Taking the people with you
No no you’ve got it all wrong, it’s about inclusion. It’s so much more inclusiony this way.
Good Morning Britain viewers have been left furious as the CEO of Oxfam spoke out on why the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are to be banned in the charity’s new foundation scheme.
Oxfam has instructed its staff to use the word ‘parent’ instead of ‘mother’ and ‘father’ as it updates its language guide…
CEO Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah explains why Oxfam’s inclusivity guide has been updated, claiming the changes “create an inclusive environment within the work place.”
But it doesn’t. It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. Is Dr Sriskandarajah aware that lots of people in the work place are themselves mothers or fathers? Does it not occur to him that forbidding mention of them is not inclusive? That it’s especially not inclusive when it’s not a mere oversight but an explicit written instruction?
Oxfam CEO Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, said on Friday (March 17) morning’s episode of GMB: “All foundations need to create an inclusive environment within the work place and that’s what this guide is about. Its not about telling staff what to do or what not to do its a guide.
“We want to make sure we treat people, staff and communities that we work with around the world with kindness and dignity. We have tens of thousands of volunteers and we want to make sure that the language we use is inclusive of all of us, of people with all backgrounds.”
By telling those people of all backgrounds not to mention mothers and fathers. I’m not seeing the kindness and dignity. Not seeing the inclusive of all of us.
You know, he probably doesn’t either. He’s not a purple-haired teenager. He probably doesn’t see kindness or dignity in this either, but The Iron Law of Trans Entitlement has dictated that he has to pretend to. We really need to get this law repealed.
Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah couldn’t answer how much it costs to update the guide. He added: “What we’re learning is if we’re going to end poverty, we need to take people with us. And using inclusive language is an important way of showing dignity and respect to the people.”
But you’re not going to take people with you by carefully erasing the words “mother” and “father” from your language. You’re not going to take people with you by making it an explicit rule that it’s naughty and exclooosionary to mention mothers and fathers. The people you’re trying to take with you are going to get off that train so fast they’ll be a blur.
As an American, I don’t hear much about Oxfam, and my most recent recollection is about their scandal of “sexual misconduct” in Haiti & elsewhere. The coverage I can find now refers to the use of “sex workers” and harm to black and other marginalized persons; archaic words like “woman” are nowhere to be found. Perhaps they were equally inclusive about the people they were exploiting, but I have my doubts. There’s also an article at the Telegraph titled “Oxfam training guide blames ‘privileged white women’ over root causes of sexual violence” (behind a paywall, but available elsewhere) which leads me to think that Oxfam may not actually be so progressive, after all.
So the fact that white women exist (and since they include all white women in ‘privileged’, I refuse to use the word – while they may have some axes of privilege, others are absent) is enough to make aide workers rape women who are not white? Got it.
How in the world could you call it rape when she dresses that way has changed to “I had to rape her, somewhere in the world a white woman is walking around being privileged”.