Well done Attorney General

[AndStand]

DM link.
Is the tide beginning to turn?

Attorney General Suella Braverman hits out at diversity training mol.im/a/11078419 via dailym.ai/android

[achillestoes]

@BellaAmorosa

Which is perfectly fine and normal. It’s normal for people not to have a granular understanding of what everyone else might need. That’s why organisations should consult and improve things.

But perspective and proportion are also necessary. I believe toilets should admit buggies. Of course they should. But this morning I’m reading on Twitter that, spurred on by EDI, an organisation is banning the term “master document”, in case the descendants of enslaved people find it triggering, and I think that is disproportionate and rather foolish behaviour. I’m reading about businesses being pressured to give women (or ‘people who menstruate’) regular menstrual leave, and again I think that’s foolish. I’m reading about men being dissuaded from applying for jobs because their company is seeking a ‘diverse’ candidate, and I think that’s discriminatory.

These teams are doing far more harm than good.

[BellaAmorosa]

@achillestoes

@BellaAmorosa

Yes, probably. But it inconveniences us even more for companies to therefore make only the women’s toilets accessible to buggies. We need equality, not divisive ‘equity’ that leaves us (still) holding the baby.

@achillestoes
She wasn't calling for only the women's toilets to be accessible, and she may not even have said women's toilets specifically needed wider spaces. That could be my faulty memory. The point is that it was a woman who pointed out the need.

[ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus]

@Pluvia

You might feel differently if you lived in Wales, where we have had a Labour administration for more than 20 years, a lot of that time with a majority that has meant that they can pretty much do what they want. Mark Drakeford, our First Minister, is in total thrall to Stonewall and trans ideology. All LGB and TQ+ matters, including policy, has been outsourced to Stonewall. Apparently he has said that he thinks that Stonewall Cymru is different and better than Stonewall in England.

He's surrounded by a coterie of true believers (Jane Hutt, Hannah Blethyn and others) and there are a number of gay male Special Advisors who are all entrenched in trans ideology. They are buoyed up by the knowledge that Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems (their main threat here in Wales) are also under the trans spell. When anything involving LGB and TQ+ comes up and they want advice beyond Stonewall the Welsh government turns to a group of trusted advisors including infamously foul-mouthed Pride promoter and trans ally Lu Thomas and transgender medical specialist and ally Dr Sophie Quinney, who has been censured by her own profession for her plans for an affirmation-only model here in Wales.

Over the last three years the Welsh Government have utterly refused to hold discussions with well-established women's groups such as Merched Cymru. They can barely bear to meet their own constituents. My own MS (Labour/ female) has treated me with complete contempt since I approached her to raise this issue.

From where I'm standing here in Wales the Tories look like a beacon of rational adult behaviour. They listened to what women had to say, they didn't apparently bully or shun people who spoke up and, having investigated, they've changed their opinion and are putting things right.

Those of us who effectively live in single party states, in single-chamber 'democracies', in small countries where everyone appears to know everyone else and politicians routinely serve a few years in office before taking up a position at a Welsh university or running one of Wales' many voluntary organisations, before circling back into politics, are trapped.

That's a frightening picture of reality in the sort of smaller, devolved regional administration that seems attractive on paper. Thanks for posting, Pluvia.

[ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus]

@achillestoes

The EDI industry is just that: an industry. People are being paid by the taxpayer to invent a grotesque caricature of our culture - racist, homophobic, transphobic (but not sexist) - and then come up with ways in which people must do penance to be considered humble enough not to be bullied at work. It must stop. We can’t afford it and it’s not a good idea even if we could. Private businesses can obviously do what they want with their money but the government has a responsibility to make sure people can get an appointment for a persistent cough before they spend money on this drivel.

Well put, and sadly true. EDI may have been set up with good intentions, but it certainly hasn't achieved them, quite the opposite.

[ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus]

Excellent news. I'm hoping the sane, common-sense attitudes towards EDI and genderism of Tory women like Suella Braverman will spread and make it increasingly safe for other people to speak out. Just too bad the Tories' economic policies are so disastrous.

Also, good coverage in the Daily Mail.

I wish they (Braverman and the Mail) wouldn't call the gender identity movement 'left-wing', when identity politics is the opposite of left-wing. Most normal people think it's rubbish, and I don't like seeing it bundled in with genuine left-wing demands such as renationalisation of public services. But I can't deny that liberals and the left are the most faithful servants of the genderists, so that was an open goal for the Tories.

[TullyApplebottom]

For those who want to understand more how the EA is framed and should work in practice, and how it gets distorted by the EDI industry, I recommend following Audrey Ludwig on Twitter. Expert lawyer and a lovely lady to boot. I need to think about these issues as a non expert and I find her posts insightful and helpful.

[achillestoes]

@BellaAmorosa

Yes, probably. But it inconveniences us even more for companies to therefore make only the women’s toilets accessible to buggies. We need equality, not divisive ‘equity’ that leaves us (still) holding the baby.

[BellaAmorosa]

@achillestoes
True.
Point is, it was a woman peer in the House of Lords who brought this up. And since in the world which we currently live in women do most of the childcare, narrow turnstiles would inconvenience women more in practice.

[achillestoes]

‘Otherwise you get turnstiles into women's loos which are too narrow for a buggy to get through.’

Surely all toilet turnstiles should be wide enough to admit a buggy, not just women’s?

[BellaAmorosa]

@JustSpeculation

I know your question is a bit rhectorical, but I'm going to answer anyway.

I think having a wide range of different types of people leads to a wider range of viewpoints, skills and attitudes. It breeds discussion, avoids complacency and immobilising conservatism (by which I mean a tendency to do things the way you've always done them because that's what you've always done). It leads to a wider understanding of the people involved in your area of business. It facilitates innovation and original, creative thinking. It leads to an increase in the amount of critical thinking that goes on, leading people to evaluate things in ways they may not have previously thought of. And it leads to a more open minded assessment of people. You notice what more they have to offer in a way that can be hidden in a dreary uniformity. It's a good thing.

Inclusivity requires positive action in that it is frequently not immediately obvious what barriers are preventing people getting involved, and sometimes not even obvious to the people themselves. Again, going out of your way to include people who are not getting involved gives you both a better appreciation of their abilities, and of the internal barriers to getting things done that your organisation may suffer from.

This is all good. And the fact that marketed, evangelical EDI courses often do the exact opposite to this does not detract from it.

I don't have issues with less diverse organisatons either, in principle. But I've been in companies that have collapsed because they never thought of changing. No one challenged the status quo and they boiled frogged themselves into oblivion.

👏
Yup!
Otherwise you get turnstiles into women's loos which are too narrow for a buggy to get through
Supposedly neutral" lighting states in a TV studio which are too dark for black people.
A podium at the SPOTY show which has no disabled access.

The designers didn't set out to be sexist, or racist, or ableist. They just didn't have access to other people's life experiences.

[achillestoes]

@FactsAreNotMean

Can you share some examples of how white middle class male graduates approach modelling things ‘in the same ways’ and how this can be an issue in something like logistics? I hear a lot of this sort of thing but for the life of me I don’t understand what people mean. How do you know the ‘diversity of thought’ is a result of bringing in people who aren’t (for example) male/white/young? Don’t people think differently regardless of where they’re from? Would you say, for example, that all black female people thought in the same way?

[FactsAreNotMean]

@achillestoes

How do they actually benefit the organisation? Say you run a trucking company and you need to hire a supplier to build a mathematical logistics model. What is the benefit to you of doing that in an ‘inclusive’ way rather than giving people equal consideration based on how good a job they might do?

This isn’t an anti-diversity position, btw. I really want to know what the benefit would be.

Probably less so from the trucking company perspective but more from the mathematic modellers; I actually work in this kind of field, and there can be a real issue with lack of diversity of thought which stiffles creativity and innovation. We take grads on every year, and they're practically clones - mostly young men, mostly white (although not exclusively), who have generally come from nice middle class backgrounds and done the exact same courses at a handful of universities. The course gives them good technical skills, but they have all been trained the exact same way and so the way they approach things tends to be very similar.

Bringing in people from different backgrounds really shakes that up sometimes and creates a diversity of thought. That leads to better, more robust products in most cases because flaws that would otherwise be missed are spotted, questions which weren't even thought of are suddenly asked.

So from the trucking company perspective I think there is a reasonable chance that the more diverse company might have a stronger product - but how you define diverse is the important thing as you could theoretically tick a lot of the big boxes and still end up with a culture which doesn't benefit from that diversity because they've still looked for people who fit a particular mold.

[Skyellaskerry]

This is being discussed just now on LBC.

[achillestoes]

How do they actually benefit the organisation? Say you run a trucking company and you need to hire a supplier to build a mathematical logistics model. What is the benefit to you of doing that in an ‘inclusive’ way rather than giving people equal consideration based on how good a job they might do?

This isn’t an anti-diversity position, btw. I really want to know what the benefit would be.

[JustSpeculation]

Diversity and Inclusion make sense if you separate them out from Social Justice, and think about how they benefit your organisation.

[JustSpeculation]

@achillestoes

So separate it out. It can be.

[achillestoes]

@JustSpeculation

Yes, but that is the principle in play in these EDI teams, isn’t it? Inclusion and diversity are actually in tension with equality. Equality is when you give equal consideration to what someone can do (say, in a hiring decision) regardless of who they are or where they come from. The ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ imperatives drive the opposite outcome.

[JustSpeculation]

@achillestoes

@JustSpeculation

I think the principles are very wrong. There is no legitimate hierarchy of who is the most oppressed. There is no set of rules about which ‘types’ of people are ‘diverse’ enough. The principles are bad. It’s time to throw them out and bring back real equality.

I agree with you. But the principle that is wrong is that of equity.

[JustSpeculation]

I think in corporate organisations there tends to be a jostling for a place at the cool kids table in the ranks of management, which produces a strong drive for conformity. Which is ironic and counterproductive when the doctrine du jour is diversity. Take diversity, and make sure that everyone is "on message" about it (again ironic), backed up with slogan everyone can repeat but most people don't bother about understanding, and you have the pseudo diversity we enjoy today.

But again, I say, EDI is inherently a good thing, however laughable some instances are.

[achillestoes]

@JustSpeculation

I think the principles are very wrong. There is no legitimate hierarchy of who is the most oppressed. There is no set of rules about which ‘types’ of people are ‘diverse’ enough. The principles are bad. It’s time to throw them out and bring back real equality.

[achillestoes]

It’s worse than anything like a nice chat about manels, though. I’m letting down my own arguments here because the EDI movement is actually quite a bit more extreme than this. There was an NHS document shared last year, a blog by the EDI lead for the Nursing and Midwifery Council. It began, ‘Dear white people...’ It went on to tell white people how they need to ‘be uncomfortable’, to tell them which divisive US books they need to read, to refuse them ‘permission’ not to be political.

It went on and on. And it’s just not okay. It’s bullying, and we’re paying for it. The taxpayer shouldn’t be funding people to make the NHS a political organisation, or to increase upset and conflict for employees EDI professionals happen to resent.

[JustSpeculation]

@achillestoes

Yes, but the solution to that is don't be stupid. Allow people to employ their judgement. Instances of idiotic execution don't mean that the principles are wrong.

[achillestoes]

‘But they're all daleks.’

Dalek diversity. 😂

[achillestoes]

Take ‘manels’ as an example of what I think is ‘problematic’ here (in the old sense of the word). An EDI team might try to encourage colleagues not to participate in manels. Many feminists would agree with that. An EDI team might also want a panel to be balanced so that not everyone on it is white. Many people (white and from ethnic minorities) would agree with that.

So let’s say there’s a panel arrangement of five people under discussion, and the topic is something like paediatric neurosurgery. Let’s say - and I don’t think it’s that unrealistic - that the top five paediatric neurosurgeons happen to be men, and none of them are from ethnic minorities. One is gay, one is a Tory, one is French, one is disabled, one is under 40.

Is that panel diverse? I’d say it is. I think an EDI team would say it isn’t, and I think we’d end up with a panel without the needed voices on it.

And that might happen for any topic, any sector, or even every topic and every sector. I think that’s a disaster.

[JustSpeculation]

The kind of diversity you're seeing is dalek diversity. You know with daleks, there are red, blue, white, black, yellow, green, gold ones. There are big daleks and little daleks. There are daleks that can climb stairs and daleks that can't. Daleks with plungers and daleks with other odd appendages. But they're all daleks.

But there is sense in EDI, and there are elements of sense even in the courses run by what has become a priestly caste. There is a diversity of diversities, and some of them are really good.