18 Looking through a gender lens Dave and Dawn used the GEM W orks T oolbox a stepbystep guide designed to help remove unintentional barriers to gender inclusion in written policies and procedures to review the job postings for Industrial Electricians in V ale s machine shop They scanned the job descriptions and postings for hypermasculine language The wording in V ale s advertisements was changed and a woman was added to the interview panel The interview questions were also examined through a gender lens and rewritten Their interviews now assess candidates beyond technical abilities and extend to assessing attitude and aptitude Their team discovered that although many people aim to be openminded and fair to everyone a helping hand from experts is necessary They found that the GEM W orks education modules and unconscious bias training increased awareness of the barriers and provided the tools to help lower and eventually eliminate them W ithout the suppor t of Status of W omen Canada and MiHR and the education modules they built myself and our Change Agents may not have understood what those systemic bar riers wer e The education upfr ont was quite necessar y Helen Francis Language used in job advertisements can unwittingly infuence applicants W ords such as strong competitive dominance and control portray the posting in a subtly masculine way and may impact a woman s decision to apply by sending an unconscious message that the workplace could be a poor ft