13:31especially due to unconscious bias.
297. 13:33But each and every one one of you has the potential to change that.
298. 13:37I know you've been given a lot of challenges today,
299. 13:40but if you can take this one piece and think about it a little differently,
300. 13:44because diversity is magic.
301. 13:47And I encourage you to look past your initial perceptions
302. 13:51because I bet you,
303. 13:53they're probably wrong.
304. 13:55Thank you.
305. 13:57(Applause)