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To state 'the bleeding obvious', I am not going to discuss my employment in detail here, so please think before you reply to this. I have an issue at work regarding what is called an equality assessment. Under UK law, changes in working practices or conditions require an equality impact assessment. This is ostensibly a way of seeing whether a change adversely affects a particular group, such as the disabled, married folk, or TLGB (MY turn to choose the order of the initials)
I have been looking at the data supplied, and there is an interesting slant to it. All staff are required to make a declaration on all sorts of aspects, such as ethnicity, religion, disability and sexual orientation. Trans is, of course, included in sexual orientation.
The problem is that while there is no box for 'none of the above', there is one for 'prefer not to say'. Fine so far, but on looking at the new model, it seems that the TLGN element is less that 1% of staff. Sorry, but that is bollocks. So I looked closer, to find that all declarations of 'prefer not to say' have been disregarded. I would guess that a lot of the folk who have ticked PNTS have done so out of an attitude of 'mind your own business', but there will be many who have done so for reasons of safety. I would also guess, knowing my colleagues, that the number who ticked PNTS for MYOB reasons is rather significant.
Now, how do I bring up this imbalance without threatening, exposing or alienating those who still feel the need to hide?
Comments
Asking is biased
Just asking the question of people is biased. Really, in today's climate, or anytime in the last 20 centuries or so, asking someone's sexual orientation is biased. Whenever the thought of putting that question came up, the law you are talking about should have forbidden asking the question! Can't have it both ways.
That was sort of the thought behind the equally ludicrous Don't Ask, Don't Tell law in the US Military. Since it was illegal to serve in the military for a gay person (still is for trans, btw) then equity demanded that the military not be allowed to ask the question.
Here you have the same situation. The law requires that any minority that may be harmed by a policy be protected, but the policy of asking people if they are in a particular minority is, in and of itself, discriminatory and exposes those people to risk of harm. So, that question cannot be asked, by the very law that requires the information that the question would reveal.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Aaaaah!
In one! Thank you, love! That is the exact point I have been fighting over this. You want to protect a group by impaling them in public? I could swear, I really could, about box-ticking and tokenism, but....
I am atually an Equality and Diversity rep, and I have a contact in the LGBT (as she puts it) camp, so have a number of avenues here. I am just looking for some ammo to fire at the sods.
I can only second this
if you answer honestly, you risk a great deal. A person should only come out of the closet on their own timetable.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
just that heading
Well... reading it makes my eyes roll, sort of an involuntary twitch I guess. Bureaucratic box ticking drives me spare. I have no great experience of large organisations in employment terms but dealing with the medical world over a couple of years as my Aunt faded away made me dream at times of machetes and machine guns. climb a level or two above the street and go berko. I imagine any large corporation would be similar. Govt bodies perhaps the primo example.
The only thing that strikes me straight off is that this is seemingly not anonymous and that instantly makes me think potential quiet discrimination. Always depends on the bods involved but then they change don't they. Sure things need to be thought through and accommodations made where nec, but basically it comes down to can they and do they do the job and beyond that....who gives a shit. MYOBloodyB big time.
Kristina
Ahhh, the rock...
Ahhh, the rock and the hard place...
The easiest way to deal with things (other than hiding and pretending it didn't happen) is to approach it from a different angle.
If you want to bring up the imbalance you could find statistics on a LOT of those categories from the general public (not just the one or two you're interested in)... And look at the #s in the survey. Odds are, you'll see that more than one of them are "under-represented" in the company... You could point out one that doesn't apply to you, saying the numbers didn't "sound" right. So you checked against the population... And then when it was wrong you went out and checked others showing that the company has quite a few categories of people that appear to be dramatically under-represented as far as the survey is concerned. And go on in that vein...
BTW - someone with CDO (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) would probably list things as BGLT, which IMO puts the most significant last. :-)
Anne
Give them
ALISON
' both barrels loaded with buckshot.And when they ask Sex? just say "Yes,please", that really gets up their noses.
I just think that they have a damned cheek and it is an invasion of privacy.
ALISON
More ammunition
Erin said "but the policy of asking people if they are in a particular minority is, in and of itself, discriminatory and exposes those people to risk of harm."
That brings into play section 6(3) of the U.K. law called
The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/1661/regulation/6/made
6(3) It is unlawful for an employer, in relation to employment by him at an establishment in Great Britain, to subject to harassment a person whom he employs or who has applied to him for employment.
I'd say you have a case where you can go to 'the boss' and tell him/her that those questions should be either removed or rewritten so as to remove the risk of exposure.
Brute
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
Why are they doing this?
Is it just number crunching by management, so they can say they've ticked their boxes and get the diversity award, or the minister in charge can answer some obscure question in the Commons?
If asked on such a form, I'd stay in stealth or decline to answer. If it comes up on the new Census form, I'll say female and normal.
Angharad
Angharad
Number crunching
It is exactly that, but the effect on all of the varous groups is, by ignoring the PNTS, to inflate the apparent size of other groups. Some of the choices are bizarre: for example, Scientology is included as a 'religion' but other groups, such as pagan or wicca, are left to the 'other' box. I will have a poke at my other rep and see what we can cobbletogether as a response. I will be writing to the big boss to ask why this has been done.
Ang, female and normal? What else could you be? After the delights of the COGIATI thread, perhaps Laika could design the census form.
Census
Just dropped through the door. At first glance, no sexuality questions, but a two-choice 'sex' question rather than a 'gender' one. I know which one I will tick.
I have something to do tonight!