The best example of stereotype threat that I can think of in my life happened when I was working in South Carolina. As a 7th grade English Teacher in the South, I was for the first time in my life, a minority. I was working in a heavily female dominated profession, in a subject that was probably the most heavily dominated of the four core subjects, and I was also a yankee. In fact, if you worked your way up my chain of command, they were almost all female: athletic director, principal, assistant principal, instructional coach, department chair, etc.
Needless to say, some interesting things started to unfold during my two years teaching in that school. I frequently felt like a bull in a china shop. Where I came from, we were raised to confront our issues head on, and that if we had a conflict with someone we had to work it out with them. In the area I was working, it often felt like everyone just wanted to gossip and talk about what so and so did without resolving anything and without directly confronting anyone.
There were plenty of times where I said something or did something unintentionally that ruffled some feathers. These, in my opinion, were minor issues that could have easily been resolved with a bug and a wish, but instead I often found myself being confronted by one of my superiors that was not even a part of the disagreement in the first place. I was not unwilling to admit when I had said or done something that needed reparation, but I felt belittled when someone went over my head instead of coming to me about it. It almost made me feel as if they thought I was unapproachable when that was far from the case; as if I were a wild child they would rather not deal with.
Having experienced what its like to be a part of a gender minority, I know going forward that I will have to be more aware of this in my profession. I am now entering a heavily male dominated profession, and I hope to continue to be concious of the things that I say and the way that I approach situations with the women and other minorities at DBC and in the workplace. Often, it can just be a careless comment or the way a situation is handled that leaves someone feeling excluded.
I often feel that this issue can be a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, I don't feel that a minority group wants to be treated differently because this too can feel ostricizing. On the other hand, it is important to be aware of the underlying stereotypes and prejudices that we carry as a result of our social and cultural stigmas so that we don't inadvertently make others feel uncomfortable.
I think perhaps most important in this is communication. I think that despite our best intentions we often err as humans and I know that I will probably slip up in the future. I think when this happens the best way to deal with it will be with the person directly in an open conversation to come to an understanding. This was most crucially lacking when I felt the presence of stereotype threat. I really just wanted someone to understand my point of view and why I perceived things differently but was never accorded the opportunity.
Coming Soon!
Copyright Jordan M. Schreuder 2014