Kemi Badenoch: Diversity policies should not "come at the expense of white men"

[AdamRyan]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1879473/kemi-badenoch-diversity-white-men/amp

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/kemi-badenoch-diversity-initiatives-can-be-ineffective-and-counterproductive-b2515403.html

Two links with different headlines but the gist is the same.

White men are disproportionately represented in a number of organisations (including the RAF which Badenoch highlighted). Any activity that increases representation of any other groups including women is necessarily therefore going to come at the expense of white men.

I know KB is anti-woke but I hadn't realised she was also anti-feminist. I cannot get my head round this statement at all. It's all a bit "people, know your place"

At the moment white men are treated better due to a combination of their skin colour and their sex. You are equally advocating for that to remain the case.

I absolutely am not advocating for white men to be treated better by virtue of their skin colour or their sex. How on earth have you come to that conclusion?

The fact is that if we want to give equal opportunities, then some white men will do less well in future.

My opinion is that this can be achieved without racially discriminating against white men or by shoe horning minorities and women into industries they are not interested in simply to achieve equality of outcome.

What would you do to change the status quo? I'm interested in how you think that could work in a way that doesn't result in fewer opportunities for white men

The obvious- ensure blind CVs, advertise in places where under represented groups are looking, and listen to those groups in and out of the workplace to find out what barriers they are experiencing.

Some of those barriers can be addressed.

If certain groups are avoiding certain jobs because of the intrinsic nature of that job- something that can’t be changed- accept that it’s unattractive. Consider whether there’s something in education or society that’s putting people off the field and see if that needs to be addressed.

The whole recruitment process is subjective. All guardrails are necessary but the whole process is an art not a science. I've often been in a situation where we're arguing the merits of the best candidates on largely irrelevant details. In reality any of them could do the job equally well (if differently). If the first candidate turns it down we offer to the second and everything goes well.
The state of the team is also a factor, looking to strengthen it's diversity is a legitimate aim to put into the mix at this final stage. In the olden days that would have been 'one of us'.

I understand that white men are feeling wronged by losing the advantages of positive discrimination but they're really not.

Great post

IME the whole process isn't subjective. Matters such as qualifications for certain roles, or whether it is necessary or a "nice to have" on additional areas (specialisms where you could learn it or decide, no, this must be in the job spec) are yes/no.

From there on, anything subjective should be being designed out precisely to avoid a sham process with a favoured candidate emerging at the end. Eg if you ask people to do a presentation, you need to be specific as to what particular skills or knowledge or experience you expect to have in that presentation.

At every stage you should be able to defend and explain your objective decision making. Anything less is a set up, designed to manufacture an outcome.

I may have misunderstood as I’m only observing from outside but…

Some recruitment practices are in place now to avoid bias towards ‘people like us’. There are tables and ticks, you can’t prefer a candidate because of gut feel or finding them likeable. It’s about specific key words and attributes.

I understand the intention, but think it is now biased against people who don’t understand the system- people who have been outside employment for a while, or don’t move in circles that understand interview techniques.

Where having a ‘nice manner’ was part of interview technique, and biased towards people experienced in mixing in professional circles, now it’s ’understanding the system’.

Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve needed to. But the application forms are weird looking and the ‘can’t give them a point because they didn’t use the right three words’ approach is disconcerting.

That's not my experience of being an interviewer at several companies.

Some do blind CV so you have no information about the age, ethnicity, able-bodiedness or sex of candidates.

Then interviews tend to be competency based so the candidate has to describe a past scenario, what they did and how that worked.

Usually at least 2 interviewers.

Interviewers have a scoring sheet for the competencies they are looking for, and they score against a scale. The scale is described with examples illustrating where the acceptable bar is, what indicates "above bar" and what indicates "below bar".

Then the two or more interviewers compare scores and decide.

It's meant to prevent people being hijacked by a "halo/horns" instinctive response to certain types of people.

I've never seen certain key words/tick boxes being necessary. It's certainly possible to manipulate the system if you wanted to but most people aren't that narcissistic.

Understanding interview techniques is certainly helpful but a good company will also make it clear to candidates how to answer the question as they want to find the best person for the job.

Perhaps bigger companies who do a lot of it do it well.

School jobs are often a panel without much experience and following advice from the LEA. As in, doing their best but it’s not their usual job.

Ditto parish councils.
And apparently libraries- their application process was a shit show. The online system didn’t work, and applicants had to ring to get the ‘special knack’ to get the form to send.

Anyway, that’s a derail. Bigger companies may be doing it well.

"OK, so basically your point is if one is born female they should be happy to accept reduced life chances because they can have babies"

That is a bizarre interpretation, and it's not how to understand statitics.

Outcomes for women, as an abstract group, are affected by the fact that many women have kids.

But any particular female child is not an abstraction called woman, she's an individual who can make in many cases make choices that mean her outcomes will be differernt from the average.

What neither she, nor anyone else, cando is excape from the material consequences of the things she does in time and space. If she has a child and has lasting effects from pregnancy, or the child needs special care, or she wants to care for her kids, or she decides to have a large family of eight, chances are there will be effects for both parents.

But the ones most closely related to pregnancy itself will only directly affect her. Maybe that's not "fair" but it's reality. You might as well complain that men don't get piles when their wives are pregnant.

If this is ok, why would you not tell him that? The only reason is because we all know it's immoral to give or not give someone a job because of their race.

I think a lot of these kinds of initiatives would not get past the stupid idea stage if it were required by law that people be told, to their face, by the person making the decisions, that they had been given or denied a job or educational opportunity due to sex or race or sexuality.

What seems very clear from this conversation is that some people don't understand that the laws against discrimination applies to individuals, it's not about groups. Which is precisely the point KB is making.

tempest I was replying to this post of yours.

I see no reason to accept that women who have children therefore have to accept a hit on their career. There are numerous things that could be done to stop that. Use it or lose it paternity leave of several months, so that men have career breaks too, for example. 9 day out of 10 work schedule so it becomes expected that not everyone is going to be at the desk every day.

What's clear to me is a surprising number of posters seem completely on board that the "natural order" is white men do better, and there is nothing to be done about it. Bit weird for a feminist hang out.

I can most certainly complain that there is evidence that women without children are also discriminated against in the workplace when it comes to career success. That is just misogynist bias.

and, I see no evidence that women with children contribute less well at work. My performance is at least equal to all my male peers. Fortunately, I’m at a company that is very supportive of family, for both men and women.

Not sure about that. The Equality Act refers to specific characteristics. It protects the characteristic not simply the individual. You can take group actions to court eg a group of women being paid less than male comparators. (See Birmingham Council) White men can also use the Act, and have done. It also covers discrimination that has a disproportionate effect on a particular group e.g female cabin crew being required to wear make-up as part of a uniform.

Kemi generally says the Act is a shield not a sword.

What she's against is unlawful positive discrimination and worthless training that that is divisive.

But the characteristic is not a group.

Sex is a characteristic that belongs to individuals and you cannot discriminate against someone for it, no matter whether they are male or female. Similarly with race, everyone has a race and it's illegal to do things like hire on that basis, (except in some specific rare exceptions.)

AdamRyan is arguing that it is fine and indeed laudatory to discriminate against a specific man, with the justification that it will benefit a specific woman, because women, as an abstract group, don't have equity.

She doesn't seem to understand that is sexual discrimination because she doesn't see that an individual is actually being harmed on the justification of being the wrong race. It's only about groups and whether or not they have equity, in AR's mind.

It's just classical racism, flipped.

That would certainly be unfair and illegal but not what I was talking about, I think I made that quite clear.

It doesn't really matter if every woman at work contributes as well as the men, that's not where the motherhood gap comes from.

It comes from women taking more time off, or sometimes very large breaks, or stopping work altogether. Some of this is the decisions they make abbout how to raise their kids, or it's practical. In other cases it's health related.

For example: I have four children. That's four years of maternity leave. Plus, being in the military, there were certain jobs and courses I was unable to take while pregnant, so say three more years of time.

hat's four years other people who didn't get pregnant their courses for promotion, and having more time to pick up jobs that were advantageous. It only has to be a percentage of women who do this, and it will affect the statistics for women overall.

To put it another way: You can't look at the statistics for outcomes, and assume that if they are disparate for two groups, it's because of bias and discrimination. It could be for totally differernt reasons.

What about areas in which white males are disadvantaged, such as falling behind educationally?

Should we discriminate against non-white males to ensure correct representation?

There is too much focus on equality of outcome ("equity") rather than equality of opportunity. People are only entitled to the latter.

No I definitely am not saying its laudatory to discriminate against a particular group. Don't put words in my mouth.

I'm saying that there is a bias towards white men in certain situations at the moment. And that as we move to equal opportunities therefore white men will be impacted.

There is a saying - "when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression". Can see that in action on this thread by the response to the suggestion that there might be circumstances where Dave (the rightful heir to the job) gets turned down in favour of Sarah.

So if our unemployed white man is continuing to be turned down for jobs not because he's unqualified but because he's white or male he should continue to put up with it. He's not a group, he's a person possibly with responsibilities, possibly living in poverty. However his white skin will see him through when you're suggesting that he as an individual should accept being discriminated against for being male and white.

Is there a list of preferred characteristics being disabled trumps colour, colour trumps sex etc.

Perhaps those suggesting that this needs positive action rather than allowing it to filter through society over time should resign and offer up their own jobs for a minority.

I’d still like to know how selection of people according to race works in practice. Is it just a visual thing where an interviewer makes a judgment at interview or should they also be taking into account the parentage of applicants? What about where you are uncertain about the ethnicity of an applicant? What about in situations where there are two applicants who are identically qualified but neither are white? Is there a hierarchy of other races or is it just whites v everyone else?

No one has ever been able to answer my question about the possibility of "lying" on one of these useless diversity forms.

My kids are mixed race, if anyone investigated their forms they'd be confused as sometimes they tick boxes based on how they feel. Sometimes they feel more white and sometimes they don't. It is up to them as far as I can see.