IWD 2022 Photo Gallery: Break the Bias (Final)

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2022 McMaster Univeristy

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Senior system administrator, UTS Graduate

Zeerak Khurshid

Professor, Indigenous Studies

Vanessa Watts

Laiba Jamshed

Vanier scholar and medical sciences PhD student

Celeste Licorish

Manager, McMaster Access Program

I see a lot of stereotypes and assumptions about Indigenous women. Whether it’s a victimizing narrative or myths about them, we encounter them across working and learning spaces, as well as in academic scholarship. But Indigenous women have really important stories to tell, and it’s important that we push back against these stereotypes so they can bring their vibrant cultural and intellectual traditions into the classroom and see that they belong here.

Having more people who look like me in my field, networking and IT, would be a good thing and would attract more women to the workplace. More people who think differently would be a good thing. The strong women in my family and the women who I work with motivate me to break the status quo. I hope to be like them someday.

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#BreakTheBias

When my mom came to Canada, she went from being a professor at a university to barely holding a full-time job. Eventually she started medical technologist programs to get where she is now. For women immigrants, and women refugees who come into Canada, it’s so difficult to become a functional and productive member of society because they are constantly going to have to deal with a colour barrier, a language barrier, whether to wear a hijab or similar head covering. They spend their lives doing multiple small-type jobs, and continuously applying to new positions even past the age of retirement. It’s difficult to see women of colour in leadership positions because there are still so many barriers – especially for those that were not born or raised here. That’s something I’m passionate about that needs to change. Diversity in leadership is more than just a visual representation, it’s the variation in thought and life history of those being able to make decisions.

When I first graduated from my Bachelor’s degree in the early 1990’s, I worked as a construction engineer on Highway 407. There was not a day that went by that I did not have to explain that I was the site engineer, and I was in a role of responsibility on the project. It certainly was not common to see a female engineer in construction. I always tried to address this bias in a professional manner and move on. I learned a lot early in my career and most notably that my lived experience meant that my perspective was different from my colleagues, and it greatly contributed to the discussion and ability to solve problems. It was clear that diversity of viewpoint was really important. Although much has changed, I strongly believe in EDI as diversity of viewpoint is very important.

I have three daughters, all Black girls. I look at my life and the world they are growing up into, and it’s challenging for me. But they are the ones who inspire me — in my work, in looking for equity and in looking for them to see themselves as flowers instead of weeds: How do I continue to push the envelope on all fronts so they know as Black women that they matter, and they can contribute to the best of their abilities.

Laura Parker

Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy

I’m a woman in physics and astronomy and women are not particularly well-represented in this field. That has meant I have faced several biases over my career, like having my expertise questioned or hearing ‘you don’t look like a physicist’ as if there is a way a physicist looks. The students I teach inspire me today. I teach an undergraduate survey course with 500 students of all different backgrounds. I want them to go on in my field and other fields and feel welcome. I’m inspired by them to make physics and astronomy more inclusive.

Julie Bannon

Co-lead, Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) McMaster

I see it everywhere: People and politicians in the media talking about women in a way that makes them seem less, or not equal. It’s a collection of events that you see in society that really makes me want to stand up for women, for people of all genders, and gender non-conforming people. We also need to be able to recognize that being different is not the same as having a different amount of potential.

Jodi Anne Buckley

Student recruitment officer, Office of the Registrar

A person who inspires me is my mom. She is a superwoman. I’ve seen her wear all the hats, including a lot of traditionally “male” roles. She can do anything. Growing up it really showed me that as a woman, you can do anything, you aren’t limited in what your abilities are.

Cassandra Tran

PhD candidate, department of Classics

Two of my mentors within the Women’s Classical Caucus Mentorship Team, Eunice Kim and Suzanne Lye, inspire me to break the status quo. Eunice and Suzanne both advocate for voices that would have been traditionally underrepresented or overlooked in the Classics field, as well as bolster scholars who are engaging in new, thus marginal, research. The Caucus in general highlights the importance of building meaningful networks for women to share knowledge and scholarship.

Jocelynne Finney

Jennie Rubio

Operating Engineer 4th Class, McMaster facility services

Operating Engineer 3rd Class, McMaster facility services

One thing that really helps is when the people you work with want you to succeed and take the time to explain and help you. Coming in as a woman without a mechanical background, it already makes it more challenging to learn. So when people are understanding and help you succeed, it really makes a difference. 

There’s so much more we can do as a culture to harness the energy and ability of women, to share the workload and the burden of care. Child care would make such a difference. When you need to develop as an employee, and you don’t have support you’re constantly exhausted. Balancing it all is hard.

I find the racialized women and LGBTQ+ folks, many of them young, who are at the forefront of current activist movements inspiring. I think they are fighting for more than a seat at the table. I think they are saying we need a fundamentally new set of values by which to organize our society, institutions and lives, one that liberates us all from patriarchal values, including rigid ideas about gender.

When I was in high school, I told my French teacher that I was going to take engineering. And I was quite good at languages as well, but my real passion was science and math. This teacher was a lovely man, but he said to me, you're only taking engineering, because that's where all the guys are. That was my kind of ‘aha’ moment.

After graduate school, I applied for employment with an organization where I had done my internship. Considering positions offered to past male hires from my school, the impressive number of well-written feature articles I had published as an intern as well as my grades, I was horrified when my would-be manager announced that they were offering me a job as a junior reporter while a former classmate, an older man would be appointed as a sub-editor. This moment and several other moments that came later in other spaces made me realize the urgency of breaking down biases.

McMaster graduate and co-founder of Lifeline Afghanistan

Hila Taraky

Acting dean, Faculty of Engineering

Heather Sheardown

As a Canadian woman, I cannot forget Afghan women and Afghan mothers on International Women's Day […] NATO-backed forces may have withdrawn and the Taliban may have come to power, but we can't forget our investment. We can't forget the women who have been trained to be creative and trained to bring change into that society […] I would like to shift our focus on what can we do as women here who live a life of privilege and many of us have positions of power to advocate for Afghan women who are still in Afghanistan.

Taylor MacIntyre

Receivers’ Positional Coach, McMaster Football

Oftentimes, we’re afraid to do something because it’s never been done before. I was afraid of leaving my abusive marriage because no woman in my entire family for generations had ever walked away from marriage. I was afraid of applying to university the first time around because I was the first girl ever that I had seen to be able to go to university after marriage. I was afraid to apply to medical school because I was on a different life trajectory than everyone else, in my 30s with two kids. Being brave doesn’t mean that you’re fearless. It means that you are afraid. But you embrace that fear and do it anyway because it means something to you. Don’t let fear hold you back from living your truth.

When I started to show more of an interest in football as I got older, my dad always encouraged me to play during gym class or at recess with my male classmates. As the only girl, I never felt like I didn't belong because my dad gave me the confidence and skills to be able to play. As the head coach of our high school junior football team, my dad helped break down barriers for me to play as the first female, and along with the four or five other girls, to play high school football after I competed in back-to-back seasons. Dad was the first one to suggest I start coaching football in high school and has been my biggest supporter since I was hired with the Marauders.

Neha Shah

Coordinator, MSU Women and Gender Equity Network

I think a positive step forward would be starting with kids: what preconceptions do we hold about young girls and gender-diverse kids? How does that impact what opportunities we extend to them, or the subliminal messaging we send to them about their potential, strengths and value?

Vass Bednar

Director, Master of Public Policy in Digital Societies program

The literature demonstrates that women in leadership positions walk a tightrope between “likeability” and success. My strategy has been to focus on excellence in outcomes and advocate for public policies that will broadly benefit women – like affordable childcare – whenever possible. #BreakTheBias

Assistant professor, department of Communication Studies and Multimedia

Selina Mudavanhu

Senior advisor for equity, inclusion and anti-racism, Student Affairs

Clare Warner

Samra Zafar

Medical student, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine

Provost and vice-president, Academic

Susan Tighe

PhD student and teaching fellow, English and Cultural Studies. Co-founder, Latin American Network of McMaster University

Stacy-Ann Creech

I've had strangers come up to me and ask, “What ARE you?” I’m an Afro-Dominican woman from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, so I am both Black Latina and Caribbean. When I moved to North America to start grad school, I was the only Latin American person in my MA program. I think about that kind of thing all the time as I navigate academia and my space in academia. I think about representation and visibility and questions of intersecting identities a lot. And it's important to think about what is beyond representation. What it means that I’m here, what it means to be a Black Latin American feminist scholar from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

International Women's Day

Voices across the McMaster community share their experiences challenging the status quo, who inspires them to #BreakTheBias and how we can further remove barriers for women.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Maggie Pooran

Executive Director, Employee & Labour Relations

Creating space to recognize that women hold many roles in our daily lives - supporting our communities, families, friends, colleagues, and others. Holding it all can be incredibly rewarding - and at the same time, completely exhausting. We need space to take time, to slow down and care for the impact our work in service of others has on ourselves, and to know that it is ok when we just can’t do it all. This past year, I needed to be “Mom” more than I needed to be anything else. And that is ok.

A few years ago when I was working in retail, I had a customer say that she was surprised that I could speak English as she assumed that I was not born here. Although she may not have realized it at the time, her comment sent a message that due to my skin color, she thought she knew what I was capable of before I even said a word. It’s an experience that reinforces how important it is, to walk through this world without allowing stereotypes to inform our perceptions of people and the need to release assumptions that create inaccurate ideas of individual skills, character and potential.

Kennishia Boahene

Advancement Coordinator, University Advancement

Photos: Georgia Kirkos