Tired of men banging the 'gender diversity' drum

[HandsOffMyRights]

So an advert popped up on LinkedIn with a link to the second in a series of (male) authors who are blogging about diversity and intersectionality.

It was the male holding a massive rainbow flag that caught my eye.

These last weeks I've also seen Andrew Moffatt and his school Trust heavily promoting the diverse child and chairing events discussing the Equality Act and loosely labelled 'gender' discussions/tweets.

Shaun Dellanty seems similar to Moffatt in his approach when 'training' educators.

Diversity Role Models, at my child's school is led by a male who may or may not self identify as female.

Stonewall's steering committee, once pictured a couple of years ago...the same story.

Why is nobody (the schools, wider society, organisations) asking why it's only males fronting these discussions, centering their experiences?

Am I allowed to find this offensive as a female? Males cornering the market on diversity. Their qualification being they're gay, or self ID as female, lecturing women like me, who've had nearly 50 years lived experienced of living in a patriarchal society.

Once again Males are dominating the female space with self centred agendas and ego. And this is acceptable as it's in the name of diversity. In fact, if I criticise this, it's me who is in the wrong.

So we sit in our work training sessions being told by those with penises how hard they have it (no pun intended).

I'm sorry this is a rant and not very eloquent, but please help me feel like I haven't gone insane.

Where are the women?

The Telegraph column about the middle aged man transitioning, Sam Smith's gender fluidity...

Why are they all so special yet me, frazzled with 2 kids, caring for ageing parents and being called a Karen by misogynist pricks, could tell the world exactly how it feels to be female.

Rant over. Thanks for listening.

Am I allowed to find this offensive as a female? Males cornering the market on diversity. Their qualification being they're gay, or self ID as female, lecturing women like me, who've had nearly 50 years lived experienced of living in a patriarchal society

Straight White Xy people being the face of diversity about sums it up

It's been noted, believe me!

Some gay men don't get it. They also appear to have particular career goals.

Add Prof Glazzard to the list, Justin at Bish and a few others.

I can't also help feeling that being childless allows them to push on career wise and blind them to the sex based reasons why women and girls need certain rights.

They're unbelievably deaf to our voices too.

That Tory mp is a notable acceptation, the one who tried valiantly to debate with the Lib Dem woman.

I find it offensive and my voice doesn't count in debates. That really pisses me off.

Real women get silenced.

I know I'm preaching to the converted, but this is the great gender diversity swindle.

I bet those loudest voices can't believe they're getting away with this.
Male invited into "training" or asked for "expertise" talks about himself for 2 hours. Everybody empathises and follows his suggestions on how to be gentler and kinder. Mainly to boys.

Cutting. Really cutting.

Men sucking up all the oxygen and colonising all the space and commandeering all the bandwidth.

Same old same old, except they're less honest about the real reason for the sense of entitlement.

Yep, the entire "diversity" industry is basically yet another exercise in male supremacism. And apparently the majority of women calling themselves "intersectional feminists" are either too stupid too notice, too scared to challenge it, or just hate other women too much to care. It's really depressing.

Too stupid I think. Can’t be any other reason for it

Ugh
This reminds me of a former boss (male, white, public school, well-off, successful from a corporate perspective) who loved to preach to me (female, working mother, immigrant) about his “diversity journey”. He actually used those words. He was also frequently asked to speak on Diversity panels about his “diversity journey”, join D&I committees etc. Wanker.

*male, white, straight

It was a diversity journey for him all right, via a great big whopping gravy train.
Knobhead.

It's just another predictable backlash against the recent gains feminism has made (if you can call #metoo and #timesup gains).

Happens every darn time.

Same old same old.

The LGB was always about the G really and a bit of B as an afterthought.

It's just men doing the man thing. Especially white men. They know better. They have important things to impart.

This goes for all the other 'isms' as well tbh. Have heard white men lecturing on women's rights, racism, disability etc etc with zero understanding it experience and with no concern that they were talking shit.

So dull and predictable.

I agree OP.
We had "diversity training" in my last job. We were looking forward to it. When we got there it was a trans woman talking about themselves, and their sex life. If I remember rightly every attendee was female and being bolshy and mostly Northern it was made very clear in the feedback forms that we were not impressed and would like some proper training please, that it was rather offensive to think we needed this, and that we thought we should, for a number of reasons, have been told in advance what the training was going to consist of. Never heard any feedback on the feedback. Don't know how it would go down today.
I do work with lots of different cultures and I am playing catch up a lot of the time. Training on Romanian/ Roma culture and for example would be a lot more useful.

No you're absolutely right OP. It's quite stark.

@keepwomensportforwomen

It was a diversity journey for him all right, via a great big whopping gravy train. Knobhead.

@Scout2016

I agree OP. We had "diversity training" in my last job. We were looking forward to it. When we got there it was a trans woman talking about themselves, and their sex life. If I remember rightly every attendee was female and being bolshy and mostly Northern it was made very clear in the feedback forms that we were not impressed and would like some proper training please, that it was rather offensive to think we needed this, and that we thought we should, for a number of reasons, have been told in advance what the training was going to consist of. Never heard any feedback on the feedback. Don't know how it would go down today. I do work with lots of different cultures and I am playing catch up a lot of the time. Training on Romanian/ Roma culture and for example would be a lot more useful.

Good on you all for questioning it, but surprise, surprise, no feedback.

I just want to reply "that's nice dear" when AM tweets that he celebrates being gay every day.

Maybe I should celebrate that I'm female every day and tweet this out with a picture of me in a tampon lanyard.

I mean, who cares? What sort of ego demands this over the age of 10? My kids used to sing a song "it's good to be me" at primary school, but even as teens they don't need that type of affirmation.

Or who would want to know about your sex life in the middle of a professional training session (as per pp mentioned)?

Still angry today.

... being told by those with penises how hard they have it (no pun intended).

(It's still hilarious!)

More importantly, I agree with your whole post.

Sam Smith apparently has "girl breasts and girl thighs'. Where the rest of the girl is, no one seems to know.
It means nothing, none of it means anything.

Is it a girl's arse that he's talking out of?

Asking for a friend.

@IwishNothingButTheBestForYou2

Is it a girl's arse that he's talking out of?

Asking for a friend.

No, it's a very entitled male arse.

I need these comments today, because if I don't laugh then I'll cry with frustration.

The whole diversity business is largely idiotic IMO. What does it even mean? It doesn't seem to mean any kind of diversity of thought, that's for sure. And there are people who think, for example, small places with pretty homogeneous populations are not diverse enough to be really good places - I've heard people, in all seriousness, say they wouldn't want to live in a place like that as their kids wouldn't be exposed to enough diversity.

Diversity seems to be the barometer for goodness but it's not really up o the challenge.