Category Archives: DEI-BR

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The past few years have seen increased attention drawn to issues of systemic discrimination. Racism, sexism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia … are all being called out as socially, ethically, and politically unacceptable. “But in what appears to also be a recent development, we’re seeing the …

“Is ageism the last “acceptable” bias? High time that it receive the same standard of scrutiny as other forms of discrimination, says a recent UN report”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Sanmeet Kaur, a UCL History graduate and self-described “aspiring writer”, fled Afghanistan with her family when she was five and arrived in the UK not speaking a word of English. In an article titled “The trauma of bridging worlds as a child translator” she describes …

“Migrant children are often their parents’ translators: a source of pride or a cultural burden?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Why are women still underrepresented in many high-profile fields like finance and STEM? The reasons behind this are complex and may include gaps in education, lingering gender stereotypes, lack of role models, and concerns over work-life balance. Findings from a recent study titled “Decoding bias: …

“Recent research shows that the language used in job postings may be holding women back from work”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village What does “woke” actually mean in today’s culture? As the use of the word spreads, what people actually mean by woke seems less clear than ever. A review of Google keywords shows that the search for defining “wokeness” has surged in past years, with phrases …

“The debate around “woke” culture is heated: while many say it has helped to raise awareness of social justice issues others claim it has gone way too far”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village A recent Google AI blog post on the topic of gender bias in machine translation reports an ambitious but sensible endeavour: the creation of a dataset based on translated Wikipedia biographies. The aim of this dataset is to analyze common gender errors in machine translation. …

“Google AI Introduces A Dataset for Studying Gender Bias in Machine Translation”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village A preview of the latest set of over 40 potential new emojis, many of which focus on gender neutrality and diversity, was released by Emojipedia shortly ahead of World Emoji Day, July 17. In past years emoji have come a long way in terms of …

“Emoji have come a long way in terms of improving gender and cultural inclusivity but users are asking for increased representation”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “International Non-Binary People’s Day” is celebrated ever year on the 14th of July since 2012 and is aimed at raising awareness around the issues faced by people who do not identify as male or female. The issue is gaining increasing traction in the current debate …

“Survey data about non-binary people: a critical tool to inform discussions about policy, resource allocations, and other issues that affect them”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Francis Scott Fitzgerald hated exclamation marks (“it’s like laughing at your own joke”), Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and James Joyce loved them, and Anton Chekov even wrote a short story in their honour. “Long considered the ‘fun uncle’ of the punctuation family, exclamation marks have …

“Exclamation marks have become part of a social-media specific dialect to prompt humour and irreverence”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Have you ever become impatient during work conversations, speaking over or finishing the sentences of colleagues who are non-native English speakers and are more hesitant? Do you tend to gravitate more towards colleagues who are English native speakers to chat than with non-native speakers? Have …

“Not everyone who speaks English is treated the same way. What happens when accent discrimination creeps in?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The act of translating a text, of making it available to people who can’t read the original language, is a political statement in many different ways: what works are chosen to translate, or not to translate, who should translate, what languages to translate into. The …

“Translation can be a political act when is used to give a voice to under-represented groups and challenge gender stereotypes”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village In the French language, all pronouns, nouns and adjectives carry the gender of the object or person they refer to. In English, the discussion around “gender neutral” language focuses on pronouns (“they”), in Romance languages such as French it is more complicated. The French “iel” …

“French government bans inclusive writing in schools but accepts other changes that feminize language”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village American artist, designer and art director Jennifer Daniel is the first woman to chair the Emoji Subcommittee for the Unicode Consortium, the official gate-keeper for new emoji. Today most of our online communication is typed: emails, text messages, Facebook, Twitter … and an estimated 10 …

“The new Head of the UNICODE Emoji Subcommittee is advocating for more diverse and inclusive emoji”