Other feminists' views on workplace initiative for women's volunteering?

[InLovewithaGermanFilmStar]

Last week we had an all-staff email (so to around 3,00 people, I think) inviting us to an information session about becoming school governors. The email included the information that they sought 50% female participation as the information session was part of my employer's inclusivity and pay equality and 'women of influence' initiatives.

My feeling is that this
a) shifts the responsibility for getting equal pay onto women's shoulders;
b) requires women do so by doing extra voluntary (ie unpaid work);
c) that female employees need to do extra (unpaid) work to be seen as having influence?

I've responded to HR saying this - or am I just a stroppy feminist?

Hmm, we're thinking of running a session on how trusteeship, governor position's etc can enhance your skills and experience.

50% participation is a reasonable expectation if your workforce is a 50/50 split. I am assuming that if this were the case, they wouldn't be pushing the inclusivity thing. Therefore, they are expecting more of women, and no reason not to point this out to theme.

I have said repeatedly at work and women in tech gathering's that we're targetting the wrong people. Often inclusivity and diversity initiatives are aimed at women. This is just preaching to the converted. They need to do something to involve all the white men who sit complacently at their desks and are the actual problem.

And you will probably be seen as a stroppy feminist, but that doesn't mean you're wrong.

(I am feeling very stroppy about work at the moment.)

Yeah, I get how being a school governor might give you good skills (although I'd probably just want to brain some of the other parents at my kid's school). It just got me that women once again have to do extra, when most of my colleagues do the bulk of housework etc

And I didn't think of reversing it to look at the complacent white men (I read that as men in white shirts doh). Hmm shall have to have a bit of a think about how I could play that.

May be slightly off topic, but I've recently started volunteering as a charity trustee, and was quite surprised to find that my boss didn't seem to think it would enhance my career in any way- she sees it as a nice thing to do in my spare time but nothing to do with my job (am an accountant and using my skills and knowledge in the trustee role, so I disagree).

Has anyone else come across this attitude, and/ or have any suggestions as to how can I could leverage (sorry, hate that word!) my trusteeship in the workplace?

I think that employers are supposed to allow people to volunteer as school governors in work time. Being a school governor is an influential and responsible position, I wouldn't be surprised if women were under represented, and even if not a feminist voice would be a good thing (think, provision for menstruating girls in primary school, all the bullshit we keep reading about school uniform, encouragement of girls in STEM subjects, tackling sexual harassment amongst students...I could go on and on) hence, I think encouraging female employees to consider this role is an excellent thing.

www.gov.uk/time-off-work-public-duties
They do have to give you time off, but they don't have to pay you.
For this we have trade unions.

Thanks everybody - realy helpfull. I've now been asked to have a meeting with our head of HR, so I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is, lol. Serves me right!

Usefdul to know that School Governors is a good thing to do, but I still worry that asking women to spend more of their time in unpaid work (when we do most of the housework) is not really my kind of feminism.

I'd rather they were traning women to be on boards of companies that paid, or trained men to listen to women (there's a revolutionary idea)

We have this sort of thing at work all the time; i.e. Women being asked to do more stuff to combat the under-representation of women in leadership, management, committees etc... we said yes, happy to do, this but only if we are compensated in time and money.

I think I would count this as positive discrimination.

I have just gone through the whole school process and was shocked to see that most of the schools have an overwhelming amount of female teachers, the governors where mainly male..

I would prahaps approach your head of HR by asking "why does the 50/50 split need to be in place" I think you might be pleasently suprised.

Also on a side note, as a feminist, I would like to believe that both parents in a child raising family have an EQUAL Amount of spare time, I know this isn't always true, but I wouldn't want to argue the cause that women do loads more in the home than the men so can't volunteer as much as it's more unpaid work for them..

I would rather see it as equal demands on each sex