An obese ninja fairy princess to challenge the laws of language

“It turns out that language is gendered,” says Uotila. “There are words that we perceive to be female-typed or male-typed.” Words perceived to be female-oriented include “warm,” “collaborate,” and “team”, while ones perceived to be male-oriented include “leader,” “aggressive,” and “ninja”. “If you write a job application for a coder and describe what you’re looking for as ‘aggressive ninjas,’ that language is going to disproportionately draw men to apply for the job and limit your pool,” explains Uotila.

People actually use "ninja" in recruitment ads... ? Look, if you're going to go all gendery, you might as well max it out. "We're looking for a dynamic, warm individual with mad collaboration skills, an aggressive attitude to team-building and all-round awesome ninja fairy princess. Must bring own unicorn/batmobile."

... if there was a show about a ninja fairy princess, I would watch it. Or a pirate who can turn into a pony, or vice-versa.

Aaanyway....

“We were interested in what would happen to a person who sounded black and actually wasn’t,” she explains. “About 89% of people were able to classify the people’s voices as black.” The research found that whether the voice came from a black person or not, those who were classified as being black purely on the sound the voice were subjected to more negative judgements.

Cocchiara recommends that recruiters understand what their implicit biases are, by taking an implicit associations test. “Some people say they have no bias against anything, and that’s laughable. I’d rather someone say I have these biases, but I understand them and don’t act on them.”

Workplaces that provide perks like gym memberships can also accidentally promote the belief among their employees that individuals are to blame for being overweight, according to Flint. “We know there are many factors that contribute to weight status, many of which are outside your control.”

I dunno if I agree with that one, though obese ninja fairy princess would be amazeballs and I defy anyone to say otherwise.

Alexandra van Geen, a consultant based in the Netherlands who specialises in improving diversity at companies, has shown in her own research that joint evaluations, in which multiple candidates are interviewed at the same time, can reduce this type of bias. “We found it could help recruiters override their first response, which are sensitive to our biases and heuristics,” she says. “Whenever you have to evaluate one person and you don’t have any comparable material, it’s very subjective.” That’s harder to do when you have to compare two candidates side by side.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180806-how-hidden-bias-can-stop-you-getting-a-job