Author: sarah

( I wrote this a few months ago but decided to publish it now. There has of course been a lot of turmoil in HR and DEI since then but this piece is looking at HR more generally in the light of specific criticism of it)

At the end of November 2024 a few press articles critical of the current state of HR resulted in a statement from the Peter Cheese CEO of the CIPD, defending the profession and the body itself. To my knowledge there were only three articles  one by Pamela Dow, who headed up the Inclusion at Work Report, in the New Statesman and one by Iain Martin, the business and political writer, who wrote on it for Reaction and then again in the Times.

The criticism from the two writers were largely that HR departments had grown too fat, had too much power and were not improving productivity or profitability. 

How times have changed. Historically HR has lacked much power and indeed a recent article by Richard Harpin, founder and CEO of Homeserve, pleaded for more HR specialists to be elevated to main boards in order to have more influence!  In the late 1990’s I  did some research at British Airways and  the CEO, Bob Aisling was one of very few chief executives who had an HR background. But BA had a very people orientated business and culture and took HR seriously. All management had to rotate and do some time in HR.

So how is it that HR have too much power yet actually have very little formal power?

The accusation about it not contributing to business profits or even being a drain is not new. Twenty years ago certain very profit focused companies would pride themselves on keeping the HR department lean. As a support function its status was low, viewed as a necessity which caused problems and introduced obstacles to the smooth running of making profits . This low status cannot be separated out from its predominantly female profile- going into HR was an acceptable area of work for a young woman forty years ago whatever the sector.  Received wisdom had it that women’s ‘natural’ ability to deal with people made them the most suited to the job.

“Every business is a people business, no matter its product or service, so you want the very best people-people at the summit — those who know how to strengthen organisations with positive, purposeful cultures, a clear identity and values that drive the overall strategy. Much of this is down to a great HR team that knows how to develop staff consistently, improve team dynamics, motivate people and bring them together around an agreed agenda. Perhaps if more HR executives — very often women — were given the right cross-business experience, the gender ratios of FTSE 100 bosses might be a little less imbalance” In general we need more cross business experience ( like as I mentioned above British Airways practised )

 It has been the role of HR’s industry body, the CIPD to upgrade and professionalise the sector via its numerous courses and I think on the whole it has done a good job. It did however come under criticism in Dow’s piece for being too dominant, leading to a kind of groupthink among HR professionals. For instance it has a monopoly on training the Civil Service.  This has made it vulnerable to attack.

The growth in the HR sector that Pamela Dow’s article illustrates in a graph may be explained by the increasing body of legislation that companies now have to contend with together with the increase in litigation risk

There is no doubt that HR’s brief has broadened, particularly with the growth over the past fifteen years of ESG (formerly CSR). The intention was to broaden  the responsibilities  of companies to be more than just about making profits for its shareholders. A lot of this has fallen on HR’s shoulders, particularly the DEI and employee welfare which is much more comprehensive than it used to be ( ie including understanding the menopause, mental health etc.) Many in the corporate world are now questioning their strong focus on ESG (environmental social and governance) as an investing principle given the harder economic ( and interest rate ) environment resulting in cutting back on some policies. Some of this backlash has inevitably been directed at HR and their part in DEI and other employee focused policies

It seems harsh to blame HR as the sector that has had to implement policies that are part of this broader approach taken by senior leadership. However the role of HR is to support management in its business strategy and to be the voice of employees and look after their welfare. These are often in tension. Ultimately in a restructuring or downsizing, it is HR which often has to do the unpleasant task of telling employees they are sacked.  It always has to manage this tension. My guess is that in some companies the focus on wellbeing, wider social change and particularly DEI is contributing to this backlash.

I don’t think HR would have come under any such scrutiny and criticism if it hadn’t not been the home (in most cases) of DEI. When my colleague Sue Ollerearnshaw and I wrote the Business of Diversity Report in 2002, large organisations often place the Diversity and Equality function outside of HR – specifically because of the historic low status of HR that I mentioned above.  Procter & Gamble, Barclays and Ford all kept diversity and equality out of HR “ This issue is far too important for HR!’ joked one senior director at P&G then “ so it has always been owned by the whole business”.

Mainstreaming as advocated by the EU was the name of the game then and we really believed that once embedded throughout the organisation the need for specialist D&E or D&I professionals would decrease. How wrong we were. The numbers of DEI professionals has accelerated hugely in the past ten years. What we didn’t see coming twenty years ago was the influence of identity politics on this area of work. Usually theories that abounded in universities stayed in universities. Certainly despite my PhD on gender and culture being informed by feminist theory, if I had used the word feminist in any work proposal I wouldn’t have got through the front door. So it was with some surprise that organisations public and private were so quick to embrace gender identity ideology – arguably a much more nefarious theory than feminism and has no material basis. And then it supercharged on critical race theory, an analysis of race relations which is grounded in US history of race and arguably not appropriate here.  Perhaps it was because they thought it would only impact a tiny percentage of people and therefore not radically alter the way work was structured. Dow’s observation that the majority of HR professionals comes from the arts departments of universities, where social justice theories are much more likely to dominate may help explain the enthusiasm with which gender identity ideology and critical race theory is now infusing HR policies throughout organisations, is interesting.

The way the T was added to LGB gave the ideas a legitimacy it would not have had on its own. It still does not explain why so many resources have gone into the cause arguably to the neglect of other diversity strands like disability.  Of course we now know the demands of the trans movement required change that impacted everyone not just a handful of employees and the confusion around how different characteristics within the Equality Act 2010 interact has led to many tribunal cases, with companies in some situations being found to act unlawfully. The equality lawyer Audrey Ludwig wrote a very good piece on this here.

It is this overreach of DEI that has led to a small revolt against the whole of HR. Unfair you may say. Well the CIPD has engaged quite heavily in some of this DEI overreach itself coming under criticism last year for its trans guidance, “Fury over official trans and non-binary guidance to HR staff: Gender-critical campaigners slam ‘impractical’ advice that says refusing transgender women access to female-only toilets at work may be discrimination” It has since revised that guidance in September this year without any prior announcement and it has not been made available to the public unlike previous guidance. This in itself was a strange move designed perhaps to fend off accusations that it got it so wrong the first time.

I do hope that HR professionals and DEI professionals can have a debate about these issues and defend good work whilst perhaps cutting back on some of the more overtly political aspects of their work. In the end HR does not have power.. it has stemmed from weak leadership feeling ill equipped to deal with issues about which they know very little and they have delegated to HR. The ultimate blame must lie with leadership.

Many of today’s LinkedIn posts are expressing fear and upset at the news that two US giants Meta and Amazon are cutting back on their DEI programmes and that some staff have already been made redundant. Some people say they are leaving Facebook and WhatsApp in protest in much the same way as those that dislike Musk left X (formerly Twitter) and went to BlueSky. That is a personal decision and totally up to them.  But those who work in DEI have to confront a more substantive dilemma.

A breeze that began a year or two ago has gathered strength and as we enter 2025 the wind of change is strong. The times they are a -changing and DEI is already undergoing a radical shift. Most companies will put up a metaphorical finger and reposition themselves in the direction of the leading companies. That leaves all those who work in DEI with a dilemma. When and where to stand firm?

Explanations for the cut backs  given by Amazon include “we are winding down outdated programs and materials related to representation and inclusion,” and “the term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others”.

At Facebook misgendering is no longer considered  no longer a policy violation. In a statement Mark Zugerberg said that controlling speech had gone to far.  For detail in the policy changes there is an excellent analysis here

Meta, fresh off  its announcement to end factchecking, follows Amazon, McDonald’s and Walmart in rolling back diversity initiatives, effective immediately.

We don’t have to search long and hard to see that these companies are preparing the way for a closer relationship with Donald Trump, who has on many an occasion made clear his views of DEI. A closer reading of the statements though show that the intention to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace remains but the approach has changed. Not such a good headline though!

While we are not on the cusp of having a right-wing leader like Trump in our own country, on the issue of equality and diversity we have always taken our lead from the US – both in approach and language and this time will be no different. However we also have our own internal calls for change.

Challenges to ‘accepted progressive’  DEI approaches to transgenderism, race and religion are often met with accusations of  being ‘right wing’ – which stifles and silences as it intends to rather than engages with the criticism. If the accuser is more careful they may use the term ‘anti woke’ – in itself meant to be a slur when in reality it is often received as a compliment! Even the CIPD leadership said in a foreword to the latest annual report “We’re responding to the ‘anti-woke’ pushback , helping membership….” It may have been more helpful to engage with the pushback rather than dismiss it.

The growing number of tribunal cases being brought where DEI has gone wrong and led to discrimination of an employee is testament to the fact that that not all critiques of DEI are confined to ‘right wing’ commentators. Something is wrong. The cases are a symptom not the cause.

Following the ground breaking Forstater case in 2019  which made gender-critical beliefs a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010,  the cases have come thick and fast and the complainants are winning –  Phoenix v Open University (2024), Fahmy v Arts Council (2023), Meade v Westminster City Council and Social Work England(2023).. and only last week Bird v Liberal Democrats (2025)

The latest and perhaps most important case has already led to promised changes in policy by the Civil Service.

In this case Eleanor Frances, former employee  received £116,000 from two departments , Dept for Culture Media and Sport and Department for Science Innovation and Technology for discrimination and unfair dismissal due to her gender critical beliefs. Both departments had been advised by Stonewall.  Immediately in response to this decision civil servants will no longer be labelled “transphobic” for expressing gender-critical beliefs under new  Civil Service guidelines.

My general DEI Advice for 2025 and beyond

The term DEI that is now associated by some with negative practices may disappear but good practices will continue and new names will emerge.

Continue your strategy to foster an inclusive culture, identifying barriers and tailoring policies to remove them and where possible use data – both to identify specific issues and to show impact after taking action.  Always tie in proposed policies to the business needs. Celebrate successes.

Ensure all employees are mindful of differences, and that they can learn from one another, emphasising our common humanity rather than a hierarchy of identities

Revisit the language you are using in DEI and depoliticise it. This the workplace not a student campus – out with cis, equity, misgendering, neo-colonial, microaggression, compelled pronouns.  All employees must be comfortable using diversity terms, not just younger graduates.

Be very clear about the law – it changes all the time via case law. Court cases are costly and damage reputation.

Choose any training carefully.  Some lawyers are now recommending training in gender critical beliefs and freedom of speech.

Leadership should not be held to ransom by younger more politicised employees. If you as a senior leader do not understand the issues it is your duty to learn about them.

Depoliticise you staff networks – these networks should work as support for employees and a conduit to feed into company policy.

Leave Stonewall schemes and cut back on flags, parades and special days. Focus on the material and practical not the ideological.

In a few years’ time we will find it extraordinary that a section of the adult professional population, including MPs protested at the recent announcement  by Health Secretary Wes Streeting that puberty blockers were going to be banned indefinitely.

They think they know better than the evidence of a four year research project culminating in the Cass Review  and the many clinicians who left the Tavistock Clinic GIDS before it was closed down, having witnessed first-hand the weak criteria on which these drugs were prescribed to youngsters.

But then so do the LGBT lobby groups that have been advising both public and private sector on LGBT issues for years. Both Stonewall and Mermaids have come out against Streeting’s decision.  They want kids to have access to life changing hormones.

 Many people knew a decade ago that there was no evidence to support the use of puberty blockers, that almost 100% of those prescribed them went on to use cross sex hormones (so not a pause activists and clinicians have always used as a justification) and that more than 85% of all these children will desist once they have gone through puberty. The majority of these youngsters are gay or lesbian – 70% are female – and as many as a third are autistic but such has been the indoctrination in schools and the NHS that feelings of body dysphoria and other mental health issues  have been interpreted exclusively through the lens of gender identity.

Unfortunately for the kids the solution they are told will reduce their physical and emotional distress, puberty blockers, leads them onto a medical path that has life changing consequences, including sexual dysfunction, infertility, permanently changed bodies etc etc. No matter, the chorus of progressives said (and still say) it was imperative that these children be given the drugs they needed.  A fabricated myth that if they weren’t given them they would commit suicide is still being shamelessly used to force parents to consent to their use.

Such an extreme ideology and its practice requires support from key institutions in society to gain credibility and traction. The global lobby keen to get gender identity embedded into national legal systems particularly targeted education, law and government.  Its method was to avoid political debate and ride on the wave of human rights and early adoption of gender identity by global human rights organisations like Amnesty International has been key to its success. After all who wants to be against human rights?

Legal, corporate and government organisations embraced the ideas, keen to show their progressive credentials and helped by having the EHRC as well as the CIPD as promoters of the ideology for several years.  Just like any pernicious ideology, those who didn’t agree publicly were cast out, shamed, blackballed and expelled meaning that the vast majority of people put their heads down and said nothing. It has been nothing less than authoritarian in its implementation.

In September 2020 Over 100 companies, including Aviva, BP, CITI, Disney, Expedia, Microsoft and Sky signed a letter in support of trans rights saying ‘trans rights are human rights’. It didn’t say which rights trans people currently do not have only that they are ‘under threat’, widely understood by many as meaning feminists have challenged the demand that biological males identifying as women use single sex spaces and participate in female sports.

For gender identity to be accepted as something innate it must be there from birth and not developed in adulthood. So the indoctrination of children was vital. They needed to be told that they had a gender identity and also that it may be different from their biological sex. This ideology was cleverly  introduced into schools by newly formed LGBT groups under the guise of anti-bullying and PSHE training. The report “Only adults? Good practices in legal gender recognition for youth” funded by Dentons law firm and Thomson Reuters Foundation outlines an international strategy for advocating legal transition in youth and is illuminating. The activist role of these two large companies in the whole child transition debacle should be well publicised and condemned.

The corporate sector must take their share of responsibility for this shameful episode. It was targeted by Stonewall an organisation which had already earned a good reputation for its work in LGB issues and added the T in 2015 unchallenged. Keen to expand their ESG activities and demonstrate wider stakeholder responsibility than increasing profits for shareholders, business’s enthusiastic participation in this wider LGBT campaign gave activist groups and their ideology validation, credibility and money. Private and public sector organisations alike participated enthusiastically in the Stonewall Workplace  Equality Index and the Stonewall Champions Scheme and applied whatever policies they were told would give them high marks. Stonewall has also had an active Schools Champions Scheme for many years and has undertaken training in many schools, including primary schools.

 Some corporates including Starbucks and Wagamama have implemented special campaigns to support controversial charity Mermaids which specialises in ‘helping’ children in their quest for transition. The following companies were quoted on the Mermaids website as being supporters of the charity –Lloyds, Barclays, Tesco, Aon, BP, BCLP, P&G and Unilever. One wonders just how much due diligence was done before committing funds and their names to such a dubious activity.

History may tell why professional adults and the organisations they work for went along with this harmful propaganda for so long. I have often wondered  if it had had more of an impact on boys and men a challenge may have come sooner. It took grass roots feminist organisations as well as courageous individual women years to counter this ideology and the practices and policies that it spawned for which they were abused, marginalised or cancelled.  

What we are seeing now is backtracking by some, a retelling of history or a quiet dropping of pronouns by others. Businesses are seeing the way the wind is blowing (as does Streeting, a former Stonewall employee) and many have already withdrawn from Stonewall schemes. I doubt there will any further corporate support for Mermaids.

All the HR and DEI professionals that supported and promoted the focus on transgenderism in diversity but shut out any dissenting voices should learn a lesson.  Suppressing debate under the guise of inclusion is wrong. And in this case it is children who have been damaged the most.

Nearly twenty years ago, I was researching some large organisations for an Opportunity Now report (Diversity Dimensions: Integration of Diversity into Organisational Cultures) and one FTSE 100 company stood out. Pearson PLC had had two top female executives on the board for six years – Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO and a finance director, Rona Fairhead.  This was highly unusual at the time and it was achieved without any specific diversity goal or initiative. I interviewed a few male board directors to discover more. What I found was that these men were much more liberal and socially aware than most FTSE 100 directors,  were not threatened by female leadership and were prepared to make room at the top for these women. The corporate world, particularly at this level is extremely competitive and it is no good pretending that women aren’t competing with men … they are.

Power once obtained is hard to give up. For men and women to work together at all levels of organisations, men must be prepared to give up some power. Power never sat happily with the concept of diversity and inclusion but as this post is about men and their support it is really important to bring it into the room. The subtitle of my book Men’s Work Women’s Cultures is Overcoming Resistance and Changing Organisational Cultures because the resistance to women’s equality is real and needs to be addressed.

Most of the men working in the field of diversity and inclusion will, like the Pearson male directors  be liberal minded. They are on our side. We need them to persuade other men both at senior levels and middle management of the very real barriers to women’s progress at work and to actively support their female peers. This isn’t an easy.

Male ally isn’t a new term, although few leaders would use it, certainly the Pearson directors didn’t. Their actions and behaviours spoke for themselves. It has been used on occasion for many years to describe men in organisations who support the efforts for women’s equality. Professionals know that without male leadership behind policies and practices plus the support of middle management change just doesn’t happen.  There has been an increase in the use of the term within the DEI sector with some men, mostly consultants now describing themselves as male allies and promoting the term ‘allyship’.  This post isn’t to berate these men at all as their work is very important but ‘ally’ is not a term I like as it implies that non allies are by default enemies. This in itself may unintentionally  create a them and us, a good guys and bad guys scenario, making men defensive.

I have assumed that the role of a male ally was to use their more ‘listened to’ masculine voice to highlight organisational barriers to women’s progress in organisations and persuade male leadership and male employees of the need for change. A recent LinkedIn post by a well known ‘male ally’ listed all the subtle and not subtle barriers that women faced in the workplace. He was correct in his choice of barriers but it wasn’t difficult… women have been listing these for years. But the quite substantial attention he received was from women, out of 223 reactions only seven were from men.  In a similar vein another well-regarded ‘male ally’ put up a post about a talk he gave at an Inclusion conference. But guess what – the audience were almost entirely women, just as it usually is when anyone male or female gives a talk about diversity, gender or inclusion. The hardest part of this work is persuading men to accept that the workplace is still gendered in their favour and change is needed. It is easy to fill a room with women who are grateful that a man understands their hurdles. But if you cannot fill a room with men, perhaps start with a small group.

What do women want from ‘male allies’?

For me it is to enable challenging conversations with men and begin the work that men need to do, both to benefit themselves but also women in their organisations. To work with men in a way that is more difficult for women to do.  A Catalyst Report in 2009 , Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives, showed that 74 per cent of male interviewees identified fear as a barrier to men’s support of gender equality – fear of loss of status, fear of making mistakes and fear of other men’s disapproval. This research itself could form the basis of a productive discussion with men.

Men’s issues today and the changing role of women

Most of the male ally literature discuss the problems women face in organisations in terms of women’s issues rather than in terms of men’s issues. However there is a lot more social commentary on men and boys today and it tends to focus on their ‘lostness’, their loneliness, the high level of male suicide, the current crisis in masculinity( eg.Richard Reeves, Jordan Peterson, Chris Williamson). Women, myself included, are also concerned and beginning to comment on the topic and show support. There is also concern about the fact that women are steaming ahead on the educational front leaving men behind – young women are starting to leave men behind  FT.

A focus on this is very welcome, as emotionally stable and happy men and boys is good news for women and girls and society in general. However some of the commentary carries an undercurrent (sometimes stated more overtly) of blame toward women and particularly feminism for somehow emasculating men. The sub text is ‘If only women hadn’t taken men’s places, they would be ok’.

 Very little of it (commentary) acknowledges let alone interrogates men’s historical relationship to women and their role in women’s subjugation or the changes that women have fought for in the face of male resistance. For all their frailties the fact remains that men still hold most positions of power and have the most influence over our culture. In other parts of the world they continue to dehumanise women with impunity.  Women have campaigned for change in their own lives and so can men.

I would like to see men educated about the history of women’s rights and encouraged to discuss their fear of losing status and power, their desire or not to spend more time caring for family members, their ability or not to express emotion and vulnerability, what kind of lives they want, what kind of relationships they want – in the safety of male only groups.

Understand women’s everyday lives and concerns and communicate them to male employees

Recently the interruption by Siorse Ronan during a TV chat show in which young men were joking about the uselessness of having a mobile phone when being threatened at night ignited much discussion about gender relations. How good are they? Saoirse Ronan’s polite reminder to her male panellists on the Graham Norton Show that women are constantly pre-empting attack got cheers from women in the audience. The young men on the panel were dumbstruck, maybe because they had not thought about it before. Why not? Men that harangue women for not wanting males in our spaces regardless of how they may identify are showing the same lack of awareness as Eddie Redmayne and Paul Mescal were on that show. We have no idea whether a man walking towards us is harmless or not. We are brought up to assume he may not be. This leads me on to why women may fear men and another topic for male allies to address with other men.

Discuss the ubiquity of male violence and sexual violence and its impact on women

Like many other women I wrote and posted about the Pelicot case and like them received huge number of comments and interest.  But my search to find a male writer commenting on the case has failed to find anything.  This horrendous case rather crushed the often repeated defence of ‘not all men’ when women generalise about men’s bad behaviours. The image of the lineup of fifty or so  very ordinary ‘respected’ men who had chosen to rape an unconscious woman really shook women up. The publicity around the case provided a brilliant opportunity for men to discuss male sexuality, where and why it is used against women and harms women but instead there was silence.

The increased sexualisation of women and girls in recent years has an impact on all women’s lives both inside and outside organisations. When we walk into work we carry with us all the values of wider society. If most of the men in your department consume pornography what do they actually think of the woman manager in front of them? I remember the campaign to ban Page 3 of the Sun newspaper led by Labour MP Clare Short, for which she was ridiculed daily. Women found it uncomfortable to sit opposite men on the bus or train whilst they gawped at the bare breasts on Page 3. But that looks harmless compared to what many men watch these days. We know that 67% of all pornography depicts violence towards women. What do men think about pornography? Such an important topic for men to discuss.

The specific barriers women face in the workplace are widely known. What is less known is the impact of the wider social context and the role men continue to play consciously and unconsciously for any remaining inequality. Male allies can play a key part in facilitating discussions of ways in which they can institute meaningful change for themselves and for women.

List of resources…. Earlier

Male Order, Unwrapping Masculinity ( Chapman and Rutherford 1987) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Male-Order-Masculinity-Rowena-Chapman/dp/0853156905

In the Company of Men by  Gruber and Morgan(2004) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Company-Men-Dominance-Harassment-Northeastern/dp/1555536379

Men’s Silences: Predicaments in Masculinity by Jonathan Rutherford 1992 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mens-Silences-Predicaments-Masculinity-Orders/dp/0415075440

Masculinity and the British Organisation Man since 1945 by Michael Roper 1994 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masculinity-British-Organization-Since-1945/dp/0198256930

Men as Managers Managers as Men  D. Collinson and J. Hearn(1996)  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Managers-Perspectives-Masculinities-Managements/dp/0803989296

Updated here 2023 Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations. Theories, Practices and Futures of Organizing : edited By Jeff Hearn, Kadri Aavik, David L. Collinson, Anika Thym

And more recent

Engaging Men in Gender Initiative:  The Catalyst Research https://www.catalyst.org/research-series/engaging-men-in-gender-initiatives/

Collaborating with Men. Changing workplace culture to be more inclusive for women: Murray Edwards College Cambridge University 2018   https://internationalwim.org/iwim-reports/collaborating-with-men-changing-workplace-culture-to-be-more-inclusive-for-women/

Men as Change Agents: Women’s Business Council published by the Government Equalities Office 2018 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75604840f0b6397f35df2a/Report_on_Men_as_Agents_for_Change_in_Gender_Equality.pdf

Why do so many incompetent men become leaders by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 2019 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Many-Incompetent-Become-Leaders/dp/1633696324

Men Stepping Forward. Leading your organisations on the path to inclusion by Elisabeth Kelan.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Changemakers-Practices-Inclusive-Leaders/dp/1529230020

Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Culture by Niobe Way https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rebels-Cause-Reimagining-Ourselves-Culture/dp/0593184262

The current state of DEI is coming under increasing criticism;  for too much emphasis on social justice; for being overly influenced by identity politics; for its lack of business focus; for its tendency toward groupthink; and for its authoritarian stance on beliefs which stifles employees into silence. Many wise and experienced consultants have dropped the DEI from their work titles preferring to use organisational behaviour, leadership and culture instead.

Language and definitions

In the UK, more than in Europe, we import US ideas and language when it comes to this topic despite having completely different histories of oppression and discrimination. A shift in language may reflect a shift in approach, a gear change, welcome at times of diversity fatigue. When I started out in this sector in the 1990’s it was called equal opportunities or sometimes equality. Then came diversity which was considered more business friendly and less legalistic. This didn’t happen without some debate. Many were concerned that putting all the inequalities under one umbrella and calling it diversity would mean that some groups would lose out – disability particularly. Some noted that the word diversity merely meant difference and conveyed no element of power or inequality. Others felt that gender shouldn’t be considered as a part of diversity given that women are half the population. Inclusion (culture focused) was added to suggest that acknowledging difference wasn’t enough, everyone had to made to feel included. The turn to diversity was embraced by the corporate world, although key organisational issues like the gender pay gap and sexual harassment do not sit happily under its umbrella. Ultimately organisations still have to have an eye on equality and discrimination law. More recently the concept of equity has been adopted by UK organisations with very little debate and so we now have DEI – Diversity Equity and Inclusion.

Criticism

A lot of the criticism of DEI is coming from ‘the freedom of speech’ corner writers like Douglas Murray. The Free Speech Union published a report on how EDI was crippling British business.Many DEI specialists have dismissed these criticisms as ‘right wing’ attacks. However there are a few others like myself who have a lot of experience in the sector and know something is wrong. And we are anxious, unlike Murray et al, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is some really good DEI work that produces tangible benefits to organisations which have been overshadowed by reports of compelled pronouns in emails, prohibiting debate and free speech, endless months and weeks devoted to specific groups and other performative practices which can alienate many employees.

Earlier this year Kemi Badenoch and her team at the Equalities Office published a report called Inclusion at Work which was critical of a lot of the sector whilst acknowledging that work on diversity and inclusion remained important but must be tied more closely to the business. You can find a summary of its recommendations here. This report should have been widely debated by internal and external DEI consultants and managers. Instead it was met with a stony silence or hostility.

 Last month the incoming CEO Nick McClelland of a leading diversity consultancy, Byrne Dean, acknowledged that there was ‘a growing disillusionment with EDI and even somewhat of a counter movement resisting it’. He believes that the disillusionment is because of a gap between pledges and tangible outcomes and says that there ‘must be a core business strategy to work’. I and others think that there is something rather more than disillusionment and lack of outcomes that is creating a backlash. But even the business case argument is being challenged and the popularity of mass unconscious bias training has been on the wane for a while now. There have been several articles written about the failure of diversity policies.

How did we get here? Too much focus on social justice?

Following the financial crash of 2007/8 large US corporates began emphasising their commitment to ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) and a broader concept of stakeholder (stakeholder capitalism) in order to shift the criticism they were receiving about profit and greed. Investment firms began to insist on ESG requirements from their investments. UK firms followed suit.  Strong lobby groups rode this crest and public and private organisations began to sign up to a broader approach to business which encompassed care for the environment and social inequalities. DEI is very much the S in ESG. So diversity and inclusion, once a rather neglected marginalised department of often one part time employee was given far more recognition. Whilst social justice had always been an element of diversity and inclusion, it took on much more importance. It is only now fifteen years on that some people have begun to see ESG as something of a distraction from profitability and the return to shareholders.

DEI as a central tenet of ESG is caught in this backlash.  Some companies  have found that not all their customers agree with some of the causes that they are promoting e.g.Bud Light’s sales fell between 11 and 26% in the month after a partnership with a transgender influencer, and the brand lost its status as the top-selling beer. And only last week Ford announced it was scaling back its DEI policies following on from a number of other US companies. 

Organisations used to limit their diversity efforts to what was achievable, legal and appropriate for their business. They could be ahead of the law in terms of giving more generous maternity leave provisions or have more extensive flexible working practices but they never suggested their role was to be agents of social change. Today identity politics and social justice theory including critical race theory, transgender ideology, intersectionality, colonialism and the concept of privilege have escaped the confines of the university campuses and have seeped into organisations under the umbrella of equity. Flags are waved at marches and on websites.

The turn to equity

As mentioned above there has been very little debate about the use of the term equity to replace equality. Indeed when searching for material all I could find were articles explaining why equity was a much more appropriate term to use than equality.  Leading diversity consultancy Pearn Kandola published an article last year called Why Leaders Should Lead With Equity (Not Equality)

To explain the difference the author gives us the image of running a race, with equality as the finish line. “But equity recognises that not everyone starts in the same place. Equity is about adjusting the starting line so we can all run a fair race.”

Equal opportunities also recognised that not everyone started in the same place – hence its name – and also that  organisations were biased towards white males.  Companies serious about diversity and equality have been assessing their recruitment and appraisal processes for bias years before the word equity appeared.  The Pearn Kandola article begins with a quote from Kimberle Crenshaw on intersectionality –  a term not widely understood, contested as a theoretical tool and which certainly has limits in any practical application.

McKinsey has also published on the preference for equity over equality:

 “Equity refers to fair treatment for all people, so that the norms, practices, and policies in place ensure identity is not predictive of opportunities or workplace outcomes.” (The Equality Act protects nine characteristics. There is no mention of the word identity)  It continues  “Equity differs from equality in a subtle but important way. While equality assumes that all people should be treated the same, equity takes into consideration a person’s unique circumstances, adjusting treatment accordingly so that the end result is equal.”  The whole point of diversity was that it recognised difference. This isn’t new. What is new is that we now refer to identity and privilege and there is a hierarchy. But who makes the judgements of relative advantage between individuals and groups (by virtue of their characteristics)?  The DEI manager?  Which characteristics count? And do some more than others? What treatment should be applied to whom? These decisions are fraught with problems and can lead both to alienation of the dominant employee group and also antagonise those who do not want ‘preferential treatment’ due to a particular characteristic.

There is a limit to how much organisations can do to iron out social disadvantage. Some would argue it is beyond their remit.  Ultimately companies have to obey the law. There are no equity laws, only equality laws. The culture of progressive politics and the power of lobby groups has led many organisations to inadvertently enact policies out of line with the law.

Groupthink and cancellation

Another criticism of DEI is that it has resulted in groupthink, the opposite of what true diversity strives for. Simon Fanshawe OBE, one of the original founders of Stonewall and now very critical of it, discusses the impact of identity politics on the diversity and inclusion industry in his excellent book The Power of Difference and is well aware that there has been a growing tendency in this industry to have ‘right’ answers with which everyone must agree. ‘it is a peculiar feature of modern identity politics that the struggle for diversity is too often matched by a demand for rigid conformity.’ 

And what has happened he suggests is that ‘the nobility of those causes has sometimes given rise to mantras that mask the complexity that needs to be understood to significantly improve those responses’.

 We need to have difficult discussions and we can live with productive disagreement rather than agreement. We aren’t seeing these encouraged. Instead employees are told what are the right views and language to adopt, often by politically motivated lobby groups and activist employee groups in very poor ‘training’ sessions.  And they are punished if they do not agree either by being shamed, cancelled or sacked. There is now a growing number of very public tribunal cases, following the Forstater case which ruled that gender critical beliefs were legal, brought by  employees who have been dismissed due to their views on biological sex.  No wonder DEI is getting a bad name!

It is time for a reckoning. Those in the sector must acknowledge what has gone wrong and fix it or the reputation of DEI, EDI, D&I Diversity and Inclusion or whatever you want to call it will be damaged irrepairably.

In the 1980’s I was working in the City and found myself steeped in a very male work culture. Today people would call it toxic but in those days it was just the norm. Myself and the few other young women who worked there were not the norm and there were plenty of reminders of that! In a trading environment you had to deal with comments on how you dressed and worse on a daily basis.

There was annual investment analyst dinner held at the Grosvenor House and the first year I went my boss took me to one side. “Be careful this evening, he said, and do not get into a lift with a man on your own, even if you know him”. I thought this a bit over the top but by 10.30 pm I understood his warning. There were about 500 men and fewer than 40 women at this dinner and many of the men were very, very drunk. I took myself off to the ladies cloakroom and saw a man I knew and thought to be a rather old-fashioned gentleman in the corridor. I was shocked when he lurched towards me in a very leery fashion and I dodged out of the way, went to the loo and then decided to go home.  I have never forgotten it. If he could behave like that when under the influence of alcohol, I thought, any man could.

When I returned to the City ten years later to do some research into gendered cultures, I needed the help of men. How men behaved and what they did when women were not around was impossible for me as a female researcher to find out. “I don’t think women have any idea of how men talk about them when they are not present”, one man told me. This reminded me of what Germaine Greer said in her seminal book, The Female Eunuch, “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them”.

Perhaps my experience, age and research has given me more of an insight into men’s behaviour than most women, but for those of us who love our fathers, have brothers, sons and male partners some of it is still upsetting and uncomfortable to acknowledge. We collude with the more comfortable narrative that only very few bad men say and do unspeakable things to women and children, until we are confronted with evidence of the opposite. And even then we will try to find a reason why it’s not the norm.

Every so often a case emerges which disrupts this narrative and reveals an ugly truth – that perhaps a very large number of men may indeed think so little of women that they could sexually violate them. Today of course the case is of the Frenchman Dominique Pelicot who over many years drugged his wife, Gisele, unconscious before raping her and then inviting other men via a website to do the same. So far nearly one hundred men are thought to have done so, with fifty of them on trial as well.

If it had just been Monsieur Pelicot, who we hear had been an exemplary father and husband, we could have just explained it as a split personality, that underneath he was a monster akin to the horrendous Josef Fritz. Fritz kept his daughter Elisabeth locked in a cellar from when she was 18 until she reached the age of 42. Trapped underground and enslaved, she was raped thousands of times by her own father and gave birth to seven of his children.

But in the Pelicot case a large number of other men were involved. Only three refused to rape the unconscious Gisele Pelicot but even they didn’t report it. This all happened over several years in a tiny village in Provence. Were all these men also monsters? Did they all have split personalities as some psychologists are suggesting is the case with Dominique Pelicot?  We know that they included  civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a journalist, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers. All ordinary men, most of whom are husbands and fathers. What are we to make of this? There isn’t really an escape route via a comfortable narrative here although I have heard one man blame it on French culture saying that it couldn’t happen here in the UK. But very few men are saying anything about it all and I wish they would.

I suggest the Cleveland child abuse scandal was another such disruptive case. For those who aren’t old enough to remember it, over the course of a few months in 1987, 121 children were removed from their families in Cleveland ,Yorkshire ( then a county)  because of concerns of sexual abuse highlighted through medical examinations and wider assessment.  However the public could not tolerate the truth that so many men, fathers even, really did sexually abuse their children, including babies in the family setting. There was outcry and media hysteria with blame thrown instead at the professionals and in particular the pediatrician, Dr Marietta Higgs, who diagnosed a lot of the abuse. An inquiry was set up by the government and published a report in 1988.

The Inquiry made no assessment of whether or not the children were sexually abused, though clearly this would have been helpful. Writer Beatrix Campbell  subsequently uncovered evidence, through documents now released in the National Archive, that indicate most of the children were sexually abused, and that the diagnosis by medical professionals was correct. Furthermore, her book, Secrets and Silence: Uncovering the legacy of the Cleveland child sexual abuse scandal,  reveals that documents that would have confirmed this reality were amended, diluted and in some cases disappeared and this, at best lack of transparency, or at worst deliberate cover-up, has had lasting impacts.

I relate this as an example of the lengths we will go to as a society to avoid facing the uncomfortable truth about men’s sexual behaviour.

Another case is surely the Rotherham child abuse scandal, where we know that groups of men passed round as many as 1400 troubled girls some as young as thirteen and raped them multiple times over a period of several years. There and in other northern towns professionals knew about the abuse, but chose to sacrifice the girls rather than accuse a Pakistani group of men  which they felt would upset community relations. Indeed the fact that in this case the men were mostly of Pakistani origin enabled the narrative of ‘other men’ to continue.

The reluctance to acknowledge the scale and extent of male violence and sexual abuse is because it is too unsettling. We live and work with men, among men. Many of us love men. As women we just try to avoid being a victim, yet we know that few women will have been lucky enough to come into adulthood without some unpleasant experience of sexual harassment or abuse.

In 2015 a study undertaken at a US university found that out of a small sample (too small to generalise) one third of the young male students would use coercive force to have sex with a woman if they could be sure they wouldn’t be caught.

 A more recent UK study (2021)– and a more statistically robust one –  found that over 10% of male students admitted to rape or sexual assault of a woman in the past two years, which is pretty horrifying.

We have come a long way since I was a young broker in the City. Women in the UK have so more equality in the workplace and there is now plenty of public discourse around women’s rights. Yet we know from history that women’s progress is often followed by backlash. We cannot even pretend that we live in an equal society whilst so many men are still violent and abusive towards us. Men, please get talking about this. We need you to.

The Church of England draft guidance on HBT (homophobic, biphobic and transphobic) bullying in schools has been published and is out for consultation. It is now to be one of a handful of different guidances under the umbrella of Flourishing for All. The other guides will tackle bullying on account of race, disability/SEN, religion and sexist bullying and sexual harassment. Perhaps this is to lessen the spotlight on HBT bullying which has been the Church’s focus for ten years, and which had come under increasing criticism.

Like others I have been very vocal in my criticism of the previous HBT anti -bullying guidance Valuing All God’s Children seeing it as another useful vehicle for  Stonewall and other activist lobby groups to get the concept of gender identity and the accompanying ideology and language embedded into the school system. This method has been very effective and the VAGC itself has been used in Church schools for nearly ten years.

 VAGC was straight out of the Stonewall playbook, with an exact same glossary in the appendix, despite Rev Genders, Chief Education Officer denying this to me and others. The name of a former Stonewall employee was personally thanked in the document and Stonewall credited with providing the finance but this we were told was because Stonewall had merely passed on the money from the Dept of Education.

Anyway, one major difference with the new guidance Flourishing for All is perhaps the total absence of any references to Stonewall at all despite VAGC being peppered with them. I was told that the many references to Stonewall in VAGC was because their LGBT Bullying Schools Report was the only one of its kind and the former guidance needed to refer to it a lot. All reference to this report has now gone as well. Has it therefore been discredited? We are not told.

The erasure of Stonewall is to be welcomed but I would have preferred some clarity about what exactly has changed in this new draft guidance and why? Like why has Stonewall been dropped? We are told that the guidance needed updating following the December 2023 guidelines from the Department of Education on Gender Questioning Children and the publication of the Cass report this year  but we are not told exactly what had to be replaced or why. We have to compare the two documents ourselves.

To begin with the tone is different. I think it is more diffident and arguably less certain of its ideological base, less sure that a trans child must be accommodated regardless. It is cautious, defensive even, often providing an explanation as to why concepts have been used as well as a lot of references to the legal and regulatory framework.

Like other individuals and organisations who wish to place themselves above the fray rather than accepting responsibility for being part of the conflict, the introduction refers to the debate on gender as having frequently been ‘toxic and polarised.’

Bullying by children to children is not a legal issue so it may seem strange to go into so much detail about the Equality Act 2010 and hate crimes. The choice of topics for their anti-bullying guidance umbrella  is to mirror some of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act. I know times have changed but my own experience of bullying at school and those of my children was more often than not directed at kids who were too ‘clever’, ‘swotty’, unpopular, and about appearances – being fat, thin, too tall or too small, too pretty, had funny hair or even red hair, snotty nose etc.  Kids can pick on any perceived difference and will continue to do so. None of these are covered by the Equality Act nor should they be. How relevant then is the Act? Again my contention is that it provides some justification and support for the whole exercise and not much else. A caring culture in a school is beneficial to all children – we don’t all have to go on training courses or learn the Equality Act inside out to know this.

 On the subject of relevance why has the Church introduced a section on intersectionality? This is a contested approach to the equality agenda and arguably should not be introduced unconditionally. The reference given is the Anti-Racism Resource 2023 Intersectionality of Privilege – again a concept that is not agreed on by everyone.  Do we really think it appropriate to put young children into a hierarchy of privilege based on identities? Many of us further down the road on diversity are trying to stem this tide of identity politics that young people are being taught to no one’s benefit. This is projecting a particular ideological view and presenting it as fact.

There is now recognition that social transitioning has been cautioned against by the DofE guidance or Cass Report so instead the new guidance refers to the treatment of those who have already socially transitioned. They apparently must still not be misnamed. We don’t see the word misgendered in here. The Church says it has always agreed with the Cass Report’s negative view on social transitioning but as I say in a post below this is just not the case. In VAGC it states that

“Trans young people may require specific support in order to feel comfortable at school, for example, schools may need to make changes to toilet facilities or a trans young person might require support to change their name or the pronoun by which they are referred to by staff and classmates.”(Valuing All God’s Children 2019).

So there is a very clear change of view and advice but no acknowledgement of it.

So whilst the tone of the guidance is different and some of the more extreme ideological stances on gender identity may have gone, such as the unequivocal support of trans kids in their belief that they are the opposite sex and the guidance to schools on accommodating them, that the Church’s view on this issue has not changed much. For example, a lot of the ideological language has remained in this new draft guidance.

The term LGBT of the VAGC guidance has now given way to LGBT+ which they justify by saying they are following OFSTED and the government, adding that the terminology has evolved. What child is a +…. why introduce the very idea of this as a possibility to children?

The guidance uncritically adopts the use of the expressions ‘trans child’, ‘assigned at birth’, ‘cis’ and  the concept gender identity itself is central to the report. It is only if you read through the glossary and find the footnote to the entry of gender identity, which is defined as “ a sense a person may have of their own gender, whether male, female or another category, such as non-binary” that you will find the quote  “Current government guidance states that this is a ‘contested belief’.

Why then is this not made more of throughout the report? Indeed the glossary whilst being a fraction of the ‘Stonewall’ glossary of VAGC is still problematic. Some examples are:

Sexuality – an emotional, romantic or sexual attraction.

In the glossary the distinction is made between gender and sex.

Sex – This term is typically used to refer to biological status as male/female but may refer to genetics, anatomy, physiology or legal status.

 Gender  – The cultural constructions associated with being male/female or other gender categories, as distinguished from biological sex

Yet the terms are used interchangeably throughout the report. In the glossary even,

Homosexual is defined “ this  might be considered a more medical term used to describe someone who has an emotional, romantic and/or sexual attraction towards someone of the same gender.” The correct term is sex…as in same sex attracted. This of course doesn’t allow for male lesbians which the activists insist exist.

So whilst the softening of the tone is to be welcomed the uncritical adoption of the concepts and language of gender identity ideology make the guidance unsuitable for schools.

A year or so ago I sat next to a young woman at a seminar and asked her what she did. ‘I’m an actuary’ she said. Impressive.  She told me she was leaving her firm, despite its good reputation because she wanted to find a company where she could actually go to the office. ‘ I am nearly thirty and single and I don’t want to be stuck in my small flat all day’. She had my sympathy.  But for many youngsters who graduated during Covid, they have known no different. And still now for some going into the office is fraught with anxiety. But they also do not know what they are missing.

As a graduate at an investment bank many moons ago, I remember the excitement of starting out with a few others. We were sent on courses together and all worked in the same department. We were mentored, worked in an open plan office and had exposure to fund managers for whom we did research. We had morning meetings at which we may have had to speak and certainly needed to listen to others. And the best bit was going to the wine bar (eighties!) after work and meeting lots of other people too.  I simply cannot imagine doing my job from my shared living space as a whole generation have had to do. But there is no excuse for this to continue.

There was an interesting piece in the Times a few weeks ago about the decline of the graduate scheme. There were a number of reasons but one of them was that working from home had changed much of the point of it.

‘“I was on my own, working from home at the beginning. I didn’t even have a desk, and they’re supposed to pay for desks,” he said. “So working from home  [was] to work from bed. I was just miserable.” Civil Service Fast Track graduate’

Another graduate, at Deloitte, said she often worked from 7.30am until 11.30pm, with little support. She worked from home most days, with no contact with other graduates and no way of knowing if her 16-hour days were normal for those on the scheme.

Diversity consultants have always promoted working from home as “a good thing”.  I have done lots of workshops on flexible working in which a day or two at home featured as one possibility among many. But working from home used to be a hard sell even when the internet made it eminently possible. There was a suspicion that people would take advantage of being at home and not work as hard.  So a large number of working mothers chose instead to do a three or four day week in the office taking the cut in salary.

It’s funny isn’t it how things change. Eighteen months and more of everyone who could working from home doing so has given senior male management a taste of the benefits of it.  Now you can earn a full time salary and do a couple of days or even more at home, which is great but not great if it is the entire workforce.

I suspect if the experience of lockdown during which women/mothers did the lion’s share of the domestic work and home schooling is reflective of the domestic division of labour, that the male experience of working from home may be a bit different from that of a mother with three children.  Most senior or even middle managers are probably in a position where they have a decent place in which to work – a spacious flat or house. And many of them have liked it so much that they haven’t wanted to come back to the workplace full time.

But it is a different kettle of fish for the youngsters who unless they are still at home with mum and dad will not be in a big airy house in the suburbs but in a crowded shared flat perhaps like the young graduate quoted above working from his bedroom.   This is perhaps acceptable in an emergency but it is no way for youngsters to learn the world of work, however fast that may be changing. It can surely not be coincidental that we are seeing soaring rates of loneliness among the 24-35 year age group.

Organisations  are also beginning to address whether working from home is good for their profits and efficiency.  “The drive for more staff to return to the office was prompted by concerns about drops in productivity.”

What has also happened is that secure in the knowledge that they may only have to commute once a week at most, some people have moved miles away from their workplaces and are now unable to return full time even when asked.  I spoke to a young woman who used to work for me. She had moved from Surrey to be with her boyfriend in Leeds. I naively assumed she had had to leave her job at the local council. ‘Oh no she said, I work from home and travel down once a month.’  

My research and work has focused on the development and change of workplace cultures. I can categorically say that without in person presence for a majority of the working week, there is no opportunity for cultures to develop let alone change.  Online presence is a very poor cousin to in person interaction.  Basically you cannot form relationships through a computer screen. Humans are ultimately social creatures who require social connection. Any kind of collective work, the sharing of ideas, innovation, team work, mentoring,  sponsorship – all of these require forming relationships.

Currently  most people in hybrid working are choosing to work in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday.  No working parent before Covid would have dared suggest this and we advised against it. Of course everyone would want that! A long weekend!  But no, the protocol went like this – request some flexible working with your manager and between you work out what worked best for the company and for you. It had to work both ways.  Something has gone very wrong when where you work on which day is dictated by employees. 

But there is no point in making the youngsters come back to the office if there are no senior or middle managers there. As one young man said to me “I always go into the office as I prefer working there to being in my flat alone. It is never full but on Mondays and Fridays there are hardly any people there.” Senior management – this is your responsibility.

Now that evidence of the GIDS scandal has been formalised in the Cass Report, there are quite a few  who only a week ago were still accusing women of transphobia for even raising concerns, now hurrying to find agreement with the findings. With no doubt an eye on the general election Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting says he agreed with the report findings, pretending it told him things he didn’t already know.  His own role in making Labour party members lives difficult for their gender critical beliefs has been conveniently forgotten. This is infuriating for those who have been cancelled, abused and marginalised for standing up for women and children’s rights. However in his defence he has acknowledged a change of heart (although no apology as yet).

 Not so the Church of England, itself responsible for promoting the dangerous ideas that have led to children attaching all their problems on to their gender, via its anti -bullying teaching resource Valuing All God’s Children, through its 5000 plus schools.

The role of wider society and the social context in which this ideology has taken hold was discussed by Dr Cass with specific focus on why it was that three quarters of gender questioning children are girls. The role of schools is significant. As the group Safe Schools Alliance notes “We are particularly concerned by the way that schools, aided and abetted by the teaching unions, have promoted an ideology that bypassed all safeguarding practices”

Some of us have been waiting for a public announcement from the Church Education Office. It didn’t come but through much searching I have found a short statement hidden away on the website. Here it is:

“We agree with Dr Cass’s conclusions that, as far as any form of social transitioning is concerned, a very cautious approach is necessary, and should involve full collaboration and consultation with parents and medical professionals. Something we have always maintained.”  (my bold)

My blood pressure took a spike when I read this!  Where, I ask, did the Church maintain this? The section in the guidance which speaks specifically of social transitioning says,

  “Trans young people may require specific support in order to feel comfortable at school, for example, schools may need to make changes to toilet facilities or a trans young person might require support to change their name or the pronoun by which they are referred to by staff and classmates.”(Valuing All God’s Children 2019)

There is nothing in this document that asks that parents and medical professionals should be involved in this process or to say that any approach should be cautious.

Only in January this year there was a news item about a four year old boy who was allowed to join a Church primary school as a girl without any of the other pupils being told.

One of the Church’s let-outs has been to blame local authorities and the schools themselves for their policies but it is high time it took some responsibility and accountability and grappled properly with this important topic.  Brilliant organisations like Transgender Trend and Safe Schools Alliance have had school resources alternative to those of Stonewall and Mermaids readily available but for some reason the Church chose to ignore them. Instead VAGC is straight out of the Stonewall playbook, even having the exact same glossary.

 I and many others have been writing to the Church of England’s Education Board for over four years and our concerns have been dismissed. It seems that the Church has consistently failed to understand the implications of being a mouthpiece for these lobby groups. Sadly for many youngsters, the damage has already been done. It is not enough to rewrite the guidance in the light of the Cass Report. What the Church should do immediately is to acknowledge it was wrong and issue an apology for having left this resource in schools for so long (since 2017), even as alarm bells were ringing. By not doing so it is sending out the signal that it doesn’t take the medical abuse of children seriously.

Living in Love and Faith – Church of England’s confusion over sex, gender and gender identity

The tragic death last September of a female partner of law firm Pinsent Masons  has re-ignited a debate on stress and work/life balance in the professional services sector and beyond.  Vanessa Ford, known professionally as Vanessa Heap, had been working 18-hour days and throughout her holidays to complete the sale of Everton FC to a private equity firm. Her body was found hit by a train and last week the coroner’s verdict was suicide. She was married with two children.

A junior solicitor said a typical work day at Pinsent Masons “is 08:30 to 19:00”, while a senior female solicitor said the work/life balance was “the best thing” about the firm. “I rarely work past 19:30 pm and have never worked a weekend in 5 years there. It’s probably as good as you can get in private practice”, she said.  However, another female senior solicitor said “[I] regularly work until the small hours trying to juggle a family”.

 People who are used to working a normal 9-5 day may be aghast that regularly finishing at 7.30pm is described as positive, but for those working in law firms, particularly in M&A, this long day is standard. And it isn’t just law.

 My PhD research, some of it which found its way into my book Women’s Work Men’s Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), revealed that long hours were a major factor inhibiting women’s progress in organisations. Not much has changed!  Although since Covid there is much more flexibility in where you can work i.e. home working is now common place, this hasn’t been accompanied by a lowering of workloads.  As one female lawyer puts it “we are also all so much more ‘on’ and available than I had seen previously in my career.” Working into the late hours at home is arguably as damaging to one’s health as working late in an office. Whilst this applies to both men and women the impact on mothers is particularly hard.

Twenty four years ago, a senior manager in a bank challenged the long hours by claiming that 14- hour days amount to sex discrimination.  Investment banker Aisling Sykes, 39, was sacked as vice president for spending too much time with her children, and won her claim for unfair dismissal from US bank, JP Morgan, but lost her claim that 14-hour days amounted to sex discrimination. The tribunal ruled that because she was so highly paid her employers were entitled to ‘make certain demands in respect of hours and place of work.’

The case was important because it was an attempt to use the law to construe a requirement to work long hours as a means of indirect discrimination. However it appeared that the high financial gain exempted the bank from any responsibility to ensure a working environment conducive to working mothers. I don’t believe this case has been overruled although refusing a request for flexibility working may be construed as indirect discrimination.

This ruling revealed the gendered subtext to the apparently neutral phenomenon of long hours, which is still prevalent today. The fault was seen as the woman’s – how can she expect to work those hours with four children? The long-hours culture often goes unchallenged, being justified as it was in the above ruling on the grounds of high salaries or client demand.

At first glance, a long-hours culture might seem to be gender-neutral. There are no innate talents and skills in men that cannot be matched by women – stamina and energy are equally shared out. But it has an indirect effect on women in the workplace in as much as women still take primary responsibility for childcare and household management, and so the burden of working long hours adds to the pressure they already have of managing both family and career. It is difficult to contest or challenge gender in this mode because it is tantamount to challenging the structure of the job itself. But this is what is required if we want to see women and men working together at the top of organizations.

This disparity was made especially clear during lockdown when schools were closed and parents had to home school their kids as well as work. It was women who took on most of this home schooling and their careers suffered for it.

At senior levels, the ability to give time is now the primary differentiating feature between men and women employees. That case twenty four years ago showed how the quid pro quo for high salary, high status jobs is working very long hours. Generally men can give more time to paid work than women, both because they are often exempt from domestic responsibilities, and because their time is often made available by women’s unpaid work. Time is a precious resource which is recognized in the recently coined phrase ‘time poor.’

Men can only spend more time at work if they do less domestic work at home, and as their pay increases so does their exemption from the domestic sphere. My research, like others, showed that as job level and income bracket go up, so did the hours, thereby making that step to the top harder for women with families. Indeed in my research senior women were three times more likely to be childless than men (Women’s Work Men’s Cultures Ch 5)

Arlie Hochschild’s classic study of a US company, The Time Bind, shows clearly how time is used in a competitive way among aspiring managers. A senior executive was quoted as saying:

“Time has a way of sorting people out in this company. A lot of people who don’t make it to the top work long hours. But all the people I know who do make it work long hours. By the time people get to within three or four levels of the Management Committee, they’re all very good, or else they wouldn’t be there. So from that point on what counts is work and commitment.^”

Senior managers may put in more hours but they also need help to organize their lives and a partner at home is invaluable. Women and men are renegotiating their roles with regard to work and home. Organizations are a part of that. Their employees’ family situation is no longer something that companies can ignore or pretend does not exist. Working mothers will have a real work–life balance when their husbands/partners do half the total housework and childcare and women are paid on a par with men. The best advice to give ambitious women is to choose their partner carefully.

Young women are entering the world of work and have high expectations for their careers and how they share family responsibilities with their partners. Relations between men and women, spouses and partners may have changed a lot over the past twenty years but while workplaces expect excessively long hours – regardless of where they are worked – and men continue to expect women to take on the majority of the ‘other side of life’ it is mostly women who will continue to burn out or drop out.