According to the IAT I completed, my responses suggested “a moderate automatic association for Male with Career and Female with Family.” While I try to never categorize family or career by gender, I believe it is an implicit bias I have. According to the results of this study, 32% of people, also the majority, ended with the same result as I did. At the end of any of these tests, it is going to tell you that these implicit preferences have the potential to predict your future choices when it comes to “discrimination in hiring and promotion, medical treatment, and decisions related to criminal justice.” Based on this description, I am a little surprised that I automatically link males with career and females with family, even if it is only considered a moderate association. I would hope that in the future my results of this IAT will not come to be fully accurate as I never want to think of myself as having the ability to discriminate based upon gender.
Critical Thinking
I had the same results and was also surprised. Though I think that everyone can do everything if they want to, I didn’t realize that I subconsciously connected men with work and women with family. It’s just interesting to know about yourself.
It is frustrating that as much as we recognize the way stereotypes might come into our thinking it is hard to fully discount them. I’m sure many other women have the same result as you, but would never tell themselves not to have a career. It is our subconscious telling us what we have been told for so long even if we want to believe the opposite.