“Self description for inclusive meetings” What fresh hell is this?

[BlueOrangeRed]

AIBU to not understand this at all? I’ve just attended an online event with around 20 people, from a mix of organisations.

The three organisers of the event introduced themselves by name then followed up with descriptions of themselves along the lines of “My pronouns are she/her. I’m a white woman in my mid thirties. I have blonde hair and am wearing a blue top”

A quick google afterwards came up with the following: “For inclusive meetings, a self-description offers context for visually impaired attendees, focusing on key identifiers like Name, Role, Pronouns, and brief visual cues (gender, skin tone, hair, clothing/accessories, background), keeping it concise (1-2 sentences) and optional, to help everyone feel seen and reduce assumptions. Start with your name and role, then add pronouns (she/her, he/him, they/them) and a quick visual detail like "brown skin, bald head, black hoodie," ensuring it's about access, not performance

It will be a cold day in hell before I start introducing myself like this. Leaving aside the foregrounding of pronouns issue, I can see zero benefits, but lots of pitfalls, about reminding everyone in a meeting that I’m a woman in my early fifties. I would also hate it if I was the youngest colleague there, for example. Or the only non white participant.

I’ve never experienced this before. Is this the latest thing to tick some inclusivity box, and for people to perform some virtue signalling? Because the cynic in me really can’t see how it will help anyone. Do visually impaired people find these kind of descriptions helpful?

Or am I just hopelessly out of touch? I don’t go to many events so maybe I am and this kind of thing is now the norm.

Hmmmm would it be ok to say I’m Sparkle I’m a woman and I have lovely clean, freshly washed, auburn hair, and deep brown eyes. I’m wearing a gorgeous velvet trousers suit and a plum perfectly ironed blouse from an expensive boutique and black leather boots.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but why would it matter if there are multiple people of the same ethnicity? What difference does that make?

Oh and I’m wearing the latest perfume from Penhaligans, it cost and absolute fortune but I do like to smell great.

Ooo holla at my fellow Zargonite! I however have the fluffy hair and green tail.. but of course wearing joules striped top and mum jeans!

Exactly this! I was asked and said “ overweight and exhausted woman desperately in need of a hair cut “

It’s been a good decade since I worked at HSBC but we did this then. You didn’t need to say anything you didn’t want to. I don’t remember age ever being mentioned. I’d have said something like, “I’m Jack from operations, wearing a bright pink blazer” or whatever.

It just helped people to form a mental picture but also to know who was talking from what context, if their eyesight wasn’t good enough to read the names clearly quickly, or job titles.

It didn’t bother me. It was very quick. Only key contributors to the meeting did it; people who were just listening or didn’t expect to contribute often didn’t. It took seconds and if it makes work easier for someone, why not.

Depends on the context. I do a lot of work in the DEI space and meetings for forum leaders are often started this way, as by nature of the topic we have a lot of people on the calls with disabilities

I work with people with vision impairments and my colleague is vision impaired. I’d have to ask her if she’d find it useful. I would imagine the screen is such a blur to her that it makes no difference what your hair colour or skin colour is. Your voice would be her point of reference and what your job role is would be relevant and helpful info. That’s more useful than the colour of your top which you’d probably change next time you saw her. Saying your name before you speak would be the most helpful I think. Like ‘Beth here, can I just ask…..’ so she knows who is talking. Pronouns are absolutely not necessary to share so not sure why that was expected.

how about we just keep our cameras off and it doesn't matter what I look like, and you use my name as it's rude otherwise (who's she? The Cats mother)

They could go to hell with that.

I have prosopagnosia so there would be bugger all benefit of this for me. Voices are far more recognisable.

Was there someone visually impaired in the meeting? If so I can see the benefit of this. I wouldn't like to use descriptors that can be vulnerable to prejudice though like race, age, size etc.

If there was no one visually impaired in that meeting then I agree this is insanity.

Not to my knowledge, but I was only there as an attendee, so it’s possible there was and I didn’t know.

My name is Ferris, when you speak about me I’d prefer you called me Ferris, but feel free to substitute in any other word you prefer - if it’s offensive, only say it when I can’t hear you. My face is currently contorted into a look of sceptical confusion, reflecting my feelings on this section of the meeting.

@EmeraldRoulettecould you give a contextual example of where not knowing someone's ethnicity/race/skin colour place an attendee at a disadvantage?

‘my name is Mabel, I don’t do pronouns and I’m rolling my eyes’

Unless it's a political meeting, how could that happen?

my work meetings are not political so I'm looking at it from that perspective.

No, I'm saying the opposite. They don't need to know the colour of my skin.

@FerrisWheelsandLilacs sidebar
Best username ever
And I usually skip that song!

I've been part of several meetings where the discussion has revolved around mental health, life experiences, bullying in the workplace, the disadvantages of disability...etc. I'm a MH first aider, and worked for several volunteer organisations and often the planning/prep/training/accessibility stuff involves all that.

That's why i said it would depend on the meeting. If someone is sharing something where context is everything.. such as experiences of bullying, ablism, sexism & racism are part of the background, then someone who is visually impaired not having that context would very much place them at a disadvantage.

Maybe a tiny bit relevant if someone in the meeting is actually visually impaired. But otherwise pretty pointless, and an exercise in virtue signalling.

I work in an international team, so TBH, I can normally take a good stab at someone's ethnicity given their accent/dialect/name. But I agree it doesn't matter, and if it does, I'd prefer that we all turned cameras off (even though I prefer cameras on) than everyone have to announce their blackness/whiteness/asianess/fashion sense

Totally get the value of description for visual impairments.

But in a world where misogyny, ageism and racism still impact workplaces, there may be unintended issues in leading with reminders of those characteristics.

There are 6 people discussing institutional racism in their organisation. Five of them agree it exists. One of them disagrees. The person who disagrees is the only person who is white.

I don’t see the issue with a quick introductions that means blind people can place the person speaking. Doesn’t really affect you does it?

Those who can see have already noted those descriptors. Someone who is prejudiced has absolutely already noticed them