Ever heard of the pink elephant test? Someone says, ‘Don’t think about a pink elephant’, and now that’s all you can think about. Boom. There she is. Trotting through your mind like she pays rent. Pink elephants are like quicksand: the more you resist the thought, the more intense they become. It’s pretty embarrassing considering you’re fighting an invisible elephant that’s pink, of all colours, and you didn’t even take hallucinogens.
Lately, I have a new shadow, elephant-shaped (which is doing wonders for my self-confidence). My very own pink elephant. I named her Patricia, but the ‘Latin’ name for this particular species of elephant is Stereotypes. She manoeuvres swiftly for a 6-tonne sidekick – always breathing down my neck.
Stereotypes drive the world. We preach against prejudice and bias but fundamentally, human behaviour is just mimicking and mocking. We define ourselves and our place in the world by stereotyping others and ourselves. Kids copy their parents, teens copy each other, and everyone copies whatever Instagram tells us. We eat what’s trendy, we wear what’s viral, and we rebel against one norm by hopping right into another. ‘I’m rejecting beauty standards!’ Cool. Welcome to the new standard, please collect your tote bag and wire-frame glasses at the door.
I don’t like that Patricia is quite so heavy. She sits on my chest and wraps her trunk around my neck
But even though stereotypes are an integral part of society, I don’t like that Patricia is quite so heavy. She sits on my chest and wraps her trunk around my neck. I exercise to shake this weight off, but Patricia is loving the cardio. We go to therapy to talk about it, but she keeps chiming into the conversation. I resist and I fight and I stay in the quicksand while she just gets bigger and pinker.
And when I wish to address this pink elephant in the room, not everyone can see her. ‘But it is so obvious, she’s right there and she’s gigantic!’ (make sure not to point at a woman when saying this) But, to those who can’t see it, you start to seem a little… dare I say… crazy.
The biggest stereotype I wanted to suppress was being labelled a ‘Woman in STEM’. I am not in science to ‘make a point’, I just happen to like it. Actually, the term ‘Women in STEM’ sounds like we’re some rare species being gently reintroduced into the wild, voiced over by David Attenborough – ‘Watch as the Female Engineer attempts to enter the lab without being mistaken for the intern or someone’s girlfriend.’
But it’s different when you’re being told you’ll be a great hire because they need a woman on the team. Not ‘your presentation was great’, which it was. It’s different when you have to drag along a massive elephant and your competition barely has to bring a mouse.
We didn’t ask for the elephant – she just showed up one day, uninvited, like your cousin’s weird boyfriend who keeps explaining Bitcoin. But here we are. Me, Patricia, and all the other diversity hires.
CARLA ERASMUS