"I'm Like You": Covering Identity
I recently spoke to Rukasana Bhaijee, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lead, EMEA Technology at Google, on the ‘Why Care?’ podcast as my guest on Episode 17: Reclaiming Identity. Rukasana shared many aspects of life as a Muslim woman in the UK but one discussion point in particular that got me thinking was around minimising her Muslimness by avoiding dressing in traditional clothing when she was at work or work-related events.
Minimising aspects of identity is something many people from underrepresented groups do, whether consciously or otherwise, to try to fit in amongst their majority group colleagues and to avoid potential discrimination. These minimisation and avoidance behaviours are collectively referred to as ‘covering’.
What are the ways in which people may cover?
There are four main methods with which people may cover:
Appearance-based: the person changes aspects of their appearance such as style of dress, hairstyle or by using make-up to conceal diversity characteristics or to avoid association with them.
Affiliation-based: the person actively avoids behaviours that are stereotypical of their diversity characteristic. This could be avoiding being seen eating foods commonly stereotyped with their racial identity, or not mentioning a religious holiday coming up so attention isn’t brought to their faith.
Advocacy-based: when ‘jokes’ or negative comments are made about their diversity characteristic, the person avoids speaking out or rebuking the comment so they aren’t seen as ‘making a fuss’ or shunned for their response.
Association-based: the person avoids being seen with other members of their diversity characteristic with the fear that it would amplify their characteristic to their majority group colleagues. This could be a gay male individual avoiding spending time with another gay colleague so his position as ‘one of the boys’ isn’t threatened at work.
Why do people cover?
It’s human nature to want to be accepted and to fit in amongst communities of people, so when faced with the prospect of discrimination based on who we are, it’s not hard to see why people may want reduce, or ‘cover-up’ the amount of potential targets on their backs.
The threat of discrimination isn’t a constant level either, and there may be times when it is safer to cover than to not. Following, 9/11 and the London attacks on 7th July 2007, Islamophobia skyrocketed worldwide. Since then, we have seen a significant number of hate crimes targeted at people from a Muslim faith, including the London mosque shooting in 2017 and Christchurch, New Zealand attack in 2019, to name just two. Many Muslims decided to become more visibly Muslim in the wake of this to combat islamophobia and try to regain control of the narrative of what it means to be a Muslim, including Rukasana who adopted the hijab. However, some Muslims understandably feared for their safety and decided to cover by removing the hijab and traditional Muslim clothing, or by putting the American flag all over their cars, and ultimately trying not to bring attention to themselves.
Is covering a bad thing?
In situations like those above, covering can feel like the best way to protect oneself from harm, but people have a right to feel like they can be safe as themselves and not have to hide away. This is especially true when it comes to a person’s workplace.
When we spend a significant chunk of our week, and indeed lives, in our workplace it goes without saying that we should be able to feel safe and relaxed in it. Fostering a culture of inclusion takes time and effort but can be an immensely rewarding process both for the employees and the future of the organisation itself. Having employees be unabashedly their authentic selves empowers them, making it more likely that their voices are heard and their ideas contribute more to the organisation’s success.
Uncover with Avenir
Here at Avenir we offer a Complete Inclusion Diagnostic via an online survey which provides a deep analysis of all aspects of inclusion in relation to your organisational culture and gets to the heart of why employees in your organisation might be employing covering behaviours. We can then help you design a tailormade inclusion strategy that empowers your employees to ditch their covers and be their authentic selves at work.
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