I am writing about mine, especially within anti-racism, an incident that should have been handled way differently by the white parties involved. TwoCronesInitiative.substack.com is where we're trying all sorts of things to identify our own biases and write about what we're trying to do with our scope of the world (as Crones - you should join us!). This is my article recognizing everything I let happen without realizing the overall effect on everyone present. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/confronting-my-own-racism-f2980908e916
So many biases. I think that word has come to be something big and bad that it doesn’t have to be. Our biases could in fact be about big, consequential things like race/class/sexual orientation/gender identity. But they might be about more benign things like assuming everyone likes dogs or hates crocks.
I went back recently to a story I wrote … lots and lots of years ago, maybe 10 or more. My expectations of the reader to share my lens were SO pervasive I would be embarrassed to publish the story as is now. I’ll clean it up, maybe, and publish it, if I can decipher a message other than “entitled angst,” but if I end up doing that, it will take a lot of editing and most of that work will be to remove the bias that will push away readers who aren’t me.
But my biases in many ways get me closer to my ideal reader. As a woman who writes about motherhood, many of my readers will be share some of those biases. As a progressive writing about societal issues such as women’s reproductive rights, I’ll want to attract readers who share that perspective. (In fact, the query letter for my novel challenges readers to question “the bias inherent in society’s laws.”)
So - biases are important, as long as we’re conscious about how we’re using them to connect with readers. My ¢¢
Ramona, i really like the questions you pose here, and they are much on my mind because I teach first-person journalism. We are certainly all biased, sometimes in ways we aren’t aware of, and I think doing this kind of personal writing demands that we examine our own biases, both internally and publicly. Striving for objectivity in a news report is good, but even there, what’s reported isn’t completely objective or neutral - news organizations (with their own biases) make decisions about what to cover. Being explicit about biases and your own subjectivity can, ironically, feel more credible to readers than false objectivity.
As a personal nonfiction writer, I understand the need for constancy in my writing voice and sensibility, but I think there’s real value in letting readers know how your beliefs and biases may have changed over time. I’m not so sure that readers will flee if you aren’t singing the same old tune. I’m much more interested in the ways a personal writer assesses their own history and the inevitable changes, and I respect people who change their minds, if they’re honest about why they’re doing so.
I am writing about mine, especially within anti-racism, an incident that should have been handled way differently by the white parties involved. TwoCronesInitiative.substack.com is where we're trying all sorts of things to identify our own biases and write about what we're trying to do with our scope of the world (as Crones - you should join us!). This is my article recognizing everything I let happen without realizing the overall effect on everyone present. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/confronting-my-own-racism-f2980908e916
So many biases. I think that word has come to be something big and bad that it doesn’t have to be. Our biases could in fact be about big, consequential things like race/class/sexual orientation/gender identity. But they might be about more benign things like assuming everyone likes dogs or hates crocks.
I went back recently to a story I wrote … lots and lots of years ago, maybe 10 or more. My expectations of the reader to share my lens were SO pervasive I would be embarrassed to publish the story as is now. I’ll clean it up, maybe, and publish it, if I can decipher a message other than “entitled angst,” but if I end up doing that, it will take a lot of editing and most of that work will be to remove the bias that will push away readers who aren’t me.
But my biases in many ways get me closer to my ideal reader. As a woman who writes about motherhood, many of my readers will be share some of those biases. As a progressive writing about societal issues such as women’s reproductive rights, I’ll want to attract readers who share that perspective. (In fact, the query letter for my novel challenges readers to question “the bias inherent in society’s laws.”)
So - biases are important, as long as we’re conscious about how we’re using them to connect with readers. My ¢¢
Ramona, i really like the questions you pose here, and they are much on my mind because I teach first-person journalism. We are certainly all biased, sometimes in ways we aren’t aware of, and I think doing this kind of personal writing demands that we examine our own biases, both internally and publicly. Striving for objectivity in a news report is good, but even there, what’s reported isn’t completely objective or neutral - news organizations (with their own biases) make decisions about what to cover. Being explicit about biases and your own subjectivity can, ironically, feel more credible to readers than false objectivity.
As a personal nonfiction writer, I understand the need for constancy in my writing voice and sensibility, but I think there’s real value in letting readers know how your beliefs and biases may have changed over time. I’m not so sure that readers will flee if you aren’t singing the same old tune. I’m much more interested in the ways a personal writer assesses their own history and the inevitable changes, and I respect people who change their minds, if they’re honest about why they’re doing so.