About diverse and diversity role models

Why representation is so important!

Representation means that the various population groups are represented in politics, business, media or (pop) culture. We are far from that: Members of the Bundestag who have learned a low-income profession, for example, hardly exist; women are underrepresented in parliament as well as on boards of directors. The situation is no better in culture and the media. Or how many films can you think of in which a woman with a headscarf plays the leading role? Exactly. Why is that so important? Because it means that many people in Germany lack role models. As long as there are more Michaels than women on boards, it’s hard for a woman to imagine becoming a board member herself. As long as people of color appear in films or children’s books as vegetable sellers but not as doctors, people from this group are indirectly told that being a doctor is not a profession for them.

Diverse and diversity role models

So we need more diverse role models, but we also need diversity role models. What exactly do we mean by that? Racism, sexism, rejectionism, transphobia and other forms of discrimination are structural problems. That's precisely what makes them so difficult to overcome. Because we have all internalized them. Structural racism does not only show up when people openly hate migrants. It is already evident when we mistake the senior doctor with the headscarf for the nurse. Or when we automatically address a black German in English. These assessments cannot be avoided for the time being. But we can all train to widen our focus. We can learn to pause and react differently so that minoritized groups are not constantly subjected to microaggressions. But role models help here, too. People who are empathetic, break patterns and want to make a difference - big and small: The supervisor who asks new employees which pronouns they should use to address them; fathers who naturally take more than the usual two months of parental leave and work part-time; people who dare to address social imbalances from their marginalized position; who propose solutions and support others. With MoreDiversity, we want to offer all these people a platform, strengthen their work, inspire others and show them: Diversity matters. Representation is important. Role models are important!
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