Same castle, same eerie cover soundtrack, same fingerless gloves… and another parallel between season one and two of The Traitors? Male Traitors overwhelmingly running the show.
This series is shining a light on a total lack of women when it comes to new recruit Traitors. So far, they've been exclusively male, so much so that when Traitors Harry and Andrew brought another guy (Ross) on board in Friday's episode, it led to presenter Claudia Winkleman saying: 'Another man? Good.' Before adding: 'It's like the olden days!'.
On top of this, this boys' club seems to have a fixation with murdering women (all except Aubrey). Maybe it's because they think women pose too much of a threat, as the national outpouring of love for ourLady Di suggested last week?
Sure, the Traitors banishing Ash (the only female Traitor of this series) is the point of the game, so on the one hand it’s something to be applauded as it brought the Faithfuls closer to taking home the prize money. But the similarities between how Ash and Alyssa from season one met their untimely demise are…. let’s say suspicious in what they, potentially, unearth.
When Ash’s name began circulating amongst the Faithfuls as a potential suspect, fellow Traitors Paul and Harry exploited this as a quick win. Using Ash as a decoy to deflect their own guilt, they sealed their mutual vote for her with a swift conspiratorial glance across the round table. That said, also in this season, male Traitors have thrown Paul and Miles to the lions.
But if you look at season one, Alyssa was ousted in episode six, after fellow Traitor Wilfred also saw fit to capitalise on other contestants’ suspicions of her to protect his position. Traitor teammate Amanda, swayed by Wilf in voting to banish Alyssa too, later told the media she regretted the move. Wilf would then go on to betray Amanda, nominating her for banishment at the round table in episode 10 and securing enough votes to send her on her way.
So is there an unconscious gender bias at play? I know what you’re thinking. IT’S JUST A GAME. Sure, it is. But leadership psychologist Cornelia Lucey has worked with CEOs and senior leaders in both the private and public sector through her consultancy Positive Leadership, and she believes it’s a ‘microcosm of some of the challenges in our society at the moment’. Namely, people receiving and interpreting each other through biased lenses, and a group mentality that reinforces gender stereotypes that we’ve learned not to question. Just think how well Paul - a classic alpha male - did during his time on the show.
‘Thinking about our brains as an information processing system, there's this narrative that popularity equals good, which equals trustworthiness - which doesn't necessarily bear truth,’ says Lucey.
Once a bias like that is entrenched, as it’s held up by so many of our social and business structures where white males are in leadership roles, Lucey says we can lack ‘psychological flexibility’ to think about whether a bias is indeed playing out, and hindering our ability to analyse and assess actual data.
‘Unless you stop that automatic thinking pattern to think about the different perspectives through which you can see this situation, then we’re not going to interrupt that automaticity that we have in our brains, which is essentially where bias comes from,' Lucey adds.
'Ash had a maternal lightheartedness which could have been misperceived,' says Lucey. She relates this back to how female leaders have been judged, for example former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern often being criticised for showing emotion, and the scrutiny Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin faced after videos were leaked of her dancing at parties.
'People put people in boxes, and find reasons to play into stereotypes,' Lucey adds.
A potentially gendered misinterpretation of Ash ultimately cost her, and unconscious bias could be what's stopping the male Traitors recruiting any more women. Let's hope not. The Traitors might have a gameplan, but someone should tell them it often helps to have a woman around if you want to get something done properly.