Breaking the Bias with Roxie

This month, we're sharing team member stories celebrating women's achievements, raising awareness against bias, and taking action for equality. Sleep Number team member Roxie shares the importance of inspirational women to look up to and lessons she's learned about women.

“I have always looked at women with admiration for things they accomplished. Those historically, such as Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Rosie the Riveter, Madonna, Oprah, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, and many, many more.

As a young single mother, I knew that it was only up to me to take care of my daughter and myself. Having these role models helped push me through the difficult times as I balanced home with my career objectives. As I looked at Sleep Number for my next career move, Shelly Ibach was an inspiration to me and a reason that I felt Sleep Number was a good fit.

The Assembly Distribution Center managers completed a course on communication, focused on how to succinctly make your point. Through the course and coaching, I learned that I stereotypically "speak like a man", and because I'm a woman it's expected I speak with a sense of connection and less directness. This course helped me to understand more about the expectations that genders have in professional communication. In my first DEI Content Library recommendation, the article states that "women communicate with a focus on intimacy and connection" and "men communicate with a one-upmanship mentality". When we consider gender bias, it can also apply to notions such as this – we don't all speak as identified by our gender.

I have always felt that to break the bias, women need to make sure we are being heard and speaking out about opportunities, career goals, and how we are treated. We can't expect others to know if we feel somebody demonstrated biased behavior in decisions or actions that are made, so we need to have the courage to have that open and honest communication to educate others on how we feel."

Roxie works in Manufacturing at Sleep Number, and her Sleep Number® setting is 50.