It’s natural for anyone to feel a little stressed about being critiqued and evaluated on your work. But when performance reviews make you feel uncomfortable or angry because of biased or discriminatory feedback, that’s a serious cause for concern.
Unfortunately, bias can easily creep into reviews, often without the reviewer realizing it. Unconscious bias can be especially hard to identify, which makes it even more pervasive. It’s not as easy to spot as an overt insult, such as “You’re doing great work for a woman,” which of course should be immediately reported to HR. It can be subtle, such as an older employee who gets praised for eagerly adopting new technology, which shows age bias.