I have always really liked the title image. The reason is because it calls up a powerful story that is very specifically relevant to bias.
The story is, of course, that Odysseus knows that he will not be able to resist the sirens in the moment, so he binds himself to the mast beforehand. To me, the powerful analogy here is not “resisting bias is like resisting sexual/romantic desire,” and it’s certainly not “bias is like women and rationality is like men.” It’s that bias is appealing, is hard to spot, and can feel very much like the “right” way to think. One must always have a certain amount of distrust for one’s own mind, sometimes to point of putting forceful strictures one oneself, as Odysseus does.
This is a message that’s very relevant to OB’s concerns, which is something I appreciate, since academic writing is often accompanied by pretty but irrelevant pictures (e.g., a textbook about algorithms I once saw with a painting of Eden on the cover). It’s also important to remember that it’s essentially a message about humility. Yes, Odysseus is a man, and yes, he’s doing the right thing—but in this case, the right thing for him is to recognize the limitations of his own thoughts and impulses, to strategically distrust his ability to make correct judgments. In other words, to check his arrogance. The real message isn’t “resist women,” it’s “resist yourself.” It’s really the same sort of attitude that one needs to take if one wants to avoid being prejudiced.
About the issue of the genders involved: The characters have to be some gender or other. If the picture unavoidably sends a bad message about the genders of the sexually-tempting entities, then it’s impossible to tell this kind of story (someone resisting sexual temptation) without making some big prejudiced statement. To me, that rules out too large a class of stories to be reasonable. More pragmatically, this picture relies on calling up the more important of the story (that Odysseus bound himself beforehand) in the viewer’s mind, which means it has to be a well-known story. I’m not sure if there’s a well-known story with the same message that has different genders, so that’s not an alternative if we want to stick with the same message. There might be one out there, though.
I have always really liked the title image. The reason is because it calls up a powerful story that is very specifically relevant to bias.
The story is, of course, that Odysseus knows that he will not be able to resist the sirens in the moment, so he binds himself to the mast beforehand. To me, the powerful analogy here is not “resisting bias is like resisting sexual/romantic desire,” and it’s certainly not “bias is like women and rationality is like men.” It’s that bias is appealing, is hard to spot, and can feel very much like the “right” way to think. One must always have a certain amount of distrust for one’s own mind, sometimes to point of putting forceful strictures one oneself, as Odysseus does.
This is a message that’s very relevant to OB’s concerns, which is something I appreciate, since academic writing is often accompanied by pretty but irrelevant pictures (e.g., a textbook about algorithms I once saw with a painting of Eden on the cover). It’s also important to remember that it’s essentially a message about humility. Yes, Odysseus is a man, and yes, he’s doing the right thing—but in this case, the right thing for him is to recognize the limitations of his own thoughts and impulses, to strategically distrust his ability to make correct judgments. In other words, to check his arrogance. The real message isn’t “resist women,” it’s “resist yourself.” It’s really the same sort of attitude that one needs to take if one wants to avoid being prejudiced.
About the issue of the genders involved: The characters have to be some gender or other. If the picture unavoidably sends a bad message about the genders of the sexually-tempting entities, then it’s impossible to tell this kind of story (someone resisting sexual temptation) without making some big prejudiced statement. To me, that rules out too large a class of stories to be reasonable. More pragmatically, this picture relies on calling up the more important of the story (that Odysseus bound himself beforehand) in the viewer’s mind, which means it has to be a well-known story. I’m not sure if there’s a well-known story with the same message that has different genders, so that’s not an alternative if we want to stick with the same message. There might be one out there, though.