Women’s institute announcement

Let's take a moment to remind ourselves of how the 'Greatest Authority on the Equality Act in the World' introduced themselves to this thread:

Oh dear, another overexcited GC not reading the clarification properly. Incorrect that it’s ’not allowed’, this all depends whether the WI is offering a single-sex service under Schedule 3 and whether its membership policy serves a legitimate and proportionate aim.

A quick dose of abuse followed by an erroneous reference to the wrong part of the Act. When their error was pointed out, they swivelled to the correct part of the Act but without apparently reading it as they assumed that it was the same as Schedule 3 but for organisations.

When this error was pointed out, they then read the relevant part of the Act and, realising that it really doesn't support their position, invented an interpretation of "share a protected characteristic" outwith the rest of the English-speaking world's understanding of the phrase.

The response to the reasonable pushback against this interpretation led to the deployment of Section 158 where similar wording is used. Combining this with Deloitte's alleged single programme for multiple PCs was presented as proof that "share a protected characteristic" does mean "have a protected characteristic" while ignoring the incoherence of this argument. (This being that positive action cannot be exactly the same for all PCs even the goals are the same and that we all have at least 6 PCs.)

And still they keep digging their hole. When will they stop? When they come out in Australia?

There's a desperation in the air from men being told "no" for the first time. Some of it's threats and abuse, some of it's wailing and whining and some of it's endless obfuscation to try to blur the clarity of the SC's ruling.

I suspect the WI are pretty pissed off that this thread is repeatedly bumped as it keeps their previous stupidity dilemma repeatedly being aired. And there's quite a lot of women on here who are in the WI, having paid their subs and don't expect to be sitting next to George now Georgina at the next discussion on women's health.

So they are trying to come up with other examples of where this happens

But not doing so, because all they have is a positive action example, where the 'restricting membership to those who share a protected charactistic' exemption doesn't apply, because positive action is covered by a totally different part of the Equality Act to associations.

I've pointed this out a few times to a studious lack of response.

Because @WhatNextCatsAsDoctors won't be told that it's not lawful to have an association for two groups of people with two completely different protected characteristics and exclude everyone else in a completely arbitrary manner.

So they are trying to come up with other examples of where this happens and claim that they are perfectly legal because...they are happening. Despite the fact that lots of things which are actually happening are not legal, which is why gender critical feminists keep winning in court.

I have also lost track of how this relates to the WI.

You keep saying that, but you haven't offered any evidence.

In the video she is clearly talking about something that is for women. The label on the video clearly says women.

Again, it seems that you are confusing how Deloitte brand their training resources and the criteria that would make the programme legal.

It's not clear why you are so invested in this. The video talks about family policies - do you think this is particularly relevant to people from minority ethnic groups?

“Women” “and” “ethnic minority groups”. So designed to accommodate both sets of people generally perceived to be disadvantaged, from its inception. You seem to think the Equality Act prevents anyone from doing this. It doesn’t.

Going back to the issue of name, legally charities like companies cannot have names that are significantly misleading about the nature of their business, so given that any ordinary person would be justified in assuming that the Women’s Institute is for women then if they want to be mixed sex then they ought to change the name for that reason also. It shouldn’t take someone having to read the articles/ terms to find out the truth is opposite to what they had expected.

Even if there wasn’t a legal case to be made, morally speaking there shouldn’t be any masking of the fact that men have pushed in. Trading on the goodwill of the existing name would be completely disingenuous.

Clarity and sunlight and not letting an inch turn into a mile as you say MissScarlet

I mean, it's odd that you want to keep making a fool of yourself.

Have you been asleep for the last ten years as one major employer after another has repeatedly breached this specific part of the Equality Act??

Let’s do this for 13 more pages then. I’m sick with nothing better to do.

The point I'm making is that you're talking nonsense and we're not going to let it go.

I guess that hasn’t been proven in court. I’d be very surprised if their legal team gave them poor advice and I believe what I’m saying yesterday backs up the justification/existence of programmes like this.

Very noble of you but nothing to do with what I’m actually saying here…

And you know the programme is compliant with the law because...?

No it’s ONE programme for women and ethnic minority groups and she says that in the video. I know because my friend works at Deloitte and she’s been ON the programme.

And I'm still here because I (and many others) have realised that saying, "mmm OK, if you say so" when someone is talking absolute nonsense is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place.

If only people had stood up in parliament and said, "come on though, humans can't change sex, why are we giving people the right to do something which is scientifically impossible?" and, "of course male offenders shouldn't be in women's prisons, why is this even a debate?" instead of wringing their hands and saying, "it's complicated" (it's not) and "trans people are the most vulnerable people in society" (they're not), none of this nonsense would ever have got off the ground.

I get that you don't like the Supreme Court judgment and how inflexible and uncompromising it is.

Blame the trans activists who overplayed their hand.

They'd have got away with bending the law if their demands hadn't become so unreasonable.

But we gave an inch, they took a mile, and now we're taking the whole mile back including that first inch.

She is talking exclusively about women and the tag at the bottom of the video refers to women.

It just confirms @Another2Cats explanation - different programmes using the same resource.

You do realize that clip you posted actually confirms things we are saying. The woman is talking about peer support groups so that would be group for women, groups for separate other underrepresented characteristics. It may come under one umbrella name but it's very clear from that clip that it's differentiated for different requirements

I’m trying hard to ignore all the goading comments and focus on the ones which are actually saying something interesting or in good faith. That’s why I’m still here.

From the gov website;

9. General positive action
General positive action is action taken by an employer that is a proportionate way of:

• enabling or encouraging people who share the protected characteristic to overcome or minimise a disadvantage connected to that characteristic
• meeting that group’s needs that are different from the needs of people who do not share that characteristic
• enabling or encouraging people who share the protected characteristic to participate in an activity where they are disproportionately underrepresented

Still based on people sharing a PC I’m afraid (the same PC)

Whether it’s deciding who to exclude or who to positively aid.

I never claimed not to be biting.

Likewise.

And yet here you still are, 27 pages later.

Goad away, I’m not biting.