Thread by @usnehal

I know that there is the anti-leader leader concept (not using titles, wearing hoodies and such) particularly in the tech & entrepreneurship world. At the same time, those are spaces that are not necessarily as woman or BIPOC friendly historically so the "casual" can be a trap

implicit, or frankly, explicit biases have not gone away. Except professionalism is also a trap - it is well documented in peer-reviewed publications and I've repeatedly notice with how multiple "professionalism" faculty fail to examine embedded biases & cultural chauvinism

In tightly controlled spaces there is a so-called right/wrong way to have one's hair, with "wrong" including natural hair if one is "ethnic", women must wear skirts and pantyhose automatically adding distracting details (do I have a run in my stocking? am I sitting okay?) &such

yet in these spaces where "right/wrong" hair is policed carefully, also not the same attention to correct identification of title, sometimes, even, identity. Getting someone else's evaluation is not uncommon for those BIPOC where time/attention re-routed to "this is not my name"

Who gets to control their own resources like time & attention? At school/work are you constantly explaining the most basic things or are you already seen as standard or the standard? Who can just be known for work without distractions or explanations? tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Of note that last reference is about storytelling. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words but when the image of your face has already painted 1000 words through implicit and explicit bias, at 1000 words you are only at the break even point. Who uses the most words though?

Per work of @JulieSilverMD silver on #pediatrics and #WomenInMedicine, it is not women using the most words. Who is published in peer-review and who is chosen to write perspective pieces defines "professionalism" - it is not female and usually not BIPOC

https://twitter.com/JulieSilverMD/status/1020329131056222211?s=20

@JulieSilverMD communicates her point above like #WomenInSTEM in a graph. But there is no great graph to walk someone through lived experience of being not "seen" or seen wrong as a woman, BIPOC, LGBTQ, disabled, etc. Sometimes the stories need to be told. It takes a lot of words

Which is also why the way peer review decides who speaks for a profession and who defines professionalism is a process itself that has many flaws and needs to be reviewed itself. How did it let both Wakefield and #medbikini through? - both unethical
bioethics.net/2020/07/medbik…

What I find deeply concerning is the people teaching or publishing on communication and professionalism or enforcing compliance whether #medbikini male professors or young or older women finding a career in the field (I have worked with SO many of the latter😲) bypass ethics

Of course someone has studied that too. Being an ethicist with an interest in defining rules for others, actually does not imply you yourself are any more ethical that the rest of humanity qz.com/1582149/ethici…

I need to call my mother more, also, before I say anything about ethicists. But maybe that would make me an excellent ethicist? LOL Not doing as you tell others to do might be a qualifying trait. 😂

theconversation.com/should-ethics-…

What I've actually found to be true Is that experts in such fields find ways to do mental and ethical gymnastics by manipulating already nebulous criteria and sometimes flat out made up non-standards

Further, most of is often Eurocentric. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

That's a very strongly worded piece. All is internally consistent as well as circular. There is gatekeeping to professional (thought) leadership by people using standards created in times of enslavement & colonialism thus embed cultural justifications for exclusion, not inclusion

But are "casual" #etch spaces full of hoodies and sneakers really more welcoming and safer from policing?

protocol.com/nda-racism-equ…

There are these experiences:

newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

So this is the thing, how do you effectively disrupt those who already see selves as disruptors? And it is not like the rule based places of "professionalism" are safe either.

What is the way forward?

This @techreview article I quote was loved by many #womeninleadership & #womeninSTEM yet this tweet was also cited by professionalism faculty at @USC who used this "evidence" of a woman "bully" - are women allowed to be out of bounds? Who defines limits?

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1265425020551077888?s=20

@threadreaderapp please unroll