When Gender Bias Doesn’t Look Like We Expect It To

What happens when the person experiencing gender bias isn't the person we expect?

When we talk about unconscious gender bias in the workplace, there are some familiar examples.

Women being interrupted in meetings.

Women being described as “emotional” when a male colleague displaying the same behaviour might be described as passionate.

Women being overlooked for opportunities.

Men being perceived as more authoritative or confident.

Women being expected to take on the organising, caring or emotional labour within a team.

These are important conversations. They need to continue.

But I have been thinking about something slightly more uncomfortable.

What happens when the bias goes in the other direction?

And perhaps more importantly, what happens when nobody notices it because it doesn't fit the story we are used to telling ourselves about gender?

Bias doesn't always look like discrimination

Earlier in my career, I experienced a workplace where the gender dynamic was very different from what I might have expected.

There were men and women in the team, with a male manager.

The women were, very visibly, given a positive experience.

The men weren't.

I reflect back now and could see behaviours taking place that appeared to favour the women while, at the same time, the male colleagues were being undermined, manipulated and, in my view, subjected to behaviours that crossed into bullying.

What has stayed with me isn't simply what happened.

It was the question it raised.

How do we recognise gender bias when it doesn't fit our expectations of what gender bias looks like?

Was the manager attracted to the women?

Was it an example of affinity bias?

Was it overcompensation?

Was there an unconscious belief that women needed to be treated differently?

Was there simply a personality dynamic that became gendered?

I don't know.

And I don't think it would be appropriate for me to assume the motivation.

But I do know what I could observe: the impact on people was very different depending on their gender.

And that is where I think the conversation about unconscious bias becomes much more interesting.

Intent isn't the same as impact

One of the challenges with unconscious bias is that we can become overly focused on whether someone meant to discriminate.

But unconscious bias is, by definition, often outside our conscious awareness.

A manager doesn't necessarily wake up thinking:

"Today I am going to treat the men in my team less favourably than the women."

That's not how most bias works.

Instead, it can appear through a collection of small decisions and behaviours.

Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

Who gets given the interesting project?

Who gets listened to?

Who is challenged?

Who is protected from criticism?

Who is described as difficult?

Who is described as confident?

Who gets informal access to the manager?

Who is forgiven when they make a mistake?

Who is expected to just "get on with it"?

Individually, these things might appear insignificant.

Collectively, they can create a very different workplace experience for different people.

And sometimes the person making those decisions may genuinely believe they are being fair.

The danger of only looking for bias in one direction

There is an important distinction to make here.

Acknowledging that men can experience gender bias does not mean denying the structural inequalities that women experience.

Women continue to face well-documented gender inequalities in many areas of working life. There are legitimate and important reasons why much of the conversation about gender bias has historically focused on women's experiences.

But inclusion becomes problematic if we start to believe that because one group has historically experienced greater disadvantage, individuals from that group cannot themselves experience bias, favouritism or unfair treatment.

They can.

And we should be able to hold both truths at the same time.

Because if our approach to inclusion becomes:

"We know what discrimination looks like, and we know who experiences it,"

we risk becoming blind to the very thing we are trying to address.

Favouritism isn't inclusion

This is another distinction I think organisations need to consider.

Sometimes we confuse representation with inclusion.

We might see more women in senior positions and assume we're becoming more inclusive.

We might actively encourage women to apply for opportunities and assume we're addressing bias.

We might create programmes specifically designed to support underrepresented groups and assume the work is done.

These things can be valuable.

But inclusion isn't about ensuring that one group gets a better experience than another.

Inclusion is about removing unnecessary barriers so that people can participate, contribute and succeed fairly.

If a manager favours women and disadvantages men, that isn't inclusive leadership.

If another manager favours men and disadvantages women, that isn't inclusive leadership either.

The direction of the bias changes.

The principle doesn't.

And this is where psychological safety comes in

Imagine being the person who is consistently on the receiving end of that unfairness.

You notice that your colleague gets opportunities that you don't.

You notice that mistakes are treated differently.

You notice that certain people can challenge the manager while you are criticised for doing exactly the same thing.

You notice the relationships being built around you.

You begin to question whether you're imagining it.

You don't want to sound bitter.

You don't want to be accused of being difficult.

You might even wonder whether you're allowed to raise it.

And gradually, you stop speaking.

That's not inclusion.

That's not psychological safety.

And that's not a healthy workplace culture.

The irony is that the person experiencing the bias may be the least likely person to feel able to challenge it.

We need to become better at noticing the pattern

I don't think the answer is to become obsessed with trying to identify every unconscious bias we might possibly have.

None of us is free from bias.

The answer is curiosity.

Leaders need to become curious about their own patterns of behaviour.

Who do I naturally gravitate towards?

Who do I find easier to manage?

Who do I give more autonomy to?

Who do I trust instinctively?

Who do I have more patience with?

Who do I find frustrating?

Would I respond in exactly the same way if this person were a different gender?

And perhaps one of the most uncomfortable questions:

Would I recognise this behaviour as problematic if the genders were reversed?

That last question can be particularly revealing.

Because sometimes we become so familiar with a particular narrative that we stop examining the behaviour itself.

Inclusion means everyone

I want to be clear about something.

This article is specifically considering male and female gender dynamics in the workplace based on previous experience. That is not intended to exclude or minimise the experiences of people who are non-binary, transgender or have other gender identities.

There are important and distinct conversations to be had about the bias, discrimination and barriers experienced by those groups too.

My point here is narrower.

If we are serious about inclusion, we need to be willing to examine the experiences of both men and women, even when those experiences don't fit neatly into the narrative we expected.

Because inclusion shouldn't mean:

"We make sure the traditionally disadvantaged group is okay."

It should mean:

"We create an environment where everyone is treated with fairness, dignity and respect."

That doesn't mean treating everyone identically.

Fairness isn't always sameness.

But it does mean being willing to question why people are being treated differently, and whether there is a legitimate reason for that difference.

Perhaps the real unconscious bias is in how we define bias

This is the part I keep coming back to.

Perhaps one of the risks in our conversations about unconscious bias is that we become very good at identifying the bias we already know how to see.

We know what we're looking for.

We know which examples to use.

We know who the likely victim is and who the likely perpetrator is.

But real workplaces are much messier than that.

People have preferences.

People form relationships.

Managers have favourites.

People make assumptions.

Power dynamics develop.

Personalities collide.

And sometimes gender becomes part of those dynamics in ways that aren't immediately obvious.

We don't necessarily need to know exactly why someone is behaving in a particular way before we can ask whether the outcome is fair.

We can be curious about intent while still taking responsibility for impact.

Perhaps that is a much more useful way of thinking about unconscious bias.

Not as a checklist of things other people do.

But as an invitation to continually ask ourselves:

Who is having a different experience here, and why?

Because a truly inclusive workplace isn't one where we simply protect the people we expect to be vulnerable.

It's one where we pay enough attention to notice when anyone is being excluded, undermined, overlooked or unfairly advantaged.

And perhaps that is the harder version of inclusion.

But it's also the more honest one.

Inclusion means creating workplaces where everyone can belong, contribute and feel safe, not just the people we expected to need it.