If you're all about diversity ...

[tobee]

are you not always excluding someone? So it not possible to be truly diverse ever?

Pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir here (😃) but I was thinking this a lot over the last few days. Since the furore over the apparent depiction of The Last Supper at the Olympics opening ceremony offending Christians and my thoughts meandering around lots of other things in and the news atm.

Basically, inclusion and diversity become oppositional. And yet it's the done thing to trumpet your inclusivity and diversity.

Or am I reading it wrong?

Part time is never going to be the default for most jobs. Large numbers of jobs cannot function that way.

There is a reason less well paid jobs, on a hourly basis, are often the ones that are available P/T. Those jobs may not be easy, but they are pretty interchangeable. PT is an advantage for the employer in these situations as they may be able to pay fewer benefits, so they structure the jobs that way.

It's great when there can be job sharing and flexibility but it's never going to be the norm for most jobs.

I don't see why it is the women who are disrespected because they were given clerical jobs, surely that's an organisational thing?

But on the subject of women and manual work: I often hear people/men saying 'I don't see many women queuing up to empty bins/sweep the streets/do labouring jobs' etc etc. The implication that women don't want to get their pretty little hands dirty is a laugh, given that most toilets, and dirty bums, are cleaned by women's hands.

Women who do try to do the tough manual jobs that are typically 'men's work' have been subjected to discrimination, bullying, harassment, abuse and sexual violence. Look at all the investigations into the fire brigade, the army, the construction industry. The treatment meted out to women who try to do 'men's jobs' is shocking.
I used to think it was something that just happened to the pioneers, the first women brickies, the first women firefighters etc. being punished for invading traditionally male spaces/'taking jobs away from men who have families to support'; but the report into the fire service which uncovered widespread sexist behaviour including rape threats, was published in 2023, so it's ongoing.

But it's the women who are blamed for not wanting to do the heavy or dangerous work! We can't win - 'A woman' place is in the wrong'..

I agree that women often face difficulties in these jobs but the idea that a majority, or even a significant minority, of women want to do heavy manual work is fanciful imo. As far as part time being the default goes, I’m sure that works in some sectors but less so in others. It’s also surely never going to be the default unless that’s what the majority of people want (old, young, women, men), which again seems unlikely to me.

Tbh, in my sector what I typically see is employees wanting more hours. Our people on FT are capped at 35 hrs a week, and overtimes comes as time off.

The PT people are on an hourly wage and cannot go over 35 hours a week, historically they have tended to be less than that. Recently, I gave quite a few of my staff max hours when another employee retired - none of the were interested in working less. Part of that is wages, which aren't in my power to change and do need to go up in our sector. But it's probably also unrealistic to think there won't always be lots of jobs that are on the lower end of the scale.

There are also real issues of availability and training. My GP is actually two women, who job share one practice. This has been great for them as they have kids, and also great for their patients. But it is a problem when you consider how many places have doctor shortages, and how few people are suited for or want to do medical training, or how much it costs to educate a doctor. This applies to a lot of jobs that have significant expertise and qualifications involved.

This can even apply in less prestigious sorts of occupations. I'm staying with my brother at the moment, they are having a building crisis here, because there are not enough construction workers. This has implications for the whole economy here.

Interesting short article - essentially arguing that when identity becomes the main prism of social politics, white ethnicity or "indigenous" British identity will inevitably emerge among the people who don't fit in any other category.

And that racial competition and tensions will follow.

AndI didn't post the article:

Yes that's right and is for example why binmen were paid more than dinner ladies for similar level work because their work was more valued, because it was generally done by men.

That isn't anti-feminist, it's precisely the opposite.

And I also disagree that lots of more traditionally male jobs can't be done part-time. They can. You could easily have part-time binladies, or lorry drivers. You just structure shifts in a different way. Same for train drivers. Same for working at a household tip. OK you may not be able to accommodate school hours (9-3) as a train driver, but you can offer shifts 3 days a week. When people say they can't make it work, it's because they haven't tried.

Also, part-time GPs aren't part-time. They work 12 hour days 3 days a week.

That is 36 hours which is roughly equivalent to full-time in the 9-5.

But it is flexible, and it does allow them to have days off.