“Get to know your own mindbugs” lecture by Esther Mollema on International Women’s Day
“Why do hurricanes with a woman’s name lead to significantly more deaths than hurricanes with a man’s name?” asks lecturer Esther Mollema.
The answer: because we consider Bonnie, Emily and Fiona to be less threatening than Alex or Karl and therefore take fewer precautions. The above is not a joke, but a scientifically proven example of a mindbug: a wrong assumption that both men and women have when it comes to competencies and attributes that we attribute to each other.
Mollema is one of the speakers at the celebration of International Women’s Day with about forty school leaders and school administrators. She lightly confronts her audience with a number of painful mind bugs: prejudices, stereotypes, behavior that does not fit our beliefs. These mind bugs contribute to the fact that the number of women in leadership positions does not reflect the workplace at all. That is certainly a problem in primary education, because with this we teach children in a crucial development phase exactly the same mind bugs. And we are barely aware of it.
‘That uncertainty is not necessary for anything’
The fact that the Netherlands is one of the most emancipated countries on paper does not mean that women actually get the same opportunities, says Minister Jet Bussemaker, who took the trouble to come to Utrecht in between radio, television and political performances. ,, Women actually judge a CV better when it is from a man, than when it is exactly the same CV from a woman. We have every reason to worry about that. “”
Read the whole article on the website of the ‘PO Raad using this link ( in Dutch )!