PowerPoint is woke!

[Fempire]

Rehearsing my presentation on intimate partner violence against women using the PowerPoint coach to time myself....get to the part explaining how women are disproportionately affected...message pops up saying 'inclusiveness, avoid using 'women' and use 'people' instead to not offend your audience' 😒. It seriously threw me off and I had to stop half way through!.

FFS

I’ve just tried it. Didn’t happen for me.

Is it on a work laptop. Could it be an add on that your organisation has added?

How can it possibly know that you aren't specifically talking about one sex or the other? At any rate, people are far more likely to use 'men' as a catch-all for all people than 'women' - and even that is usually seen as very old-fashioned now.

I wonder if it also grumbles at the use of the word 'guys' - which many people merrily use now to mean 'people', even though it clearly excludes the female half of them.

What happens if you type men in?

I'd experiment with something that says men and see if you get a similar message.
It's ridiculous and I would not change your presentation.

Maybe because I said women a few times, although I did mention men once, as in they're the main perpetrator. Not a work laptop, but I did go to the rehearsal report and it has a whole section for inclusive language.

Well done Microsoft for being inclusive.

I'm sure most people don't need the 2023 equivalent of the bloody word paperclip to police their speech.

It'll be demanding to change discussions about the menopause to 'personopause' next, so as not to exclude the women whom it 'may also' affect!

Are you being serious?
I no long work in vawg. Being told that my delivery of the Freedom Programme was heteronormative, no shit Sherlock, refusing to put pronouns on my email signature etc.

Right, because when discussing the horrific abuse women have suffered at the hands of men, the most important thing I must remember is to be inclusive. Jog on.

I'm sure most people don't need the 2023 equivalent of the bloody word paperclip to police their speech.

Nowadays it's all that rubbish where 'OK Google' or whatever gets in your way and says "Tell me what you want to do".

Considering that they harvest data like this 'to help us improve accuracy' and that the vast majority of people must surely tell it what they really want this sudden unwanted pop-up to do in quite 'earthy' terms, you'd think they'd have got the message loud and clear by now.

This shocked me @Lamelie .
Fucking awful.
How could anyone tell you this and not realise how horrible that is.

The Freedom programme saved me. Even if I only had the books and read them secretely. They were found once, and torn to bits, but I got a New set in the post.
That and Lundy Bancroft in secret at the library. (Thanks to Mumsnet Relationships board).

Well, not saved me physically, but saved my sanity by showing what a healthy good relationship should be like.

It's not being inclusive, it's actually doing exactly the opposite. It's excluding actual women who have already suffered. Perhaps because their needs aren't being addressed correctly or adequately.

Do you engage your brain before typing? It’s not ‘inclusive’, it’s making the presentation meaningless. ‘Intimate partner violence disproportionately affects people’ makes no sense.

.

You might be correct but better safe than sorry.

Sadly yes. Funnily enough the manager who said that to me has now left and I'm still in touch with her- she's a good friend. I fought back. 'The Freedom Programme is for women, it's examines the structural issues which underpin DV and the attitudes of men and women. The Freedom Programme is heteronormative because DV is heteronormative. But under 30/ 35 year olds are completely captured.
I hope life is good for you now

You're not making sense. What's safe about not accurately describing an at risk group?

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

I’m glad you fought back.
And even if the 30-somethings have lost Merlin’s marbles, I reckon the next generation will be able to think and talk about reality without being thought-policed.

I came out alive and thriving, with ups and downs of course. The Freedom program IS for women, and is bloody fantastic.

There's an editor function you can turn off or at least disable it running automatically.