Oxfam's analysis of its 'inclusive language crises'

[ArthurbellaScott]

Fascinating marketing analysis of the impact of Oxfam's inclusive language guide.

https://adroitinsight.com/oxfam-inclusive-language-crises/

Really worth reading for insights as well as comedy value.

Conclusion:

'Future communications can consider issues such as family, motherhood, and fatherhood, to incorporate them into a point of view that is more appealing to more conservative sectors.
This could make it easier to connect with people who certainly do not want anyone to starve to death, but who react more easily if the problem is explained to them from a point of view that incorporates concerns, they have: the family, for example.
In other countries, such as Spain, Italy or Germany, there could be a similar reaction if Oxfam shares this guide, and it is picked up by the media or a group of influencers.
It would therefore be advisable for the organisation to prepare a communication strategy in advance to deal with the controversy and negative comments that could be generated.
In the specific case of Spain, it would be even more of a priority considering that the debate on inclusive language, transgender rights and the reality of non-binary people has already generated a major debate, with laws in favour and currents actively against that have produced a lot of polarisations in society.'

Those brilliant, intelligent, highly-skilled elite people who are up to the task were not exactly up to this task:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48593401

I am a former Oxfam shop volunteer, was there about 9 years before leaving in the summer. Not just over the inclusive language nonsense, but also because the shop manager was an incompetent twat with a hoarding problem. Not ideal when you're managing a charity shop.

Anyway, there is such a massive GULF in ethos between head office and the shops it's not true. Go into any Oxfam shop around the country and ask a volunteer why they're there and they will tell you something about raising money for developing countries, working with people in the aftermath of a natural disaster, contributing to their local community etc etc. Lots of middle-aged women, retired people on weekdays, sprinkle of students and schoolkids at weekends. Not politically engaged by and large.

Head office staffers aren't there for the sorting bags of clothes and dealing with arsey customers. They are all about equality, and pronouns, and political posturing and campaigning, They see working in Oxfam as a stepping stone to a political lobbying job or the ultimate goal as a job as a Labour MP - worked for Jo Cox, didn't it? And Welsh MP Stephen Doughty.

These Head Office staff are 20-somethings, straight out of uni, idealistic, many independently well-off enough to be able to accept a lower charity salary and the high living costs in Oxford/London. These are the people who produce the Pride posters and order in the huge amount of Pride merch which is sent to stores, takes up loads of space, and doesn't sell. In my 9 years at Oxfam we never saw ANYONE from head office in our shop, which was a large, high-performing branch.

They ran a survey this time last year about the disconnect between Head office and the shop volunteers and this is pretty much what the survey told them. That volunteers don't feel listened to, that the core values of head office and stores are miles apart, that what head office thinks the direction of the organisation is does not match what volunteers think.

Nothing will change until they get rid of whichever senior manager used to work with Stonewall and is driving all this. They also need to get the 20 something staffers out of Oxfam House in Cowley to spend a week sorting bags, talking to customers and volunteers in York, Inverness, Newcastle or Plymouth.

You might want to look up what the R in TERF stands for.

And consider the C in GC. Criticising the conservative and regressive sterotypes of gender.

Gosh, terfdom (or protecting women’s hard won rights) has been built on the revolutionary progress for women in recent history. Women having spaces where we could more easily navigate in society. Voting, representation in public life, legislature and decision making bodies; prisons where we wouldn’t so easily be raped or attacked by males; public facilities likewise; married women owning property and being able to have bank accounts in our own right; female civil servants not having to resign on marriage; being permitted to access education and profession. One could go on about what changes for women have occurred over the last 50/80/200 years. If society —pretends to— believes women don’t exist as a sex class, then discrimination which had to be overcome wasn’t targeted at women. Yet, it was, and had to be fought for.

Gender ideology tries to blow up the idea of women as a sex class by trying to promote men (or biological males) are just as much women as actual women. What does that mean for the progress for women? Women still exists as a real biological sex irrespective of any parvenu, proposal that it doesn’t. Gender ideology will bring the real ‘conservative’ of 200yrs ago back for women. It will smash the revolution which brought a better life for women, and torpedo future progress for women.

As for the idea that you can get robust research from analysing the demographically skewed sample available on Twitter .... do these people have any relevant education or skills at all?

Nothing will change until they get rid of whichever senior manager used to work with Stonewall and is driving all this. They also need to get the 20 something staffers out of Oxfam House in Cowley to spend a week sorting bags, talking to customers and volunteers in York, Inverness, Newcastle or Plymouth.

Sadly not just Oxfam is captured by this nonsense; there seems to be a merry-go-round of charity HQ staff who move from charity to charity leaving destruction in their wake.

Also, the shop volunteers are important and the 20 somethings need to spend time with them, but the shops are not the ‘business’ of oxfam. The business of oxfam takes place in the likes of Haiti and we saw how dreadful their culture is there.

They are apparently surprised that donors don't necessarily want their money funding initiatives to get impoverished people to use gender neutral pronouns rather than, you know, feeding them or helping them with economic development, so...

Not unlike the RSPCA, which is now far more interested in politicising and right-on causes, but too 'busy' and not bothered at all to help when people alert them of animals in distress.

Look at how the SSPCA recently came on the scene right at the end, to get their name in the paper and make out that they'd provided essential assistance, when some blokes who actually cared about action had already got together and done all the hard work of rescuing Fiona the lonely stranded sheep.

I now, never ever, under any circumstances, donate anything to Oxfam or indeed any large charities at all. The only charities I support are local to me.

I would not say Im conservative at all on the gender topic. I'm after equality and no more gendered expectations on the different sexes. I want a very different reality to what I see for the women around me in my life.

I don't think understanding a scientific biology fact that there are male and female sex class in mammals is conservative. You can't change that so there is nothing to conserve.

I also believe in gravity, so am presumably ultra-conservative.

If you think feminism is about "maintaining the social structures around gender that we have now", you've completely misunderstood what feminism is.

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper
Whenever people express unhappiness with how much the top people at huge charities are paid, we're always told it's because they need brilliant, intelligent, highly-skilled elite people who are up to the task.

This is something that often puzzles me, as in where is the tipping point between the above at the top and the "grunts" paid peanuts at the bottom (I include myself in the latter)?

I suppose it's a gradual scale but I'd rather the person looking after my elderly relative in a care home or making my kid's school dinners was excellent at their job too. Why is it important at one end of the scale but not the other? As a Union rep I know once said "It shouldn't matter if you push a pen or a broom, everyone deserves respect for the work they do".

I know I'm being disingenuous, we all know why. I just don't think the "We need to pay megabucks to get the best" stands up to scrutiny.

The "existing structures" favour males. Everywhere, for all time.

Single sex spaces are a relative blip in human history. And they don't fully compensate for the structural disadvantages of being female.

Oxfam were "conservative" when their workers raped women and children in Haiti in return for giving aid. After all prostitution is the oldest profession. (That's why I stopped my monthly direct debit, incase you're reading, Oxfam).

At the women’s conference at UCL last year, after the screening of Adult Human Female, a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo gave an impassioned speech from the audience about how western donor orgs demanded fulfilling of their diversity objectives when she was purely concerned with dealing with women raped in the never-ending civil war where ‘gender identity’ was an evident luxury belief.

Oxfam were "conservative" when their workers raped women and children in Haiti in return for giving aid. After all prostitution is the oldest profession.

I thought encouraging ‘sex work’ was seen as very progressive….

I used to get so much from, and give so much to Oxfam, and they spent the money on hiring rapists.

So they can fuck off.

So, Oxfam discovers that people don’t like them spending money on policing people’s speech (and attitudes) so they pay for a review of how that worked out for them? Well that makes sense 🙄

I also struggled with the idea that they needed to split people into ‘cis men’ and everybody else women - uh?

I’m not on Twix so my views don’t count, but I am one of those no longer donating to Oxfam or buying stuff in their shops…..

Not only did they use twitter but they segregated their results by whether someone had she/her or he/him in their handle 🤣
Anyone wondering why so many she/hers were pro eradication of mother and father in the guide.

I also liked how they tried to gloss over the women's day tweet and failed to connect it with the style guide or understand that many of us see it as them doubling down on the women's day tweet

That bit seemed weird.

I'd imagine people identifying themselves with pronouns would be supportive of Oxfam's erasure of sexed language.

I'd also like to know what Oxfam paid this firm to look at Twitter and report bullshit back to them.

Ooooh - someone invited the EDI Vampire in at Oxfam, eh?

Exactly what I thought?! Mind you, we're usually called fascist nazi's so it's a step up..

Oxfam could have saved a load of money on this review. I’d have done it for free. It would take no time at all to say this:

Oxfam, you are alienating your donors with your ridiculous erasure of women and mothers. Your commitment to “inclusion” just means more exclusion. You are completely out of touch with the disadvantaged people you’re trying to help, who don’t have the luxury to ponder over preferred pronouns as they have far more pressing matters to deal with. Like survival, for example. Get a grip, grow up, stop wasting money and start showing some respect to the people who want to help you do good in the world.

I didn't volunteer there for as long or as recently as you, but my recollections echo yours. There is such a contrast between who head office seem to think their volunteers are, and who their volunteers actually are.

It made me laugh to see the trans activists on twitter say Oxfam didn't need 'terfs'. In my experience, it's not the pronoun contingent getting up in the morning to staff their local shop, all for the low low price of free.

So 'inclusive' is 'exclusionary to all groups except less than 1% of the population' and anyone saying 'er these people matter too and should not be excluded to suit only this tiny group' are 'conservative'.

Batshit.