Diversity and inclusion committee

[TickledOnion]

I work in an industry that was traditionally very male dominated. My company has been really good at treating women equally, creating a gender balance on the board, removing the gender pay gap, being family friendly etc. I love working there.

They are now thinking more seriously about diversity and inclusion and have invited anyone who is interested to join a committee. I have noticed that the 2 people running the committee have added their pronouns to their emails signature. I know I should join the committee but I’m terrible at confrontation and get very flustered when I try to put my point across.

Any advice please?

Hi OP - I agree it would be good to join. My company also have just stated something about Diversity and Inclusion is going to be a focus, and talks etc coming up - so I will probably have a listen in to the presentations to see what’s going on.
I’m certainly not confrontational myself - the opposite - but will put a sensible view across if required.

I wonder who is keeping an eye on corporate reputation - there’s a balance between the ‘being your whole self to work’ and hacking off clients/making the company look foolish and unprofessional.

@MishyJDI

You probably should not sign up, as the point of the committee is "diversity and inclusion" and not division. I doubt you qualify if gender critical. You can't have diversity and inclusion if it is not inclusive.

Ahh the kind of inclusion that excludes anyone who disagrees! 😂

@TheSockMonster

People will probably disagree with me on this, but in similar situations I tend not to disagree on the smaller points in order to push a case for the things that I consider to be most impactful. E.g. instead of contesting the ‘trans women are women’ narrative (which would be unsuccessful and make is easy to write everything I say off as a fringe opinion) I focus on particular situations. I also - and I know this won’t go down well on here - am prepared to use their bonkers language to get my point across. For example…

‘CIS women are likely to face additional barriers into this industry due to early female socialisation and possible impact of pregnancies, so we should ring fence some places on the management fast track programme just for them”

“People who menstruate are likely to need to use hand basins and will need privacy to do so, so the proposed toilet plans will have to be adjusted to allow for this”

Etc.

The difficulty is, in accepting "bonkers" language you are complicit in normalising it. If we lose the word "woman" we have lost women's rights. So it isn't a smaller point. It IS fundamental. I wish I didn't have to argue that. But there is no alternative. Lose the meaning of the word woman as "adult human female" and you have lost any possibility of "women's rights" as no logical argument will ever be able to be referenced legally.