“Inequalities don’t happen by accident” Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson

[IwantToRetire]

Chair of the equalities watchdog, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, on sex and gender, the right to protest, and doing one of the hardest jobs in Britain.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002x3qs

Have not had time to listen, but thought I would share as it will be interesting to see what the BBC allows to be said and what it doesn't.

Or indeed what she wants to say!

Nick Robinson is an idiot. Mary-Ann Stephenson handles it well.
From SEEN in journalism.
x.com/i/status/2060335253042991114

There’s a different and more coherent way of being a Devil’s Advocate than using the language of activists themselves: ‘dignity’ - ‘want to be who they are’ etc as Nick Robinson does here. If a pres is going to use activist language it should be more clearly signposted: the BBC Academy teaches that you shouldn’t adopt activist language as if it were the BBC’s own.

Of course the BBC does that all the time: it’s a breach of a fundamental principle that’s written into its style guide.

We have no doubt that DG Matt Brittin has been reassured that the problem of bias has been dealt with by recent guidance to always make ‘sex’ clear where it helps audience understanding. That means a certain complacency has crept in. But while self-ID is still in the style guide, bias is still the order of the day.

There’s still a belief in ‘true trans’ because the internal conversation didn’t dig deep enough. It never reached the nefarious reasons why men are so obsessed with access to female spaces and the erasure of sex as a legal status. It only scratched the surface.

We’ve written to Mr Brittin to explain this and to warn against this type of complacency, while trans affirmation is still written through its news and creative divisions. x.com/BBCr4today/sta…

I'm glad they have taken this up.

But I suppose we should also let the BBC know.

Along with the trans narrative there is unfortunately, left over from decades ago, this whole notion of the entitled white male commentator being lauded as the champion of informed ideas and clever arguments

I think what must of us she as the unreconstructed white male CP.

I didn't listen to the programme (no licence, no listen) but SEEN are right about the language, every time we use the activist terminology we just help normalise it, the ideas it's conveying become more embedded and accepted. The bbc's default position seems to be that this ideology is not contested but a fact, which is why I don't listen to them anymore.

I didn't listen to the programme (no licence, no listen)

The radio licence was abolished decades ago & you don’t need a TV licence to listen to the radio.

I don't pay to fund the bbc, because I have zero interest in any of they're output. Judging by the opinions of NR performance and SEEN's critique it's seems they're still at it. No licence, no listen, no interest.

Why did you try & claim that you couldn’t listen to this programme because you didn’t have have a licence when the real reason is that you don’t want to listen to it?

If you really want to spite the BBC, you should listen to as much of its radio output as possible (it's pretty good overall), because it doesn't require a licence.

My apologise, it was a glib remark, that I will not be making again. 😕

@theilltemperedamateur - No thanks, there are other's who make podcast's that are less likely to be pushing an agenda on me. I use to be a big fan of the bbc, but not anymore, it's one of the big losses of the whole batshittery, not quite as big as losing my right's and, as a women, being erased from the narrative of the human race, but nevertheless a profound loss, and I'll never forgive them for it. 😤

It can be listened to as a podcast, from a podcast app.

Thank you for posting that @IwantToRetire
I did not know about that requirement that the BBC should not use activist language to express a given faction’s point of view.

Now it seems obvious that they shouldn’t do that, and also obvious that they do do this quite often.

I mostly listen to Radio 3, which is reassuringly free of 21st Century shibboleths.

Have read the transcript. I think she answers the questions very well.

I was interested in her saying "inequalities don't happen by accident", which I think isn't always true. Sometimes people just don't know what they don't know about other people's needs.

However the full quote is

"This is never a fight that is over and won, because inequalities between women and men don't just happen by accident. They happen because they advantage one group over another group. And so women having greater autonomy, greater choices, greater equality, does disadvantage those people who've been able to tell women what to do"

And I agree with that.

Yes, context is generally important! Suppose somebody said "There are those who will tell you that x equals y and up is the same as down. I profoundly disagree with them" and another chose to quote him as having said only "x equals y and up is the same as down" – well, yes, he did say that, but without the framing clauses it doesn't convey what he was saying overall.

This is why I try to listen to the whole of a speech or interview rather than the bits cherry-picked by the media. Sometimes even Trump makes fractionally more sense than he is presented as having made....

More from Mary-Ann

"I think that all too often people think rights are not a pie, and I've never understood that because some rights are not a pie, same-sex marriage for example (one person's marriage doesn't affect another's marriage), but the right to protest will affect other people"

Yes Mary-Ann! sometimes rights are a pie! Very happy to hear her say this!