Hiding behind a screen: a judicious approach?

Hiring someone on merit and not discriminating while doing it is, of course. how things should be. With the latest additions joining the Supreme Court there will no doubt be a debate over quotas and how to get a better representation of the profession and society.

There is another way that is rarely used.

In his book Blink Malcolm Gladwell deals with training your unconscious mind properly to make the correct decisions in a variety of situations in the ‘blink of an eye’. The book also talks about how unconscious prejudice can mess up this process and an example he uses in his conclusion is how orchestras chose musicians and the gender biases that used to be commonplace in the selection process.

Auditions used to be open and the conductor would get the possible new members to play a piece or series of pieces. There was a pervasive view that certain instruments were 'masculine' e.g. the trombone and women just didn't have the capacity or stamina to play them as well as men so they never got picked. However as concert musicians unionised 30 years ago in t