Aspect celebrated International Women’s Day with a gathering and conversation sparked by a video produced by Lean In as part of their 50 Ways to Fight Bias program. The video defined the common biases women experience at work and beyond:
Performance (underestimating women’s experience and performance)
Attribution (women get less credit for success, more blame for failure)
Likability (been agreeable can be seen as less competent, while being assertive can make one less likeable)
Maternal (choosing to become a parent can be seen has having less commitment to career)
Affinity (people tend to gravitate towards people who are similar in appearance and background; when only white men hold positions of power, this has a negative effect on women and people of color)
Compounded discrimination + Intersectionality (the compounding affect of bias due to gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, and other attributes)
Thirty-three percent of Aspect’s staff of 107 are women, including 15 percent of Aspect’s technical/engineering staff, which is slightly higher than the statewide percentages for female engineers –11 percent in Oregon and 12 percent in Washington. In 2018, 21 percent of our technical hires were women.
The theme for International Women’s Day 2019 was Balance for Better, encouraging action towards creating a more gender-balanced world. Some of our staff modeled the “Balance for Better” pose to show our commitment to finding that balance.