WEBVTT 00:00:09.270 --> 00:00:12.270 Someone who looks like me walks past you in the street. 00:00:14.372 --> 00:00:16.350 Do you think they're a mother, 00:00:16.351 --> 00:00:17.798 a refugee 00:00:17.799 --> 00:00:19.852 or a victim of oppression? 00:00:19.853 --> 00:00:22.053 Or do you think they're a cardiologist, 00:00:22.054 --> 00:00:23.095 a barrister 00:00:23.096 --> 00:00:24.885 or maybe your local politician? 00:00:25.504 --> 00:00:27.318 Do you look me up and down, 00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:29.128 wondering how hot I must get 00:00:29.152 --> 00:00:32.375 or if my husband has forced me to wear this outfit? 00:00:33.389 --> 00:00:35.823 What if I wore my scarf like this? 00:00:38.527 --> 00:00:41.883 I can walk down the street in the exact same outfit 00:00:41.934 --> 00:00:44.749 and what the world expects of me and the way I'm treated 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:47.770 depends on the arrangement of this piece of cloth. 00:00:48.371 --> 00:00:51.190 But this isn't going to be another monologue about the hijab 00:00:51.211 --> 00:00:54.975 because Lord knows, Muslim women are so much more than the piece of cloth 00:00:54.996 --> 00:00:58.322 they choose, or not, to wrap their head in. 00:00:59.118 --> 00:01:02.258 This is about looking beyond your bias. 00:01:03.804 --> 00:01:05.683 What if I walked past you and later on 00:01:05.684 --> 00:01:09.512 you'd found out that actually I was a race car engineer, 00:01:09.512 --> 00:01:13.029 and that I designed my own race car and I ran my university's race team, 00:01:13.119 --> 00:01:14.624 because it's true. 00:01:14.717 --> 00:01:19.659 What if I told you that I was actually trained as a boxer for five years, 00:01:19.727 --> 00:01:21.254 because that's true, too. 00:01:22.302 --> 00:01:24.637 Would it surprise you? 00:01:25.003 --> 00:01:26.492 Why? 00:01:27.887 --> 00:01:29.718 Ladies and gentlemen, ultimately, 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:32.719 that surprise and the behaviors associated with it 00:01:32.747 --> 00:01:35.399 are the product of something called unconscious bias, 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:36.771 or implicit prejudice. 00:01:36.772 --> 00:01:39.772 And that results in the ridiculously detrimental 00:01:39.793 --> 00:01:41.730 lack of diversity in our workforce, 00:01:41.751 --> 00:01:44.113 particularly in areas of influence. 00:01:44.114 --> 00:01:46.205 Hello, Australian Federal Cabinet. 00:01:46.288 --> 00:01:48.697 (Applause) 00:01:52.318 --> 00:01:55.318 Let me just set something out from the outset: 00:01:56.527 --> 00:01:59.527 Unconscious bias is not the same as conscious discrimination. 00:01:59.548 --> 00:02:03.016 I'm not saying that in all of you, there's a secret sexist or racist 00:02:03.037 --> 00:02:05.762 or ageist lurking within, waiting to get out. 00:02:06.041 --> 00:02:07.588 That's not what I'm saying. 00:02:07.609 --> 00:02:09.088 We all have our biases. 00:02:09.109 --> 00:02:12.109 They're the filters through which we see the world around us. 00:02:12.130 --> 00:02:14.104 I'm not accusing anyone, 00:02:14.139 --> 00:02:15.632 bias is not an accusation. 00:02:15.653 --> 00:02:18.193 Rather, it's something that has to be identified, 00:02:18.214 --> 00:02:21.214 acknowledged and mitigated against. 00:02:21.235 --> 00:02:22.628 Bias can be about race, 00:02:22.649 --> 00:02:23.852 it can be about gender. 00:02:23.873 --> 00:02:27.315 It can also be about class, education, disability. 00:02:27.492 --> 00:02:30.496 The fact is, we all have biases against what's different, 00:02:30.517 --> 00:02:33.204 what's different to our social norms. 00:02:33.431 --> 00:02:36.431 The thing is, if we want to live in a world 00:02:36.583 --> 00:02:39.827 where the circumstances of your birth 00:02:39.848 --> 00:02:42.089 do not dictate your future 00:02:42.111 --> 00:02:44.533 and where equal opportunity is ubiquitous, 00:02:44.554 --> 00:02:47.739 then each and every one of us has a role to play 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:51.237 in making sure unconscious bias does not determine our lives. 00:02:52.906 --> 00:02:56.572 There's this really famous experiment in the space of unconscious bias 00:02:56.593 --> 00:03:00.490 and that's in the space of gender in the 1970s and 1980s. 00:03:00.837 --> 00:03:04.681 So orchestras, back in the day, were made up mostly of dudes, 00:03:04.729 --> 00:03:07.665 up to only five percent were female. 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:10.920 And apparently, that was because men played it differently, 00:03:10.941 --> 00:03:13.754 presumably better, presumably. 00:03:13.755 --> 00:03:16.716 But in 1952, The Boston Symphony Orchestra 00:03:16.717 --> 00:03:18.481 started an experiment. 00:03:18.482 --> 00:03:20.324 They started blind auditions. 00:03:20.618 --> 00:03:24.333 So rather than face-to-face auditions, you would have to play behind a screen. 00:03:24.333 --> 00:03:25.665 Now funnily enough, 00:03:25.666 --> 00:03:27.834 no immediate change was registered 00:03:27.855 --> 00:03:30.747 until they asked the auditioners to take their shoes off 00:03:30.768 --> 00:03:32.486 before they entered the room. 00:03:32.486 --> 00:03:34.817 because the clickity-clack of the heels 00:03:34.818 --> 00:03:36.530 against the hardwood floors 00:03:36.551 --> 00:03:38.577 was enough to give the ladies away. 00:03:38.598 --> 00:03:40.103 Now get this, 00:03:40.295 --> 00:03:42.156 there results of the audition showed 00:03:42.177 --> 00:03:45.015 that there was a 50 percent increased chance 00:03:45.036 --> 00:03:47.730 a woman would progress past the preliminary stage. 00:03:47.754 --> 00:03:51.201 And it almost tripled their chances of getting in. 00:03:52.137 --> 00:03:53.649 What does that tell us? 00:03:53.670 --> 00:03:57.537 Well, unfortunately for the guys, men actually didn't play differently, 00:03:57.597 --> 00:04:00.323 but there was the perception that they did. 00:04:00.344 --> 00:04:03.344 And it was that bias that was determining their outcome. 00:04:04.171 --> 00:04:07.171 So what we're doing here is identifying and acknowledging 00:04:07.192 --> 00:04:08.239 that a bias exists. 00:04:08.260 --> 00:04:09.755 And look, we all do it. 00:04:09.776 --> 00:04:11.437 Let me give you an example. 00:04:11.901 --> 00:04:15.271 A son and his father are in a horrible car accident. 00:04:15.675 --> 00:04:17.538 The father dies on impact 00:04:17.539 --> 00:04:20.539 and the son, who's severely injured, is rushed to hospital. 00:04:20.571 --> 00:04:24.211 The surgeon looks at the son when they arrive and is like, 00:04:24.232 --> 00:04:26.156 "I can't operate." 00:04:26.234 --> 00:04:27.688 Why? 00:04:28.203 --> 00:04:30.566 "The boy is my son." 00:04:30.587 --> 00:04:31.749 How can that be? 00:04:31.770 --> 00:04:32.989 Ladies and gentlemen, 00:04:33.010 --> 00:04:35.590 the surgeon is his mother. 00:04:35.954 --> 00:04:37.696 Now hands up - and it's okay - 00:04:37.717 --> 00:04:40.907 but hands up if you initially assumed the surgeon was a guy? 00:04:42.894 --> 00:04:45.615 There's evidence that that unconscious bias exists, 00:04:45.636 --> 00:04:48.636 but we all just have to acknowledge that it's there 00:04:48.657 --> 00:04:50.940 and then look at ways that we can move past it 00:04:50.961 --> 00:04:52.963 so that we can look at solutions. 00:04:54.065 --> 00:04:56.416 Now one of the interesting things 00:04:56.437 --> 00:04:59.797 around the space of unconscious bias is the topic of quotas. 00:04:59.818 --> 00:05:01.882 And this something that's often brought up. 00:05:01.882 --> 00:05:04.652 And of of the criticisms is this idea of merit. 00:05:04.772 --> 00:05:07.772 Look, I don't want to be picked because I'm a chick, 00:05:08.325 --> 00:05:10.432 I want to be picked because I have merit, 00:05:10.453 --> 00:05:12.396 because I'm the best person for the job. 00:05:12.410 --> 00:05:15.654 It's a sentiment that's pretty common among female engineers 00:05:15.675 --> 00:05:17.347 that I work with and that I know. 00:05:17.368 --> 00:05:19.268 And yeah, I get it, I've been there. 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.243 But, if the merit idea was true, 00:05:22.264 --> 00:05:26.894 why would identical resumes, in an experiment done in 2012 by Yale, 00:05:26.969 --> 00:05:31.069 identical resumes sent out for a lab technician, 00:05:31.484 --> 00:05:34.484 why would Jennifers be deemed less competent, 00:05:34.651 --> 00:05:36.914 be less likely to be offered the job, 00:05:36.971 --> 00:05:39.692 and be paid less than Johns. 00:05:41.350 --> 00:05:42.782 The unconscious bias is there, 00:05:42.803 --> 00:05:45.238 but we just have to look at how we can move past it. 00:05:45.260 --> 00:05:46.880 And, you know, it's interesting, 00:05:46.881 --> 00:05:48.693 there's some research that talks about 00:05:48.694 --> 00:05:51.545 why this is the case and it's called the merit paradox. 00:05:51.546 --> 00:05:54.066 And in organizations - and this is kind of ironic - 00:05:54.067 --> 00:05:57.869 in organizations that talk about merit being their primary value-driver 00:05:57.894 --> 00:05:59.265 in terms of who they hire, 00:05:59.266 --> 00:06:03.318 they were more likely to hire dudes and more likely to pay the guys more 00:06:03.361 --> 00:06:06.596 because apparently merit is a masculine quality. 00:06:06.617 --> 00:06:07.878 But, hey. 00:06:08.461 --> 00:06:10.763 So you guys think you've got a good read on me, 00:06:10.763 --> 00:06:12.652 you kind of think you know what's up. 00:06:13.842 --> 00:06:16.108 Can you imagine me running one of these? 00:06:16.129 --> 00:06:18.415 Can you imagine me walking in and being like, 00:06:18.436 --> 00:06:21.436 "Hey boys, this is what's up. This is how it's done." 00:06:21.837 --> 00:06:24.377 Well, I'm glad you can. 00:06:30.616 --> 00:06:35.065 (Applause) 00:06:36.009 --> 00:06:39.009 Because ladies and gentlemen, that's my day job. 00:06:39.244 --> 00:06:42.180 And the cool thing about it is that it's pretty entertaining. 00:06:43.027 --> 00:06:44.714 Actually, in places like Malaysia, 00:06:44.735 --> 00:06:47.194 Muslim women on rigs isn't even comment-worthy. 00:06:47.195 --> 00:06:48.563 There are that many of them. 00:06:48.564 --> 00:06:49.791 But, it is entertaining. 00:06:49.792 --> 00:06:51.252 I was telling one of the guys, 00:06:51.252 --> 00:06:53.748 "Hey, mate, look, I really want to learn how to surf." 00:06:53.748 --> 00:06:56.343 And he's like, "Yassmin, I don't know how you can surf 00:06:56.343 --> 00:06:58.004 with all that gear you've got on, 00:06:58.004 --> 00:07:00.497 and I don't know any women-only beaches." 00:07:00.533 --> 00:07:02.816 And then, the guy came up with a brilliant idea, 00:07:02.837 --> 00:07:05.152 he was like, "I know, you run that organization 00:07:05.152 --> 00:07:07.161 Youth Without Borders, right? 00:07:07.161 --> 00:07:11.164 Why don't you start a clothing line for Muslim chicks in beaches. 00:07:11.367 --> 00:07:14.003 You can call it Youth Without Boardshorts." 00:07:14.024 --> 00:07:15.539 (Laughter) 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:17.374 And I was like, "Thanks, guys." 00:07:17.395 --> 00:07:20.395 And I remember another bloke telling me that 00:07:20.416 --> 00:07:22.228 I should eat all the yogurt I could 00:07:22.249 --> 00:07:25.628 because that was the only culture I was going to get around there. 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:30.498 But, the problem is, it's kind of true 00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:34.101 because there's an intense lack of diversity in our workforce, 00:07:34.122 --> 00:07:36.409 particularly in places of influence. 00:07:36.430 --> 00:07:37.789 Now, in 2010, 00:07:37.810 --> 00:07:40.225 The Australian National University did an experiment 00:07:40.225 --> 00:07:42.836 where they sent out 4,000 identical applications 00:07:43.143 --> 00:07:46.143 to entry level jobs, essentially. 00:07:46.164 --> 00:07:49.823 To get the same number of interviews as someone with an Anglo-Saxon name, 00:07:49.844 --> 00:07:54.164 if you were Chinese, you had to send out 68 percent more applications. 00:07:54.228 --> 00:07:57.109 If you were Middle Eastern - Abdel-Magied - 00:07:57.160 --> 00:07:59.024 you had to send out 64 percent, 00:07:59.024 --> 00:08:01.140 and if you're Italian, you're pretty lucky, 00:08:01.161 --> 00:08:03.721 you only have to send out 12 percent more. 00:08:03.815 --> 00:08:06.815 In places like Silicon Valley, it's not that much better. 00:08:06.836 --> 00:08:09.132 In Google, they put out some diversity results 00:08:09.153 --> 00:08:15.029 and 61 percent white, 30 percent Asian and nine, a bunch of blacks, Hispanics, 00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:16.376 all that kind of thing. 00:08:16.405 --> 00:08:19.003 And the rest of the tech world is not that much better 00:08:19.003 --> 00:08:20.408 and they've acknowledged it, 00:08:20.408 --> 00:08:22.937 but I'm not really sure what they're doing about it. 00:08:22.937 --> 00:08:24.705 The thing is, it doesn't trickle up. 00:08:24.705 --> 00:08:26.212 In a study done by Green Park, 00:08:26.212 --> 00:08:29.577 who are a British senior exec supplier, 00:08:29.900 --> 00:08:33.863 they said that over half of the FTSE 100 companies 00:08:33.966 --> 00:08:37.496 don't have a nonwhite leader at their board level, 00:08:37.525 --> 00:08:38.979 executive or non-executive. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:42.775 And two out of every three don't have an executive 00:08:42.796 --> 00:08:45.065 who's from a minority. 00:08:45.885 --> 00:08:47.885 I've told you a bunch of terrible things. 00:08:47.906 --> 00:08:51.064 You're like, "Oh my god, how bad is that? What can I do about it?" 00:08:51.064 --> 00:08:53.925 Well, fortunately, we've identified that there's a problem. 00:08:53.925 --> 00:08:56.268 There's a lack of opportunity, 00:08:56.288 --> 00:08:58.288 and that's due to unconscious bias. 00:08:58.308 --> 00:09:00.562 But you might be sitting there thinking, 00:09:00.582 --> 00:09:03.475 "I ain't brown. What's that got to do with me?" 00:09:03.495 --> 00:09:05.495 Let me offer you a solution. 00:09:05.515 --> 00:09:06.872 And as I've said before, 00:09:06.893 --> 00:09:11.173 we live in a world where we're looking for an ideal. 00:09:11.194 --> 00:09:12.812 And if we want to create a world 00:09:12.812 --> 00:09:15.249 where the circumstances of your birth don't matter, 00:09:15.249 --> 00:09:17.312 we all have to be part of the solution. 00:09:17.312 --> 00:09:20.283 And interestingly, the author of the lab resume experiment 00:09:21.193 --> 00:09:22.793 offered some sort of a solution. 00:09:22.814 --> 00:09:26.712 She said the one thing that brought the successful women together, 00:09:26.733 --> 00:09:28.662 the one thing that they had in common, 00:09:28.662 --> 00:09:30.685 was the fact that they had good mentors. 00:09:30.685 --> 00:09:33.080 So mentoring, we've all kind of heard that before, 00:09:33.727 --> 00:09:35.652 it's in the vernacular. 00:09:35.927 --> 00:09:37.882 Here's another challenge for you. 00:09:38.059 --> 00:09:42.553 I challenge each and every one of you to mentor someone different. 00:09:43.584 --> 00:09:46.584 Everyone wants to mentor someone who kind of is familiar, 00:09:46.605 --> 00:09:47.463 who looks like us, 00:09:47.484 --> 00:09:48.807 we have shared experiences. 00:09:48.828 --> 00:09:51.286 If I see a Muslim chick who's got a bit of attitude, 00:09:51.286 --> 00:09:53.285 I'm like, "What's up? We can hang out." 00:09:53.285 --> 00:09:56.545 You walk into a room and there's someone who went to the same school, 00:09:56.566 --> 00:09:57.847 you play the same sports, 00:09:57.868 --> 00:10:02.315 there's a high chance that you're going to want to help that person out. 00:10:02.336 --> 00:10:05.894 But for the person in the room who has no shared experiences with you 00:10:06.026 --> 00:10:08.679 it becomes extremely difficult to find that connection. 00:10:08.700 --> 00:10:11.620 The idea of finding someone different to mentor, 00:10:11.620 --> 00:10:14.355 someone who doesn't come from the same background as you, 00:10:14.355 --> 00:10:15.818 whatever that background is, 00:10:15.818 --> 00:10:18.449 is about opening doors for people who couldn't even get 00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:20.475 to the damn hallway. 00:10:21.194 --> 00:10:24.194 Because ladies and gentlemen, the world is not just. 00:10:24.758 --> 00:10:26.890 People are not born with equal opportunity. 00:10:26.930 --> 00:10:30.037 I was born in one of the poorest cities in the world, Khartoum. 00:10:30.130 --> 00:10:32.250 I was born brown, I was born female, 00:10:32.271 --> 00:10:35.592 and I was born Muslim in a world that is pretty suspicious of us 00:10:35.613 --> 00:10:37.965 for reasons I can't control. 00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:42.378 However, I also acknowledge the fact that I was born with privilege. 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:44.087 I was born with amazing parents, 00:10:44.108 --> 00:10:45.712 I was given an education 00:10:45.733 --> 00:10:48.369 and had the blessing of migrating to Australia. 00:10:48.631 --> 00:10:52.067 But also, I've been blessed with amazing mentors 00:10:52.103 --> 00:10:55.103 who've opened doors for me that I didn't even know were there. 00:10:55.124 --> 00:10:56.481 A mentor who said to me, 00:10:56.502 --> 00:10:58.104 "Hey, your story's interesting. 00:10:58.125 --> 00:11:01.325 Let's write something about it so that I can share it with people." 00:11:01.325 --> 00:11:02.381 A mentor who said, 00:11:02.381 --> 00:11:05.800 "I know you're all those things that don't belong on an Australian rig, 00:11:05.800 --> 00:11:06.759 but come on anyway." 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:08.188 And here I am, talking to you. 00:11:08.209 --> 00:11:09.546 And I'm not the only one. 00:11:09.567 --> 00:11:12.035 There's all sorts of people in my communities 00:11:12.093 --> 00:11:14.256 that I see have been helped out by mentors. 00:11:14.277 --> 00:11:16.055 A young Muslim man in Sydney 00:11:16.076 --> 00:11:19.076 who ended up using his mentor's help 00:11:19.097 --> 00:11:22.097 to start up a poetry slam in Bankstown 00:11:22.118 --> 00:11:23.739 and now it's a huge thing. 00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:26.826 And he's able to change the lives of so many other young people. 00:11:26.826 --> 00:11:28.172 Or a lady here in Brisbane, 00:11:28.172 --> 00:11:29.740 an Afghan lady who's a refugee, 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:32.491 who could barely speak English when she came to Australia, 00:11:32.491 --> 00:11:34.823 her mentors helped her become a doctor 00:11:34.844 --> 00:11:37.844 and she took our Young Queenslander of the Year Award in 2008. 00:11:37.865 --> 00:11:40.138 She's an inspiration. 00:11:45.336 --> 00:11:47.318 This is so not smooth. 00:11:49.226 --> 00:11:50.881 This is me. 00:11:51.045 --> 00:11:54.516 But I'm also the woman in the rig clothes, 00:11:54.543 --> 00:11:57.783 and I'm also the woman who was in the abaya at the beginning. 00:11:58.684 --> 00:12:01.684 Would you have chosen to mentor me if you had seen me 00:12:01.705 --> 00:12:03.743 in one of those other versions of who I am? 00:12:03.773 --> 00:12:06.281 Because I'm that same person. 00:12:06.722 --> 00:12:09.625 We have to look past our unconscious bias, 00:12:09.646 --> 00:12:12.796 find someone to mentor who's at the opposite end of your spectrum 00:12:12.796 --> 00:12:15.051 because structural change takes time, 00:12:15.072 --> 00:12:17.656 and I don't have that level of patience. 00:12:17.677 --> 00:12:19.439 So if we're going to create a change, 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.000 if we're going to create a world 00:12:21.021 --> 00:12:23.497 where we all have those kinds of opportunities, 00:12:23.518 --> 00:12:25.888 then choose to open doors for people. 00:12:25.909 --> 00:12:29.347 Because you might think that diversity has nothing to do with you, 00:12:29.368 --> 00:12:31.101 but we are all part of this system 00:12:31.122 --> 00:12:33.124 and we can all be part of that solution. 00:12:33.124 --> 00:12:35.865 And if you don't know where to find someone different, 00:12:35.865 --> 00:12:37.893 go to the places you wouldn't usually go. 00:12:37.893 --> 00:12:40.096 If you enroll in private high school tutoring, 00:12:40.096 --> 00:12:41.643 go to your local state school 00:12:41.643 --> 00:12:44.454 or maybe just drop into your local refugee tutoring center. 00:12:44.454 --> 00:12:46.204 Or perhaps you work at an office. 00:12:46.225 --> 00:12:49.222 Take out that new grad who looks totally out of place - 00:12:49.243 --> 00:12:50.570 because that was me - 00:12:50.591 --> 00:12:51.918 and open doors for them, 00:12:51.939 --> 00:12:54.568 not in a tokenistic way, because we're not victims, 00:12:54.589 --> 00:12:56.656 but show them the opportunities 00:12:56.677 --> 00:12:58.839 because opening up your world 00:12:59.262 --> 00:13:01.762 will make you realize that you have access to doors 00:13:01.762 --> 00:13:03.466 that they didn't even know existed 00:13:03.466 --> 00:13:06.148 and you didn't even know they didn't have. 00:13:06.257 --> 00:13:07.910 Ladies and gentlemen, 00:13:08.939 --> 00:13:12.283 there is a problem in our community with lack of opportunity, 00:13:12.377 --> 00:13:14.219 especially due to unconscious bias. 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:17.926 But each and every one one of you has the potential to change that. 00:13:18.037 --> 00:13:20.908 I know you've been given a lot of challenges today, 00:13:20.929 --> 00:13:24.799 but if you can take this one piece and think about it a little differently, 00:13:24.996 --> 00:13:27.267 because diversity is magic. 00:13:27.288 --> 00:13:30.288 And I encourage you to look past your initial perceptions 00:13:30.404 --> 00:13:32.120 because I bet you, 00:13:32.649 --> 00:13:34.469 they're probably wrong. 00:13:34.676 --> 00:13:35.974 Thank you. 00:13:35.995 --> 00:13:38.995 (Applause)