The Times view on Stonewall and corporate diversity guidelines 22/10/21

[Gastonia]

I presume this Times leader is for Saturday's print paper, as it is timed at 9pm today.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-stonewall-and-corporate-diversity-guidelines-6kpjqh3wj
I can't work out how to get a share token, but it says: "Today The Times reports on the newest foray into corporate boardrooms under the misleading guise of breaking the gender glass ceiling." So maybe there'll be more in tomorrow's paper.

Thanks OP. Going back to read it now.

The Times view on Stonewall and corporate diversity guidelines

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4fb9c99e-336d-11ec-820f-e2be9b2cb5fd?shareToken=2d3af999e2266693cfd087e9669e0090

It seems pretty bracing to me. They're certainly not pulling any punches!

But what some have described as a Stonewall “takeover” of the FCA has been led by an executive director who is also Stonewall’s longest-serving trustee.

And

But [Stonewall’s] transition from fearless campaigner to ideological bully appears complete. Its grip over others must now be broken.

Thank you for sorting out the share token! Yes, great to see!

Yes, it is an editorial but it is also factual and direct.

We need more reporting like this. Please!

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates the financial industry, has drawn up diversity guidelines. These would require every company listed on FTSE indices to declare the percentage of women serving as board members. The new rules, however, do not require that companies declare their board members’ legal or biological sex but their gender identity, regardless of when in their career they adopted it. Using this new definition, the FCA is now recommending that 40 per cent of boards should be women.

This was predicted on MN - TW will help meet quotas of women on boards, no need for actual women.

Thanks for the share token. I wish The Times had published this a couple of days ago when the FCA consultation was still open so more people could have contributed.

Great article. Loving that the press are reporting properly. Not the anti woke stuff, but proper factual reporting. Calling Stonewall liars without using the word liars. Nice.

A lot of people just don't get the gender identity thing. These articles are really useful in showing what happens when we don't use biological sex.

Hurray! I hope there's a good punchy, prominent news article to go with it tomorrow as well. (Though it could do with some proofreading, it refers to the "Equality Law 2010" and there's an "as" missing too. But that's just my inner pedant coming out, I'm still really pleased to see this. Sunlight!).

Blimey. Good stuff.

Am in tears

Biggest firms may stop recording sex of bosses

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/73804c9a-3368-11ec-820f-e2be9b2cb5fd?shareToken=26c9243481590b05e5d3251fbfb0b276

Article in the news section

The Times has had some really good, thoughtful coverage recently.
Janice Turner is always excellent and Libby Purves and Sarah Ditum are superb.
They had an editorial last week on the harassment of Kathleen Stock and aren't afraid to take on Stonewall.
I'm bloody grateful.

Brilliant. I’m still holding out for the “public enquiry into stonewall” on the front pages, but this is one step closer.

Buying this tomorrow for the "keep" pile

But is no one else terrified? Is this now going into law?

@Blessex we don’t know, they just closed the consultation. Quite probably though, but it will be very interesting if they do listen to feedback (assuming it wasn’t mostly what an AMAZING idea) . Interestingly I mentioned the fca consultation in a comment on I think a Sarah forum times piece quite recently and it was quickly deleted. I hadn’t done anything silly like include a link.

But can we challenge this if it is against equality law?

Stonking article. The Legal Feminist submission on this is brilliant. They believe that if the FCA went ahead with this, it would breach their Public Sector Equality Duties. I would be very happy to contribute to - yet another - gardening fund on this. Court cases such as Maya’s, Keira’s and the ONS are the way to go.

I note that Ofcom - Stonewalled as it is - gets broadcasters to report on the basis of sex (they call it gender, but in their methodology it is legal sex). This is presumably for legal reasons.

It is very insidious of Stonewall to get its people into senior positions and then adopt a position - self-id - which the U.K. government has explicitly rejected. This is a total scandal.

The comments under that Times ‘sex in boardrooms’ article are interesting. A lot of men are waking up to the issues.

@NomNomNominativeDeterminism

Biggest firms may stop recording sex of bosses

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/73804c9a-3368-11ec-820f-e2be9b2cb5fd?shareToken=26c9243481590b05e5d3251fbfb0b276

Article in the news section

From that article:

Sheldon Mills, a solicitor from Cardiff, acts as chairman of trustees at Stonewall and as an executive director at the FCA, the regulator for about 51,000 financial services firms and markets in the UK.

Mills helped to draft the diversity targets in the Listing Rules, which will require every listed company to declare the percentage of female board members and the number of women in senior board positions, according to self-declared gender identity, rather than legal sex. Firms will be asked to disclose the data on a “comply or explain” basis.

The below is from the FCA's Diversity Annual Report 20/21

"Our gender pay gap reporting is based on legal sex because we don’t yet collect data about gender identity. We acknowledge that this does not reflect our commitment to inclusion of the trans and non-binary community and we are working with our LGBT+ Network (InsideOut) to ensure our reporting can be more inclusive going forward."

The Legal Feminist submission on this is brilliant. They believe that if the FCA went ahead with this, it would breach their Public Sector Equality Duties.

In the Times article, the FCA is quoted as saying that it is following the example of Nasdaq, the American stock exchange. But they must be aware that Nasdaq is subject to American equalities legislation while the FCA has to comply with UK equality laws.

Why would they think that you can just import practices from other countries without considering the different laws which are in place in different countries?

Powerful reporting, and part of a series of reports and columns in recent days and weeks. It is solidly building momentum that will make it harder for anyone or any organisation to a) deny what is happening and b) pretend it doesn't matter because it affects only a tiny minority.

Second story down this morning. I'm glad to see this stuff is getting the prominence it deserves. This is a huge change to how our society operates. It doesn't align with current law.