One trend acts as a warning to HR, and diversity, equity and inclusion (EDI) work: Democrats have become infected by a way of thinking that judges actions or arguments not by their content but by the identity of those engaging in them. Who you are matters more than what you say.
In a co-written Guardian article focusing on the US election, pollster Deborah Mattinson quoted one US interviewee as saying that Democrats had “lost touch with our priorities”, and that “any voter who disagreed was ‘a bad person’”.
Read more: HR responds: Does DEI need to be reset?
The world is, according to this way of thinking, simplistically divided into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’. There is no room for nuance or progress. We must be careful that our diversity and inclusion work is not similarly distorted into binary positions, if we don’t want to suffer the same kind of backlash as the Democrats.
The evidence in my organisation's recent report, Flying Flags and Ticking Boxes: What went wrong with EDI and how leaders can fix it, points to employers wanting the EDI space to be vacated by politics. Diversity should not be pursued in ways that divide staff from their colleagues.
Polls show that men were 10% more likely to vote Republican. Former UK government advisor Richard Reeves, who lives and works in the US, argued this week that this gap was a reaction against “being constantly told that you don't have problems; you are the problem: mansplaining, patriarchy, toxic masculinity". He stated that male Republican voters were pro gender equality but against “the idea of being told that they're at fault … [and] that their very identity is somehow problematic”.
How many times at work have you heard someone say: “I am just a straight white bloke…” before bashfully undermining their right to say anything about sexism or gay rights?
I was on an interview panel the other day and someone who was generalising, only half in jest, said: “Blokes have had their day, really.” Can positive change come from 'the oppressed' being sanctified as having greater insight because of their lived experience – their subjective view?
Read more: D&I Clinic: Ask all the right questions
We need to unite staff in tackling all forms of discrimination (including sexism, homophobia, racism) together, instead of excluding those who don’t tow the ’right’ EDI line, or (at best) calling those people allies.
Reeves’ view on the dynamic at play in the US reminded me of a comment I heard while leading a training session for blue light service professionals. One participant shared that a colleague had transitioned. The trans person wrote an email to all staff that said: “Not to worry if you misgender me, just apologise and we can move on.”
It was clear from what people in the room said that, while staff were fully prepared to negotiate their way through this new situation, they objected to being told that they had to use certain language in a certain way, and to the implication that if they didn’t, they were ‘wrong’ and needed to apologise. People resist imposition and forced conformity, not the outcome.
Read more: What’s driving DEI pushback, and how can we get it right?
If you frame your approach to diversity or inclusion by stigmatising other people’s language, actions or views, they will push back. Instead, we need to engage the widest range of our colleagues of all views, to create change. Solidarity, rather than identity, will make the best progress.
Culturally, in the UK, when we argued, we used to say: “I think I am right. And I think you’re wrong.” Now, people say: “I think I am right. And you’re a bigot.”
If EDI is to be embraced by all, we have to find common cause in practical collaborations to remove the blocks to talent and provide opportunity, which are the core objectives of EDI. If we continue to call people who don’t agree with us (or vote our way) racist, sexist or discriminatory in some other way – effectively pointing and punishing to make ourselves feel good – we’ll end up with the equivalent of a Trump victory at work.
Simon Fanshawe is a partner of the consultancy Diversity by Design
