How might we share our untold stories about our personal experiences in ways that prevent, minimize, and redress the power abuses of BIPID: biases, isms, prejudices, inequities, and discriminations?
How might we tell our stories in ways that cultivate equity governance?
The first part of this 3-article series sets the stage for understanding the systemic determinants of BIPID.
Four sections provide a series of questions to explore your experiences of BIPID.
1. Explore your family-of-origin
Look back into your family-religious-cultural history, to your grandparents beyond and forward, and to all others who have influenced you in developing your sense of what fairness and unfairness mean.
Why does the fairness of equity matter to you?
How did your parents address the issues of fairness and unfairness within and beyond your family?
What were the emotional impacts of functional and dysfunctional triangulations with your family?
Who and what in your life shaped how your sense of fairness and unfairness evolved over time?
To what extent did your family, religion, and culture shape your inequity sense of unfairness and your equity sense of fairness, for better or worse?
To what extent did your family, religion, and culture indoctrinate you with BIPID? And what helped you become more aware of, and overcome these indoctrinations?
What are your memories about the different influences in your life that shaped what unfairness and fairness mean to you, for better or worse?
How did different family members, friends, and work colleagues role model fairness and unfairness?
What did you learn from role models who demonstrated fairness?
What did you learn from anti-role models who acted in unfair ways?
Who is the hero or heroine of your story?
2. Explore your lifetime experiences
Think of your lifetime experiences of where you, your family, and friends felt you were overlooked, marginalized, treated unfairly, bullied, victimized, and traumatized due to your sex, age, gender, race, religion, identity, abilities, disabilities, and body characteristics (such as weight).
How have you handled your BIPID experiences? What did you do or not do? What would you do differently?
How did your experiences of BIPID shape your personal and professional aspirations?
How did you take steps to prevent or minimize BIPID in your personal and work life?
How have you advocated for yourself or others to prevent and address BIPID?
How have your personal and work experiences with BIPID influenced the way you lead your life and others?
What stories can you share where allies played pivotal roles in addressing your BIPID issues?
How do you ensure you don't perpetuate the same BIPID issues that you've experienced?
How do you handle BIPID micro-aggressions and comments in your personal and work life?
In what ways do you believe organizations can better support individuals who have faced BIPID issues at work?
Can you describe an incident when you felt supported in addressing a BIPID issue?
Can you describe a time when you took a risk to address a BIPID issue?
3. Explore your learning experience
How might you
Engage in lifelong intergenerational learning about BIPID issues?
Educate yourself further (and others) on why it is important to deepen your understanding of preventing and redressing BIPID?
Elicit feedback and continuously improve in your efforts to address BIPID?
Seek training, coaching, and mentorship to play a proactive role in your learning journey about how to navigate through BIPID issues?
Develop personal and professional support to navigate through BIPID issues?
Identify books, films, or other media resources that deeply resonated with you about addressing BIPID?
Stay engaged in learning communities about how to prevent BIPID issues?
Develop relationships with equity leaders, mentors, and role models who inspire you in your learning journey to address and overcome BIPID?
Transform negative BIPID experiences into positive ones?
Integrate your personal experiences of redressing BIPID into your professional life?
Stay motivated in the face of persistent challenges related to BIPID issues?
Share your story about taking risks to address inequity and unfair treatment?
4. Explore your professional and work life
How might we visualize a flourishing workplace without BIPID?
What initiatives or strategies have you witnessed that effectively prevent or address workplace BIPID issues?
How might your work environments do a better job of addressing and reducing systemic biases, isms, inequities, prejudices, and discriminations?
What positive changes and progress have been made in addressing BIPID at work?
Who and how did you address BIPID issues?
How might you empower others at work to prevent or redress BIPID?
How has a colleague or supervisor stood up for you and supported you in addressing BIPID at work?
How might you engage in BIPID conversations with your peers who may not share or understand your experiences?
Have you ever felt the need to hide or downplay aspects of your identity to fit in or make advancements at work?
What strategies do you deploy to manage the negative emotions triggered by BIPID issues at work?
How do you juggle the process of preventing and addressing BIPID issues with your other work responsibilities?
How do you handle situations where colleagues or superiors fail to understand or downplay your BIPID experiences?
What advice would you share with new employees who might encounter BIPID issues?
What initiatives or strategies have you witnessed that effectively prevent or address workplace BIPID issues?
Why does equity matter to me?
May my story inspire you to share your BIPID experiences in ways that promote equity. My mother was the heroine of my (in)equity story.