"Break the Bias"

What exactly does the EDI person at work do apart from declare celebration of certain campaigns which may or may not be relevant / irritating?

Email one or two liners only about the ones they can't justify not mentioning, but would really rather not if they could truly bring their whole selves to work (the struggle is real).

Otherwise yes it's just emailing about days of celebration and shovelling cash into a vast and unproductive industry.

I dont want to take my whole self to work. Trust me, noone else will either.

It's such utter virtue signalling brain rot. But then it is cheaper to paint a staircase in rainbow colours than actually install a ramp or chair lift, or even just use high contrast and textures edging so that people with a visual impairment can go up and down with less bother (rather than make it harder with all those flipping colours).

The loos in our office building in the basement are unisex. So in the basement there is a long dark corridor (open both ends), with individual cubicles (so no outer door to enter the loos). The building is open to the public - so the loos are used by drunks to sleep and druggies to snort/jab, and I assume people to have 'assignations'.

There's a nice cafe on the ground floor and you often get parents with little children in there running around - who probably wouldn't really think twice if their older child announced they were going to go to the toilet.

What exactly does the EDI person at work do apart from declare celebration of certain campaigns which may or may not be relevant / irritating?

Does anyone have one of these people who has managed to get ramps, braille, computer software for visually impaired people...?

Good question. My university is predictably vocal on the pronouns in email signatures, in Tweeting out slogans and giving us rainbow lanyards, yet has just opened a new building that is virtually inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair.

And, naturally, they are celebrating IWD by spotlighting a male advocating "bringing your whole self to work".

What exactly does the EDI person at work do apart from declare celebration of certain campaigns which may or may not be relevant / irritating?

Does anyone have one of these people who has managed to get ramps, braille, computer software for visually impaired people...?

We used to laugh at 'elf and safety people but at least they were trying to stop us killing ourselves at work (and we could tease them).

'break the bias'

Oh dear, it's sad to the point of being funny. When IWD is largely all about celebrating male people's identity choices and women have been completely lost behind it, and no one's allowed to talk about what a woman is or use the word 'sex' because of it being so offensive to males, the bias is all the day is about! And we're not allowed to touch or even name the bias, never mind break it.

We need a breakaway adult human female month. Then an adult human female history months. Then an adult human female pride month.

Then a series of days throughout the entire calendar like adult human female auntie day, adult human female sister day, adult human female friend day and so on.

Given that we can't even have one day which reflects history, we might as well invent months and days that go on for such an interminably long time, each day you wake up wondering if you didn't just have such a day yesterday?

My work have aimed IWD at LGBT, ideally TW. They are looking for women who have faced challenges, broken boundaries, been inspirational and brave.

This fits TW, but doesn't fit all the women who work hard, often balance caring responsibilities as this is taken for granted. To be important on this day you have to be a man busy feeling like a woman, not a woman getting on with doing everything.

Head over to Twitter where ‘Gender pay gap bot’ is doing a magnificent job of tweeting the ‘gender’ pay gap of each and every establishment tweeting about IWD. It’s joyous.

We have a new EDI person at work. Their suggestion for today is that women in our STEM department change our email profile pics to us doing a pose to show how we're "breaking bias".

Meanwhile I'm the one that's chasing Estates about the unsafe condition of the most used accessible toilet in the building, and querying the accessibility status of a key finance website.

I meant - I preferred it without all this so I think I'm on the same page as you.

IWD has become a mass marketing exercise. Having looked through the list of "events" I could attend, not one mentions sex-based discrimination (all day "gender") and there's nothing at all on the history of IWD or on women's rights over the decades.

It's all "imagining a world" fluff and nonsense.

Yup. Had a barrage of marketing emails too

I had some emails from professional organisations, weasly little rats.

I woke up to a text wishing me a happy IWD. It was well-intentioned and the person who sent it is a good friend.

However, my first thought was: I think I preferred it when no one gave a shit about this day because at least back then, everyone knew what a woman was.

Always learning, thank you.

Can’t be worse than ‘No Woman Left Behind’

With the invisible small print being:

‘Except victims of male violence who need single sex spaces/services.’

Within spitting distance of IWD a political party (that I was seeking help from wrt to single sex services for DA/rape victims) informed me firmly that ‘We do women’s rights’

Which would be great if it hadn’t been preceded by refusing to help and me asking ‘but what about female rights?’

So ‘female rights’ are not supported, only ‘women’s rights’

With the emphasis on the ‘men’ in ‘women’ obviously

Oh the hand signal...they'll be lucky not to get sued by Marvel.

And no hand signals - naffer than Agadoo.

We’ll be running with this - but some bad last had supported it with a blog piece all about sex and the quotes she wrote for staff to use have all been from fiesty ladies, and all about sex. The G word is not used.

Gosh, darn, I wonder who done that?

Someone posted on another thread about this. The break the bias is a commercial company set up for IWD who love their slogans and getting everyone to do some ridiculous hand gestures to look cute on social media.

the UN have a different theme.
Gender equality for a sustainable future www.unwomen.org/en/news-and-events/events/2022/02/international-womens-day-2022

I've been asked for a quote by our social media team about how we can "break the bias".

Are they asking the blokes too? Because a lot of its their responsibility- literally, taking their fair share of caring responsibilities not just leaving it to their partners, for instance.

It's the celebrate our differences but that gets me
Not "those" differences obviously aye?

I think I've seen some such bollocks at work too. I will be boycotting all of it, as rocking up will only encourage the pronouning handmaiden taking a small break from "educating" us all on bekiiiiiind to hector us about breaking through very biases that underpin TWAW, which we must suffer every other week