Me & My Biases Reflection

              I am an Egyptian Muslim girl who lives in Cairo. Both of my parents are Egyptian. I think that my identity is mainly shaped by being a girl and by living in Cairo. Social norms and ethics are very crucial to follow in Arab countries. I went to a French school in which I learned discipline and followed the French education system. So, my knowledge about European history is much stronger than it is for Arab history. Living in Cairo along with the education I have received differentiate my way of thinking from the common thought of Egyptians. As much as it is tempting to describe who I am and how I behave, I find it extremely hard to tell how my behavior changes depending on whom I am dealing with. 

I recently learned that identity is singular and that it is shaped by so many factors other than place of birth, gender, race, etc… It is about the infinitely many aspects of your personality and experiences. Furthermore, according to Taiye Selasi in her TED Talk, citizenship is different from nationality, it is defined by your memories in the places you have been and where you feel to belong. Othering is a new concept to me for I always have thought that the word othering meant favoring others or putting others before self, but I found out that it is completely the opposite: according to john a. powell and Stephen Menendian othering is having a bad prejudgment about a group of people out of lack of knowledge. We group people for simplicity according to common features which they hold for simplicity. If a group is a minority or has an odd feature we automatically and unconsciously develop bias towards that group.

              I conducted two IAT tests: about race and about sexuality. The first test suggests a “slight automatic preference for European Americans over African Americans”. I honestly expected having a neutral position, but having a slight automatic preference might be reasonably true. However, I kind of doubted the test structure. It seemed biased to me to start the test with associating African Americans and “bad” to a specific letter while the other letter is for European Americans and “good”. When the race switch keys it is difficult to the mind to quickly respond to that chance. Somehow it gets confusing and it takes more time to remember the new positions. I believe that if the test had stared by attributing African and “good” to the same key, the result of the test would have been otherwise. Thus, I picked the other test based on a topic regarding which I know my bias. I know for sure that I have STRONG preference for straight people over gay people, yet the test claims that I have a “slight automatic preference for Straight people over Gay people”. This output enforces my theory about the inefficiency of the test structure which yields the same output depending on how fast your brain usually responds to modifications of previous memory.

            In Arab countries, not wearing a hijab is associated with having less faith than those who wear it. The majority of people perceive it as breaking the norms. For instance, all women in rural Egyptian residences wear hijab while in town and many remove it during their visits to the city. I also see this phenomenon when I go to the hairdresser, many of the girls who work their remove their veil in the work space and put it back on their way home. One bias that happen against me is that people think that I must be spoiled if am studying at The American University in Cairo, however, this is far from being true. Despite of the good campus facilities, studying at AUC is not necessarily easy. For instance, I majoring in Actuarial Science and I have been working so hard ever since I enrolled to university. My free time are very limited and the material I am studying is very challenging which contradicts with what people imagine. Speaking of othering, a Christian friend of mine has been narrating to me the othering behavior he has suffered from when he joined the military duty. I have never thought that such gap in thought exists in Egypt because I have been raised surrounded by as many Christians as Muslims in school and having a church in school, so I had a vision of acceptance and unity which was shattered by reality. Bullying is a consequence of othering and it creates fractures in the hearts of the bullied person, it makes him loose his integrity and feel that he doesn’t belong to that place.

             Let me share my some of my reflections about biases. I used to hold a bad image of Iranians (Shi’a). I thought that they would be mean to those who follow the Sunna and that they are not fun to deal with. Then, I travelled for a summer abroad and it turned out that one of my flat mates is Shi’a. During my stay, I found that the girl is super sweet, disciplined, neat, clean and respectful. I figured out then that my bias was based on ignorance and false generalization based on conflict of beliefs. Another false assumption I had is that Americans are exemplar in development and good behaviors. However, during my stay in Athens, sharing the flat with two Americans, it turned out that they are very messy and not clean at all. I wouldn’t have made this assumption if not for the common complains along all flats of the building. One bias I still hold is that Egyptians are lazy. This bias disturbs me the most since I am an Egyptian and I don’t want to implant this idea in my mind else I am afraid it might become reality and hold true on myself. According to Binna Kandola, we become what we believe we are. Also, it is far from being true that all Egyptians are lazy, some have shown that the opposite is also true, so we shouldn’t generalize.