Helen Lewis on Woke Capitalism

[MotherWol]

Not sure if this has been posted already, but I thought it was an excellent read. helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-bluestocking-woke-capitalism. Her argument is that, in a capitalist society, companies are looking for something they can point to that proves that they're progressive and diverse, without having to really change anything about the way they work. So they'll create "diversity champions" rather than look at whether their pay and promotion policies disadvantage BME staff, or wrap their products in rainbow branding rather than address homophobia within the organisation. Adds an interesting perspective to the demands on corporations to 'be on the right side of history' - it's clear that, for many, it's about being seen to be doing the right thing, so the problem goes away.

I think that this is one of the reasons so many LGB people were feeling alienated from Stonewall and Pride even before Transgenderism really took off. The rainbow flag was sold, the marches were monetised, and Pride events seemed to attract more straight people than LGB folk.

Some of us have suspected for some time that diversity training just drives prejudice and bigotry out of sight rather than really changing anything. Think of all the people who've nodded along to diversity training and parroted TWAW when the majority don't believe a word of it.

It was an excellent article, and really exposed some of the shallowness of activity going on at the moment. I did feel that the part about Stonewall might feel a bit incongruous to readers not already au fair with some of the issues, but still made some great points about how easy and pointless getting on the right side of them is, as opposed to actually making conditions better for LGBT employees.

Overall, I thought it was a great way of contextualising some of the TRA regulatory capture within wider corporate virtue signalling, and I've seen it shared by some people who haven't really been involved in the debate around women's rights, which is great.

Also reminded me that I really need to pick up a copy of Difficult Women!