It’s like mission creep on steroids, or to put it another way, it’s like doing the opposite of your mission while pretending to be still doing the mission. It’s flashing a surface version of the existing mission while in reality throwing the mission out of a window at the top of the Burj Khalifa.

The WI’s new incloosion policy is what I mean.

I wonder who came up with it, and forced it on the entire organization. I wonder how much dissent and fury there was. I wonder how many women left. I wonder why the people who did this thought it was necessary. I wonder why guilt and shame didn’t stop them.

Why have a women’s institute at all if you’re going to turn it into a people’s institute? Why go on calling it a women’s institute when you’ve issued a policy statement saying it isn’t? Why try to have it both ways? Why go on calling it the WI when it isn’t for W any more?

Revisiting the EDI Policy…

The WI was founded on democratic ideals over 100 years ago and this commitment
to equality is still central to our ethos today. The WI – the UK’s largest women’s
membership organisation – is an inclusive, welcoming, supportive and progressive
organisation for all women who live as women, including transgender women.

First sentence. Democratic ideals are not the same thing as commitment to equality. Being founded on democratic ideals isn’t the same thing as having a commitment to equality. Policy statements should be clear and precise, not woolly and obscure.

But above all I want to know what they mean by “live as women.” It’s irritating me, not knowing. I for one don’t “live as a woman” so I guess I wouldn’t be eligible for the WI. I am a woman, but apparently that’s not good enough?

But since I don’t know what “live as a woman” means I guess I could be wrong; I guess it’s possible that I do live as woman without knowing it.

I wonder if it means checkable externals? A list of things like what you wear, how you talk, how you spend your time? Or does it mean you have announced that you are a woman, and bullied a minimum of twenty people into saying yes indeed you are a woman?

I don’t know. I don’t know what the WI means. I wonder if the WI knows what it means.