Catalyst continues to tackle unconscious gender bias with #BiasCorrect 2.0

Last March for International Women's Day, female empowerment nonprofit Catalyst and the Burns Group teamed up to fight unconscious gender bias at the workplace with a computer plug-in that suggests alternative language for potentially harmful words used in chat-based platforms at the office, such as Slack.

The sequel to the 2019 effort, now dubbed #BiasCorrect 2.0, is focused on inclusion and the involvement of men, while still changing harmful words in chat forums, like if a woman is described as "pushy," it will correct to "persuasive." The  plug-in also is now available in four additional languages, including Spanish, French, German and Japanese.

"The response to last year’s #BiasCorrect campaign confirmed that many people are unaware of the impact of unconscious gender bias in the workplace. Therefore, we knew it was important to continue to educate everyone about how language affects inclusion," said Lorraine Hariton, CEO and president of Catalyst, in a statement. "We know the problem isn’t fixed, and we’re engaging men as gender partners in our 2020 #BiasCorrect campaign to interrupt bias and help women advance."

The campaign, which features 100 influential women and men sharing their experiences with bias, is spreading across digital, social, OOH in 500-plus offices across the U.S., New York City bus shelters and Slack channels.

Joanne McKinney, CEO of Burns Group, said in a statement: "We felt it was important to extend our work with Catalyst to make #BiasCorrect even more inclusive. We have created a role in the campaign for men to highlight bias and built the tech in five languages. It’s an unfortunate truth that gender bias is universal - and Catalyst’s global footprint enables them to create wide-reaching tools that drive change."

If you're interested in new ideas and strategies to promote diversity and inclusion, we will be hosting Campaign Leading Change 2020 Conference & Awards (formerly Women Leading Change) on May 28 at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.