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.

The original perfectly good reasons for it are all lost in a tidal wave of whining white men

It's the patriarchy fights back, isn't it. Where overwhelmingly white, affluent males lecture women on how we need to genuflect to them on what it is to be a woman, and marginalised. It's like some have suddenly realised they have the perfect checkmate, freeing them from all that tiresome having to pretend to see us as equals.

Only a man could have the breathtaking effrontery to lecture a woman on what a woman is, and how it feels to be one.

Am with you, op. And the whole Karen thing is just another misogynistic, ageist insult to shut up women who dare to be assertive.

I knew my post would get deleted. Totally worth it.

You’re right, Diversity is a big ole capitalist industry. Our diversity head is a white gay man with he/him pronouns. 🙄
Good news though-I recently went on a diversity course and the Keira Bell case came up and people were horrified. People had heard about it and seen it on TV.

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

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.

This x 1000

Twee unfortunately extremists don't like comedy/satire do they?

But it was so worth it.

There's a great quote 'Only an ideology steeped in misogyny could reframe the protection of rights for females as taking away rights from males'.

They're also so arrogant, entitled and oblivious, that they've stolen the struggles of females at the hands of the patriarchy to pass these off as their own.

Many of the male activists in this field actually have no skin in the game. They will be safe whatever happens as trans men won't take their sports victories or leadership roles and won't sexually harass them in toilets. And they can participate in the colonisation of the female sex without being told off for being colonialists.

Colonisation is the perfect description.

What I have noticed about the use of the concept 'diversity' is that it gives an out to anyone who doesn't want to remember that women are one half of all human beings. That's because diversity has no numerical requirements at all so it can be very unfair and unrepresentative. Sprinkle several tokens into some committee or leadership group and just treat the class 'women' exactly the same as all numerically very small minority groups!

So we get committees where 80% of the members are white heterosexual men and the remaining 20% has some men, too, but they are either black and/or gay and/or trans. Women, whatever our sexuality or race, tend to have to fight for places in that 20%.

I made the numbers up for that example. But it is really very common to have diversity praised in cases where women, overall, are a small minority. So diversity is not the same thing as fairness or being representative of overall population shares.

I am often surprised that we still have a Women & Equalities government department. I wonder if that will be trampled out of sight at some point.

We don't seem to be very good at getting really organised (life gets in the way) or shouting loud. We have no excuses for not shouting out loud.

I wish Politicians would do a bit of research into women to find out how we do respond. They would probably find that we quietly vote with our feet and don't tell them. They can often be caught short with their lack of understanding.

Our work diversity network is infested with straight white male “allies”.

Some of them are decent men. Some of them...less so. One of them (very senior guy) gave a talk a while back where his angle was basically “I didn’t give a shit about any of this, really, until I had daughters”.

Why is that, John? Did you not really think women were people until you got to know your daughters? How did you treat women before that? How do you treat all the women that aren’t your daughters now?

He was so proud of how he was totally smashing the patriarchy by taking time off to go to his daughters school play, then sending pics round his team afterwards of what he was doing, and they all told him what a fine fellow he was for so doing (they all report into him).

I mildly asked what he thought the reaction of the team would have been if a woman in his position had done the same, and if he thought it enhanced or diminished perceptions of her commitment to work to remind people of her family responsibilities. First he didn’t understand the question. Then he got angry. Of course it would be the same! He was showing his human side! We should all be able to do that! People don’t think less of his commitment to the workplace because of his kids, why would anyone think differently of a woman?!

Clueless.

Sean Dellenty's book 'Celebrating Difference: A whole-school approach to LGBT+ inclusion' only features endorsements from males (including Tatchell and Cashman).

The teacher training sessions are conducted up and down the country and promoted heavily on social media, yet there isn't one female recommendation in this book's PR.

Yes Shaun talks of his own story of being gay, just as AM does in his work, but if this is truly diverse and aimed at the whole LGBT community then where are the females?