Work women’s network captured

[Whyy]

I work for a public sector org and we have a fairly vibrant women’s network. A little while ago we got a new committee and now we have a women+ network, in the name of inclusivity.

I’m genuinely unsure what to do.

On one level I don’t really care what the network calls itself as long as it centres women’s career issues related to biological or societal disadvantages experienced by women.

On the other hand, we also have an active LGBT+ network and I sort of feel that the needs of gender non-conforming colleagues are already met there.

I assume saying anything about this at work will be career suicide. I’m sure I’m not alone, but don’t know if I should just quietly leave the network…

I am feeling increasingly like a heretic.

What are they suggesting comes under the "plus"?? Any explanation as to why whatever they categorise as "+" is best off being addressed alongside or as part of a women's group?

To make trans women and non binary colleagues feel welcome.

So, male people welcome in the women's group. When as you say there is already an LGBT+ group, so double representation for the T+.

I think I would remain in the group and monitor if the focus changes or if women's voices are reduced and marginalised.

Our Womens Network is now Gender Equality, not quite sure what those of us who don't believe in Gender are meant to do.

I don’t actually know if we have any female identified males, but we do have a reasonable number of non binary identified females

Ours changed to Gender Balance. I left.

So they'll be aggressively dictating language to you. Turning women into a collection of female-specific spare parts tacked onto a default male body structure. Oh joy.

I think they have take over women's work groups, to re-educate women and find the terfs. One has been set up at my work recently. Damned women are not doing as they are told!

I think I would remain in the group and monitor if the focus changes or if women's voices are reduced and marginalised.

I agree with this.

I wouldn’t be happy about the ‘+’ but only you can decide if it’s worth speaking up about that OP.

I think that’s my big worry - that the mission and scope of the group may be fundamentally changed from here on in.

You will be assimilated.

That needs to be read in dalek voice!

Hah I actually did, using EXTERMINATED as the template. heh.

Assimilated is The Borg from Star Trek isn't it?

We are the GenderBorg; you will be assimilated. Lower your boundaries and surrender your spaces. Your biological and linguistic distinctiveness will be appropriated for our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

(My username describes how I played at being my favourite Star Trek character as a kid…)

We have the same. It annoys the fuck out of me that there’s a whole “gender allies” thing within the Women’s Network when there is a LGBTQ+ network that trans people can get their support from. Why do they want two bites of the cherry (as if I didn’t already know)?

I refuse to get involved with mine for the same reason.

There was a study I recall in which a test subject was unknowingly in a class filled with actors and the teacher would ask questions. If you're interested in the specifics, it was judging which lines were longest on cards he held up. The actors were told to all pick a specific wrong answer. People indicated their answer by raising their hands.

A very significant proportion of test subjects would change their answer to conform with the group. However, when one single actor was told to also pick the right answer, the proportion of test subjects changing their answer to the one they knew to be false fell. Plummeted to be accurate.

Many people are willing to speak. And in fact will be quite adamant. They just don't want to be alone.

Not telling you nor even suggesting that you should speak up. We're all quite aware of possible consequences for doing so. That's why public figures who speak up are so disproportionately punished - it's so that they serve as examples to keep the rest of us silent. But I do want to tell you that if you are the first, you wont be the last.

Ah yes, you mean the Asch conformity experiment - fascinating and worrying.

And this is entirely my dilemma. I do indeed have something to say about whether this change includes any planned change to the scope of the group, is the group going to continue to cater to equality issues relating to women’s biological and social status?

I know you are right about other people will agree with me but at the same time I’m getting a little tired of always being the person who speaks. When you are that person I feel that people just wait for you to do it 🤷‍♀️

Yes indeed. One one hand I think that if they are going to open it to everyone, including people who are not female, then why even bother having a women’s group at all? Why not just have an ‘everyone who isn’t a white middle aged middle class man’ group?

Surely gender conformity issues should be dealt with by the LGBT+ group? Although I do except there may be some members there with similar feelings, especially in the L camp.

Snap. Ours recently rebranded to Equality Network also so sadly now we have no women’s network.

Start a men's work group. Transwomen wont show up and neither will regular men. It'll just be actual women.

Only semi-joking.

Ours is still a women's network but all of our networks are open to 'allies'. Certain events are very specifically flagged as for those with 'lived experience ' and not learning opportunities.

There's a huge focus on intersectionality between networks too. As a result the women's network channel occasionally gets posts about 'menstruating people ' but usually from someone who is a cross network rep.

In practice the women's network hasn't changed and the agenda remains the same including lots of references to women. For the men who do identify as non binary or trans I haven't seen any attend any women's network spaces.

In other words, a lot of it is lip service.

I hope my last post doesn't come across too facetious. I'd probably delete it because the cynical tone might not be conveyed. I was half thinking maybe a solution would be to make your own network. Brand it whatever you wanted to avoid an overt or provocative clash so long as the membership was all women, it could function as the same thing. I just suggested making it a men's group humorously.

But it probably wouldn't work. Really, I think we as a society are past the point where things can be solved without explicitly calling out the problem and being willing to say "no, I don't want you here" and be called a bigot. There are few zero-cost ways of opposing this movement any longer. But you know that.

Thanks @Cheetahmum thats reassuring. I’m not sure ours is entirely lip service as there is potentially a bit of crossover in leadership (or at least philosophy) between the lgbt+ network and the w+ network now.

I definitely don’t want to exclude anyone female who has difficulty with the word woman applying to them, as I think women’s career development issues affect them as much as me. I’m uneasy about losing a space which has been fairly safe to talk about the impact of women’s biology on working, and women’s reproductive health. There is no other forum for this topic.