Are Women To Blame For 'Woke' Workplaces?

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Tanya de Grunwald did a live podcast on this topic at the Battle of Ideas - I thought giving the episode a thread of its own would be useful for future FWR search and archive purposes.

I'm listening to it now and I'm finding it very interesting - the podcast bros who have taken this idea as their new mantra are definitely being incredibly shallow and sexist in their 'analysis' of women in the workplace (but we knew that).

Of course women are to blame for woke workplaces!
Remember: A woman's place is in the wrong.😒

I thought the first rule of misogyny was that it was always the woman's fault!!!

But I've listened to Tanya a lot and there are a lot of misogynistic gay men in the DEI world so I think they shoulder a lot of blame.

Yes, that's definitely part of the discussion as is the issue of class background which has lost out as a salient variable in woke workplaces.

Woke basically means treating people well, so probably

I don't think it is entirely women's fault, but they definitely have had a big role in pushing it (especially the women in HR who have a lot to answer for imo).

Of course not all women (definitely not those of us on here).

'Woke' is an unhelpful description for a melding of critical theory, and postmodernism from the Frankfurt School tendency in academia, leaking out into the real world and being applied to situations for which it has little of relevance to offer. It has elements of superficial Marxism but doesn't do anything to really address class-based disadvantages in society.

No it basically doesn't mean that anymore

it used to mean being aware of your privilege in relation to others and adjusting so the genuinely marginalised were properly supported

somehow that morphed into it being decided that a man became the most marginalised & vulnerable person ever simply by putting on a dress and declaring himself a woman

Not keen on the Woke terminology, but putting that aside -

Women do tend to dominate HR departments, but not so much HR leadership (still a little, but C-suite level people in charge of HR are nearly as likely to be male as female). So it's pretty absurd to just blame women.

It's activists who are mainly to blame, and the senior leadership who are, at best, asleep at the wheel. Some men, some women, all played a role in getting things on the agenda and then signing off without fully considering the impact. And I'm not just talking about trans rights, though that's the obvious one.

I do think women's "be kind" training has meant that there is more knee-jerk support from women in general though, and we tend to see that in polls of the general population.

Some definitely fair points there.

In my view, having read countless articles and papers in business magazines and journals in the 00s citing diversity as an important source of business and organisational improvement, something with which I agree, the frustrating thing was seeing that advice implemented superficially and poorly by CIPD and other HR bodies.

The diversity that was being recommended as a true resource was diversity of thought and class and background but what we ended up getting was the easy, tickbox diversity that doesn't upset any apple carts or cost any substantial investment.

It's so much easier for orgs to put flags and colourful inclusion notices up around the workplace than to, for example, create meaningful change that would allow disabled people or single parents to enter or stay in work.

Agree with audience member that progressive values in the workplace are purely profit driven. The idea that HR controls corporate values is ridiculous. They (as in the men & women on these boards) are simply going with consultancy recommendations that often hinge on the prevailing cultural zeitgeist. Very surprised this wasn't brought up by the guest speaker but given she seems to have a conservative bias in her framing the last thing these people will blame is the profit incentive but the first thing they point the finger at is progressives not caring about class interests to avoid responsibility.

Management also has a responsibility for not coming afoul of anti discrimination law that in modernity includes an obligation for being proactive by promoting acceptance in the workplace. In other words, they can be accused of being culpable for instances of discrimination by not preventing a toxic work environment taking hold which she conveniently avoided.

The other critique of trade unions not being concerned with class interests is a tell of how little the guest speaker understands trade union principles which are big tent solidarity values. The strength in trade union has always been the unity of different oppressed groups & doing their best to cater for all their needs. The idea that they have lost interest in basic working conditions not being improved because of diversity is patently false & simply right wing propaganda to create resentment thereby weakening trade union membership. That the guest speaker attempted this line of argument rings alarm bells of what her true motives are.

Don't be fooled by the faux defence of women's responsibility for 'woke'. The right are very good at pretending to be on women's side these days while simultaneously shafting them in practice. She smells like just another corporate shill in sheep's clothing.

The fact that the speaker frames 'woke' as a dirty word ought to speak volumes of her motives.

And that the speaker denied profit was a motive is self evidently false because if it wasn't organisations would have long phased out 'woke' practices. Given their whole reason for being is profit invalidates this point. A business being seen as relevant to younger generations who hold more progressive values is a big part of profit.

It's silly to try and pin it on any group, that just doesn't make sense.

However, I think there is a very strong pattern that female dominated sectors are most captures and pushing this stuff. Education, health, the arts, libraries.

And I don't buy that it's just that they've been conditioned to be kind. That's just not been my experience at all, many of the women I've encountered who are involved are true believers and push it viciously.

And I don't buy that it's just that they've been conditioned to be kind. That's just not been my experience at all, many of the women I've encountered who are involved are true believers and push it viciously.
Agree. In my experience women are keen to make it known that they are believers, and I think that's because it's more important to signal that they're good, kind people than to show any sign of independent thought.
Their goodness and kindness does not extend to women in refuges and prisons, nor to the children and young people used for pointless, sadistic medical experiments known as gender-affirming care, so I suspect that it's more about giving an impression of goodness and kindness than the real thing.

I thought the discussion was good. I agree that the implication that woke is the worst thing to happen to the workplace implies that there was nothing problematic before.

I also agree that when there are a lot of women, the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour are more blurred without good reason. I started a thread on here about how there was a person at my job who had started cuddling a stuffed toy, and half the responses were "let them be", which I find bananas.

Its like the covert narcissists are now running the show instead of the over narcissist.

Error

But who exactly (& this is where the accusation of female = woke makes sense) made their daughter's 'true believers'?

I know my own strong feminist & egalitarian values no doubt influenced my daughter who is now a 'woke scold'. While my son is a progressive he's not a scold. Generations of parents post civil rights movements particularly women (because of their self interest) have made it their business to raise their children with egalitarian values fermenting the ground for a social revolution. Once egalitarianism & acceptance becomes a principal social value thats underpinned by a long history of oppression its bound to have an influential effect on all spheres of life. And perhaps the reason why some progressives take this too far & become scolds is a kind of generational trauma thing that they are over correcting for rather than narcissistic reasons.

I think the general idea of "being woke" has been corrupted over the last 5 years by bad actors who force people and organisations to participate in an elaborate, coordinated set of behaviours to show the herd they are "good" people.

Pronouns in bios, rainbow lanyards, equity training, etc.- none of it has any real-world value. There is a direct correlation in my experience between people who draw attention to all these causes and the people who are most likely to bully an interns when no one is looking.

The origins are simply instructions to question things by staying "woke", especially when it's wrapped up in sugary language and heavy marketing.

It is fine to simply follow the advice of the Buddah, Jesus etc.. and don't be a dick.

I find it quite useful.

I'm an old socialist and human rights campaigner, and "woke" seems like a handy term of reference for when principles and beliefs that are good in themselves go sour and start causing more harm than good.

The problem is its very subjective & reductive. What one person perceives as principles gone sour might be up to the political position of the person. Diversity is an example where its portrayed as meritless by the right when in fact that's not necessarily so depending on the context.

In fact the guest speaker in the podcast seemed to have the rather bizarre notion that bringing their personal business to work was 'woke' when in fact workplaces by nature are places of personal social interaction.

And I don’t think such people are a new phenomenon, they’ve always been with us. 500 years ago they’d have been those deciding the who were the deserving and undeserving poor when dishing out the parish dole, or 150 years ago helping ‘fallen women’ if they demonstrated enough piety and repentance for their sins. Hobbes wrote of ‘The meanness of charity’ in 1651, and there’s always been a tendency for the beneficent to be acting out of nothing more noble than reputational signalling and sheer vanity, in a way that allows injustice to be swept under the carpet.

I wonder if it's at least partly to do with power, and the types of power available and not available to women.

In a world where men are usually the ones who are stronger- than- thou and richer - than - thou etc, being holier- than - thou is one of the few opportunities for prestige that is equally accessible to women, whereas a man who likes power can envisage other ways of climbing the ladder.

It used to be religious holiness, but the new "religion" of social justice does the a similar job. Once a workplace has taken on board that it has to be seen to be doing, somebody who is up to date with all the latest acceptable vocabulary and social and verbal taboos has endless opportunities for wrong-footing people, even when they're further up the workplace hierarchy. And they can convince themself that they're fighting the good fight and championing people less fortunate than themselves, either as a group, or by taking a particular individual under their wing

In the gender- related employment tribunals, there has seemed to be a pattern of zealous women and of men who I would say are more old-fashioned laissez-faire sexists than TRAs. But that may be because the trans issue doesn't impact men so much; they can afford to go along with it without much actual conviction.

That's a really interesting idea. Just trying to think it through: women in most societies tend to enforce the (often patriarchal) social norms and can derive social standing from doing so. Middle-class women have often had stronger social need to do it than working-class women (because the capitalist system often removes the ability to stick to social niceties from those at the bottom of the of social/financial pyramid). It would make sense that increasing numbers of women (of a particular class) in a workplace (which until recently was male dominated in all sectors) would bring that social dynamic with them. Which means, to me, Woke is still superficially socialist as it is not taking class-based needs into account when promoting 'diversity'.

In response to statements make by PP, it's my understanding that Joanna Williams (the guest on the podcast) is an old-school Lefty thinker.

In response to statements make by PP, it's my understanding that Joanna Williams (the guest on the podcast) is an old-school Lefty thinker.

Clearly not anymore with all those word for word right wing talking points.

She's Blue Labour rather than Red Labour.