The mug example is an excellent example of systemic or institutional bias.
It’s worth explaining.
No one sat down and said “we’re only going to make right handed mugs”.
It’s just that most people and therefore most designers are right handed so when they are designing the mug they imagine it in their own hand. Et voilà, most mugs are for right handers.
This goes one step further: a template is made for said right hand mug, now all the left handed designers are also designing right handed mugs.
Thank you for taking the time. It definitely is worth explaining! I didn’t have time and am glad you did :)
And this is the thing so many people don’t understand: Bias doesn’t have to be intentional. Racism, bigotry, privilege, etc can all happen purely because we’re flawed beings that find it difficult to think outside our own lived experiences
I like to make a point of calling out the difference between “fault” and “responsibility”…
As a cis white man born in the 1980s, it’s not my fault that black people in America suffer from the long term consequences of slavery and segregation
But as a cis white man born in the 1980s, who has comparatively benefited from the systems built on the foundations of slavery and segregation, I am - and others like me are - responsible for making it right, today.
And anyone who doesn’t believe that should read some T.M. Scanlon
If you go down to Unfavourable Perceptions, there’s a load of info on this. Efforts in North America to switch everyone to right-handedness ended around ghe 60s and lefties were more socially accepted by the late 70s. That said there’s still a lot of places in Asia that attempt to force lefties to be righties.
My mum is a leftie and in school was beaten for writing with her left hand.
The mug example is an excellent example of systemic or institutional bias.
It’s worth explaining.
No one sat down and said “we’re only going to make right handed mugs”.
It’s just that most people and therefore most designers are right handed so when they are designing the mug they imagine it in their own hand. Et voilà, most mugs are for right handers.
This goes one step further: a template is made for said right hand mug, now all the left handed designers are also designing right handed mugs.
Thank you for taking the time. It definitely is worth explaining! I didn’t have time and am glad you did :)
And this is the thing so many people don’t understand: Bias doesn’t have to be intentional. Racism, bigotry, privilege, etc can all happen purely because we’re flawed beings that find it difficult to think outside our own lived experiences
I like to make a point of calling out the difference between “fault” and “responsibility”…
As a cis white man born in the 1980s, it’s not my fault that black people in America suffer from the long term consequences of slavery and segregation
But as a cis white man born in the 1980s, who has comparatively benefited from the systems built on the foundations of slavery and segregation, I am - and others like me are - responsible for making it right, today.
And anyone who doesn’t believe that should read some T.M. Scanlon
OMG yes. Re the difference between fault and responsibility.
I’m an inheritor of generations of the benefits of systemic bais (as well as deliberate), it is my responsibility to try and make that right.
Much to the chagrin of too many around me who thinks that it’s unfair.
Big same. Biiiiig same
There’s also the fact that there was a concerted effort to beat left-handedness out of people for a very very long time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people
If you go down to Unfavourable Perceptions, there’s a load of info on this. Efforts in North America to switch everyone to right-handedness ended around ghe 60s and lefties were more socially accepted by the late 70s. That said there’s still a lot of places in Asia that attempt to force lefties to be righties.
My mum is a leftie and in school was beaten for writing with her left hand.
Hopefully we’re now in a slightly more enlightened time.
Dare to dream…
Hell, the word “sinister” meaning “evil” in modern English comes from that bias, etymologically it means something to do with the left hand side.