Category: D&I

Hold the line – a message for the Inclusivity Warriors on their knees

~ Phil Bartlett ~ 1 Comment

There are people you meet by involving yourself in D&I whom you wouldn’t necessarily meet otherwise. Interesting people (almost without exception): passionate, thoughtful.  Often kind and generous with their input, advice and time. People who are determined and resourceful, strong and inspiring.

Most of them do it in their spare time. I say “spare”. They do it in their own time. On top of the day job.

But when I’ve spoken to some of those same people recently, I’ve noticed that there are other adjectives that I could use which I hadn’t seen before.

Dejected.

Disillusioned.

Exhausted.

“It feels like I’m getting nowhere”

“I’m just so tired of having the same conversation over and over”

“I can’t do this on my own”

“I’m not sure any of this is making any difference”

I know how they feel. Because I’ve felt the same recently as well. Too many to-do-lists where the urgent pushes the important to the bottom. Too many Too many conversations where people are agreeing because they feel they have to, not because they actually, truly believe what I’m saying. Too little actually changing.

In a twisted way I think it might have been easier before #MeToo, when lazy sexism (or any -ism you care to mention) just got blurted out by thoughtless idiots and was there, right in the open, to be challenged and argued. But only the most aggressive provocateur or mindless bigot (or arrogant, power-crazed sociopath like you-know-who) would blurt it out now. And as a life rule I try to make a point of avoiding people like that.

And now I’m constantly wondering if I’m having a conversation with someone who gets where I’m coming from, or someone who knows they have to pretend to.

There are tell-tale signs of course. Any mention that their organisation is fulfilling all legal requirements, or that they’re “looking into D&I really carefully”. Anyone who talks about the ‘unconscious bias training’ that everyone had to do… as though understanding bias actually changes anything…

If you haven’t seen the amazing “Diverseish” work done by some of my colleagues at AMVBBDO for #Valuable500 then check it out below – it’s a demonstration of the conversations across D&I that we’re having all the time…

And we’re all impatient. For others to see the world the way we see the world. When you have conviction in what you’re doing it’s incredibly difficult to see the other person’s world – it’s like having to explain to someone why you believe the grass is green or the sky is blue. You run out of words. Out of energy.

So what words do I have for those people who feel like they’re fighting a losing battle. Good people feeling isolated and small, confidence rocked, idealism shot to shit?

I say this…

Hold the line.

Hold the line and don’t take a single step back.  And know that I am here, alongside you. Arms locked, standing strong. We are all locked together, across geographies and oceans, and our strength comes from one another because in spirit we are as one.

Don’t doubt for a single second that you are making a difference, and even if you have to change the world one person at a time then every single second to that end will be a second well spent.

Listen, I know nothing will change overnight, but believe me, it’s changing. And we’re on the right side of that change, right now.

No Smoking

~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

This is the time of year when dusty decorations are being eagerly extricated from a cupboard, and suddenly tinsel and sleigh bells take their short-lived but disproportionate place in all our lives.

It’s also the time when the season of office parties deliberately blur the line between work and leisure, with games and organised fun and the drinking that goes with it can blur judgement and dissolve inhibitions. It’s the inhibitions bit that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

When I was younger I worked somewhere where there was a senior man who was… you know… a bit ‘handsy’. The young women in the office brushed it off, and just made sure they didn’t find themselves passing on the stairs at the office party or (God forbid) sharing a taxi with him.

There were always stories about someone who’d seen something or spoken to someone, and you know, there’s no smoke without fire, right? But what could I do? He was much more senior than me and it seemed like ‘the girls’ were handling it. We even joked about it a bit at the time.

We don’t joke about it now.

Now, when I meet with people I worked with back then, we feel embarrassed – guilty even – that we didn’t speak up, challenge, DO something. 

Because we all left eventually and went our separate ways, but I’m damn sure this guy carried on doing exactly the same thing for years and years and years. God knows how many young women who added a #MeToo to their social feed a couple of years back, as a small fuck you to the man that made them feel uncomfortable and unsafe at work.

Today it would all be different. In today’s world he probably wouldn’t dare do it in the first place, but if he did then the young women involved would (I hope) feel more empowered to speak up.

And I know that I would stand up to him too – forget the seniority, you’re out of line and I’m not going to stand by and pretend the talk is just talk. Because you can get smoke without fire, but not this much smoke.

I can’t beat myself up for not doing then what I’d do now. I wasn’t the man then that I am today, and I think if I met my younger self I’d probably think he was a bit of a dickhead for various reasons that have nothing to do with this. But he didn’t know what I know.

What I can do is encourage you not to ignore that tell tale whiff of smoke in the air – in a meeting room, a lift, a conversation. Because if there is just a little smoke, then maybe you should break the glass and press the red button just in case.

Better a false alarm than someone getting burnt.

Checking my privilege

~ Phil Bartlett ~ 4 Comments

I am The Man. By that I don’t mean that I am totally ace in every way, because I’m totally not. I’m not going for a “You’re the man!” vibe. Rather, I am The Man as in “stick it to The Man”. Because on the face of it, I am the classic authority figure, crossing pretty much every box on a diversity list. 

Male, white, straight, middle-aged, middle-class, able-bodied, cisgender, neurotypical. Hell, I’m even privately educated. I’ve got a few mental health bits and bobs I’m bumbling through (more of that in a post in due course, methinks!) but on face value I am the establishment; an embodiment of The Patriarchy.

I am “THE MAN”.

Each one of those has got me some kind of advantage, in some way, big or small, that I didn’t earn in any way. All of it was just handed to me by nature or nurture. All of it is a privilege in some way.

I’ve always been aware of that privilege to a degree, but it’s not until I’ve found myself in more and more conversations around different areas of diversity that it’s been clear that I’m pretty much always in the majority rather than the minority. And on the whole it’s not the majority who get beaten down or overlooked or oppressed.

In Grayson Perry’s book “The Descent of Man” (read it, it’s good) he calls it “Default Man” – the ‘norm’ around which the world is forced to adapt.

That’s what privilege does for you. All of which sometimes makes for some interesting introspection. When you’re THE MAN, you’re the bloody problem – can you be part of the solution too…?

On top of that, there’s an interesting nuance to show that even if you don’t cross all the boxes, there might still be privilege, because it’s fluid and relative, as demonstrated by a story a good friend told me recently of his own experience.

He’s a highly intelligent and highly educated man who happens to be gay and decided to get involved in his work Pride event. At the first meeting, and for the first time in his life, he was faced with the idea that actually being a middle-class, white, gay man is a bloody breeze when you don’t have to layer on racial stereotypes or cultural expectations, or being transgender, or being disabled.

Suddenly “just being a gay man without anything else to worry about” was a privilege in itself: a new perspective, and one that was both surprising and humbling.

Cards designed by Fabiola Lara https://www.instagram.com/fabiolitadraws

Now, I’m hyper-aware of my privilege, across all the parameters outlined and probably a few more too. But rather than let it hold me back and be a reason not to have a point of view, I think it drives me on. Some of the advantages I’ve had have, in some way, got me to where I am today, with a point of view and a social conscience, outwardly confident, usually erudite (if a little verbose) and, now in my life and career, with something to say.

And so I believe I’ve got a responsibility – a duty even – to stand up and speak up. Because if I can’t speak up, with all the privilege I benefit from, then who can?

All any of us can do is be aware of our own privilege, and be respectful of the advantage that gives us. And, whatever privilege you have, use it for good if you can. 

Because from someone else’s perspective, there’s a good chance that you really are the lucky one.