Julia's blog: Unpicking my unconscious gender bias

I consider myself to be an incredibly lucky parent of a little girl and a baby boy. Perhaps it's having 'one of each' that has led me to ponder the sometimes subtle, but often blatant issues around gender bias recently.

I feel a sense of responsibility to succeed in raising a confident and caring little girl who effortlessly transforms into an accomplished woman with absolutely no awareness of a ‘glass ceiling’. I also want to raise a confident and caring little boy who grows into a respectful and supportive man who doesn't give a second thought to bearing equal responsibility in his home. In reality, I want, for both of my children, what most parents would wish for regardless of their child's gender: a sense of professional fullfilment and pride in their work and a happy, healthy and harmonious personal life. The fact that, in writing down my particular concerns for each, I have focused on different parts of my children's future lives shows that gender bias is deeply ingrained. In the last year, the firm I work for has run some really interesting training sessions on identifying and then addressing unconscious bias: it's evident from this paragraph, I'm definitely not immune to it.

There are plenty of ways in which the bias can and should be stamped out. As a parent, I definitely need to stop and think about the language and ideas I express in front of my children around 'roles' for and traditional character traits of men and women. I also think it's about setting examples and that's one of many reasons why I want to keep progressing in my own career: I love the fact that my return to work after maternity leave has sparked a real interest in my three year old about jobs: she loves to stomp around in my work shoes and talk about her 'important work'. I also love the fact that my part-time arrangement enables me to enjoy this spectacle two mornings a week without harassing her to return my shoes so I'm not late for work!

Hopefully, the world into which our children emerge as young adults will be a place where being a 'family man' and 'professional woman' aren't even topics for discussion: the terms should become meaningless as we embrace the next chapter of equality between the sexes. Perhaps that's unrealistic, but I think we're on the verge of a very significant shift in perception. The way people work has already drastically changed in many fields, and my profession is catching up. In my office, the combination of a successful agile working policy and shared parental leave‎ (SPL) is already changing the focus of the conversation. What I like most about my firm's approach is that the men who have taken SPL are encouraged to shout about it. Our intranet carries short articles from those returning from SPL and I've read each one with great interest. What we really need is for more men to take significant stretches of SPL and then shout about it so that, in turn, more men take it and then shout about it until eventually it becomes the norm instead of a talking point. The same principle applies to the use of agile working strategies and requests for flexible working arrangements. After all, more than two centuries on from Pride and Prejudice it is surely now "a truth universally acknowledged" that it takes two to both (a) make and raise a child and (b) "possess a good fortune" (at least if my experience of living in London is anything to go by!).

Julia is a senior associate in the tax team at law firm Nabarro. She works three days a week and spends the rest of her time looking after her three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.