KJK & bringing your whole self to work

[BackToLurk]

First a position statement. I've personally disliked much of KJK's output. I've said before that I think lots of what she does is unhelpful.
However, I can't think of one thing in this video that I disagree with. I don't need anyone to bring their whole self to work. I'm with KJK on this. I don't care

https://x.com/ThePosieParker/status/1816044865672696256

Some things are neutral. I work occasionally in promotions. The agency is there to promote brands, not individuals and has a pretty strict appearance code. No heavy make up, no unnatural hair colourings, neutral nail polish if worn, small studs in piercings.

It comes down to a problem of boundaries, I think.

In a lot of workplaces casual chat about going to the beach with your partner is fine. Most people have no issue if it happens to come up in conversation that a workmate is in a same sex relationship, or for that matter is Catholic, or whatever.

I also think that in general small neutral indications aren't really seen as problematic either. If the Sikh guy wears a turban, for example.

Something like Pride/rainbow earrings should fit into that, IMO, but it doesn't so much because it's been inappropriately pushed in the workplace. So people regard it as aggressive, or that the person is likely to try and cause a problem for others.

It's also the case that this is not always going to be the same in every workplace. I have a number of gay friends who work as music teachers with kids. They are all very discrete about their sexuality in that context, which is to say, they don't ever bring it up in student related contexts at all. One of them runs a music school, and was very clear with the staff that it wasn't their place to be bringing political/social issues into the group classes with pronouns and such. Another is actually very discrete even in terms of his larger career, because he works with a very religiously diverse community. He has a very strong boundary between social life and work, though some people are both friends and colleagues. He wouldn't say this makes him oppressed, it's about respecting the people you work with. I imagine most of the people he works with know he's gay, but they also respect that boundary.

But it seems like there are a lot of people who can't negotiate these kinds of boundaries on their own. They need clear social signals, and "take your whole self to work" doesn't seem to cut it.

It’s in comparison to the culture you are in. I mentioned that a small stud nose ring doesn’t set someone apart as being particularly different or belonging to any particular belief or tribe, it’s in my opinion, not a very strong statement in British culture. But yes, a septum piercing or eyebrow piercing is a pretty strong statement of difference. It is a deliberate setting oneself apart from the norm, denoting tribe/belief/subgroup - it is a communication of separateness, difference, to the wider society.

I think that, much like #BeKind, bring your whole self to work was good at first but has been co-opted and messed with too much.

Yes, I agree with this

Glad you benefitted from the positive mental health side, and a solid team to be able to be open about miscarriage. 💐

I worked in an environment where adoption leave and new babies were celebrated and cards and collections for all, a manager had a "quiet word" with me because I had asked to swap a shift to not work with a pregnant colleague three weeks after a miscarriage.

Definitely whole self only applies when it's currently acceptable.

I lived in France for a long time, where anything to do with the state is laique/secular. When I first moved there I found it very jarring, coming as I do from a British culture where the bus driver wearing a turban or a civil servant wearing a head covering or a teacher wearing a cross is seen as a sign of a successful multi-cultural society.
So anybody working for the state (teacher, council worker, any civil servant you can think of) is not allowed to wear a conspicous sign of their religion, and school pupils up to 18 aren't allowed to either.
I have gone from finding it uncomfortable and slightly intolerant, to thinking it's an excellent idea, for exactly the reasons that KJK gives.
I wish we had that explicit value for state employees here - too late now I think. I said to DP the other day that if France tried to introduce laicite/secularism now, it would be shouted down with cries of intolerance.

As a side note, you might think that French state employees, with their secular values and Carthesian mindset, would immediately recognise that gender identity is an ideology, exactly as religions are. Unflotunately they don't seem to have realised this yet...

I was pregnant when my manager had a miscarriage. I was really worried that working with me would be upsetting for her. Turned out she was worried that hearing about her miscarriage would be upsetting for me. We were both struggling with infertility and both worked on a pregnancy-related topic - so we had an unwritten agreement that when one of us couldn’t cope with the emotions of it we’d hand off to the other, and then swap back later.

So much of this boils down to basic consideration of other people, and it feels like the more we regulate that, the less capable people are of actually doing it.

In relation to people being able to be open about gay, I don't think the choice is between either 'hide who you are' or 'bring your whole self to work' as it has now developed, which seems to be very performative. People reveal themselves to different degrees in the workplace, or elsewhere, depending on the interactions they have. When I've worked in an office there would be people who would know lots about me, and some who didn't. And part of revealing who you are, for me at least, is about what the other person may be comfortable with as well as what I want to reveal. There's a kind of imposition, maybe even arrogance, about assuming everyone wants to know everything about you.

I think @MulberryBushRoundabout 's point about the more regulated being considerate is, the less capable people seem to be of actually being considerate is excellent. Having a badge that says 'be kind' seems to have replaced just being kind.

So someone shouldn't reveal at work that they are gay before they find out how comfortable you would be with that information?

Yep so over this already. So selective.

Did you miss the bit that said 'for me at least'? I was talking within a workplace between co-workers, and this was more about a tendency to overshare sometimes quite personal information or experiences, which is often accompanied by an expectation that everyone wants to do the same and is comfortable with that, and if you don't you are hiding something or inauthentic, rather than just private. And TBH I don't really care, except about the people I care about. It becomes valueless. We're all friends, we're all our true selves. Bollocks

If we're talking about the relationship with someone offering a professional service to me though, whether that's the GP or the postman, I don't really care (or need to know) whether they are gay, straight, married, single, a Liverpool supporter or a Jedi. Why would I as long as they are acting professionally?

It's not about whether you "care" if people are gay or straight or married. It's about if they mention it in passing they won't suffer negative outcomes at work. That is what bring your whole self to work is for. Oversharing is a different issue but none of our work literature encouraged that as far as I saw.

It would be helpful if people could quietly be themselves rather than the attention seeking drama queens that so many are shoving things in people's faces.

How about they be themselves in their free time and be professionals when at work? 🤷‍♀️

Your observation reveals a contradiction though.

What the heck counts as secular?

As you say, gender ideology is clearly an ideology, despite not being religious.

What about other ideologies?

If non-religious ideologies also count, the fact is, everyone has one. So what counts as neutral? Are we advantaging those ideologies that don't happen to have visible signs, as if that makes them ok? So those whose belief means they wear a turbon can't work for the statement but say, a Marxist, could?

I believe that public servants also have to keep to a 'principe de neutralite', so a Marxist wouldn't be able to 'proselytise', or even mention politics in front of servcie users or customers, but freedom of expression would allow them to chat to their colleagues about it at lunch time or whatever (and anyone who's ever had lunch with a French person in election season will know that there can be fairly robust discussions on the subject!)

I suppose my obvervation (anecdotal by definition) is that the principle of laicite is a fundamental part of French society, particularly for civil servants. Many of my friends are teachers and take this really seriously as for them it's about treating everybody with absolute equality, as well as being part of the succesful integration of students from other backgrounds.
And yet. Many institutions, and the individuals within them, have not applied the same thinking to the ideology of gender identity, which has made its way into (for example) schools in a way that Marxism (or any other ideology as far as I know) hasn't.

I mean, it's far from perfect and there are plenty of things I would criticise about France and its systems and institutions. But it's something that has occured to me.

And a person with a turban can work for the state - he just can't wear his turban to work.

Bringing your whole self to work led to the man working for the NSPCC to bring his rubber fetish to work with him, wearing rubber under his clothes and masturbating in the toilets, filming it and uploading it to the internet.

Why should that happen in any workplace? Why should his colleagues be used as props in his fetish unbeknown to them? Why would anyone think this is acceptable behaviour at work?

You go to work to work not to indulge fetishes and fantasies.

I don't think you can have education at all without an ideological underlay. People think they do, but only because they are too immersed in a particular ideological viewpoint to notice.

I think it would be much more honest to say they are imposing a state approved ideological perspective, rather than trying to pretend it's neutral and treats ideologies equally. It does not do either of those things.

"State approved" makes it sound like a thought through and imposed ideology. It is isn't, it is just prevailing cultural norms. These are created by society, and evolve, are moulded and tweaked, as time passes. Prevailing cultural norms can vary across society or there may be sudden changes e.g. those brought about during WW2. The prevailing cultural norms provide the backdrop that allows people to innovate counter cultures and for individual and group expression that exists outside norms.

"State approved ideology" - genderism, anyone?

This.

France takes its cultural integrity very seriously. It has an official body to preserve the language, for example. The French principle of 'Frenchness' is carefully debated, structured and enshrined in law if they feel it necessary. In effect French multiculturalism is assimilative, where ours is adaptive.

The French model has no problem with people being Muslim, Sikh or Jedi. What it forbids is the outward signalling. There is naturally a great deal of flex in this but, as @rhywlodes says, public servants in particular are expected to represent the State, which is secular. So no turbans, etc. French people do wear crosses, Stars of David and so on. But a local authority employee could be censured for counting her rosary at work.

France holds philosophy and philosophers in high regard. French philosophy very much does underpin its education model. This is not contradictory at all, it's part of the 'Frenchness' model.

I wish Britain were more like this, tbh.

Which I said - it's not neutral at all, nor is it about equality in terms of treating ideologies the same way.

It's not actually secular, in the true sense, at all, so that isn't a justification for it. Any justification is about maintaining a different cultural ideology.

I don't have an issue with the idea of cultural integrity. But I do think that if the state finds it's needing to position itself to draw lines around that, there are deeper issues. If it's Trying to preserve Frenchness in the face of high immigration, for example, it seems the problem is probably around immigration. Perhaps it's a reasonable approach there.

Trying to preserve language forms against organic change - I think that's probably the opposite of cultural preservation.

I mean, are we seriously suggesting that Catholicism isn't culturally French? If this state approved ideology isn't really secular, than really what you have is a promotion of one vision of Frenchness against another.

If the Catholics aren't supposed to complain, why should those who don't believe n gender ideology? Or to put it another way, if it's legitimate for a state to decide what constitutes the socially normative form of Frenchness for all, I don't see how they shoudn't treat gender GI the same way.

Actually, in a way it reminds me very much of the Soviet type approach. Sure, you can have religion privately, just so long as it in no way affects what you do or is brought into the public sphere in a meaningful way. Because this is understood to be a threat to the ideology of the state which they want to be total.

The excuse there is also that it is to create equality among people.