Equality, Diversity, Judges and an Angry Academic
So, Lord Sumption. That went well then. I don’t think I have been quite so angry about remarks made by a Supreme Court judge, well, ever. Angry on a personal level because when he speaks about women and our lifestyle choices he is also speaking partly about me; angry on a professional level as a teacher because his comments potentially do a huge amount of damage and can have a profound impact on those young women who might now think that a career in law is not for them; angry on a professional level as a researcher because his comments are simply wrong, misguided at best, misogynistic crap actually popped into my head first.
If you don’t know what I am talking about take a look at the Evening Standard from Monday which reported on an interview with Lord Sumption in which he suggested that a ‘Rush for gender equality with top judges ‘could have appalling consequences for justice’’
There are also sorts of levels of angry here and I have tried over the last few days to draft something measured and thought through to post here. I’ve failed. I’m too angry. So, let’s just go with that, let’s forget measured and thought through for a minute. Here’s how I feel a few days on from first reading the comments. This isn’t about my research on women judges, this isn’t about me as an academic, this is just about me as a woman who routinely stands in front of lots of young women who have dreams and ambitions to change the world. Too right I’m not bloody measured.
1. Lord Sumption is talking partly about me, about women all over the country. He talks of appalling consequences if we rush gender equality. What are they exactly? That the judiciary might take account of a more diverse set of viewpoints? That the status quo won’t be upheld? That him and his friends will no longer be first in line for life’s advantages? That there’s no-one left at home to iron his shirts? Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I have no idea if Lord Sumption irons his own shirts or not but seeing as he sees fit to speak about my life and the life of all women without knowing anything about it maybe I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that he doesn’t.
2. Lifestyle choices… What does that even mean?
3. I would have thought that the good sense to refuse to work yourself to death and try and create some kind of work life balance is something that shows that you are a fairly sensible, rounded and balanced human being. I would say that qualifies rather than disqualifies you from joining the judiciary. Yet Lord Sumption seems to think that women’s refusal to tolerate the long hours is a lifestyle choice and one that makes us unfit for the top job.
4. Equality will happen naturally? I expect more from a historian! Women got the vote naturally did they? There wasn’t anything about a suffragette movement, no incident with the King’s horse… No? And what about poor Miss Bebb? Of course it wasn’t her fight that led to women being allowed to become solicitors, no of course not. The Law Society just decided naturally one day to let us in? Oh please.
5. If this is what Lord Sumption thinks about gender – what about diversity more generally? I don’t think I want to know, I think I’d throw things
6. Lord Sumption is wrong. He doesn’t think there is an old boys network, he thinks the Bar is meritocratic and he seems to think that the best people get the top jobs (thus implying that women are not the best people). Well I guess we tend not to see the wood for the trees. For anyone not immersed in that world it is hard to see how the Bar is anything other than an old boys network. It is hard to see how it can possibly be meritocratic and it is clear that it is not the best legal minds that get the top jobs but rather the best connected, the ones able to put themselves forward, the ones best able to take advantage of privilege and opportunity, not the best legal minds, not the people who would be best at the job…
7. I could launch into a long paragraph about what merit means but I’ll save that for another day. Let’s just say that having been the most highly paid QC is not necessarily something I would look for when selecting a judge.
8. Lord Sumption makes a lot of assumption and perhaps the most problematic is that senior judges should come from the Bar. The Bar is elitist, it’s London centric, it’s almost impossible to get into if you’re a black kid from a council estate who is funnelled into a local comprehensive school and gets a place at the local university. But it’s ok, candidates at all levels are selected on merit.
9. Lord Sumption doesn’t understand power and privilege. He doesn’t understand how society works. He doesn’t understand how merit doesn’t work if merit is defined by people like him with all the privilege in the world.
10. But here’s what really breaks my heart: I stood in front of a class full of first year law students today. Most of them non-white, most of them female and all of them with dreams and ambitions to change the world. None of them have had an easy ride to get to University, none of them have ever experienced the kind of privilege that is normal for Lord Sumption. What do I say to them? How do I keep their dreams alive? How can I possibly show them that they are as good and sometimes better than the so called elite? How do I convince them that they can change the world, that their backgrounds, who they are right now, is a huge part of what qualifies them to go and change the world? How do I do that when a Supreme Court Judge, through one stupid interview, tells them that they don’t belong in that world.
So yes, I’m angry but I should probably get back to my ironing.
Taking a look at a glass closet
I have just finished John Browne’s ‘The Glass Closet – Why coming out is good for business‘ and I am irritated. I don’t like the book. I am irritated by it and I am irritated that it irritates me and at the same time I can’t quite pin down why I am so irritated.
So what’s it all about. John Browne resigned from BP where he was Chief Exec in 2007 because he was about to be outed by the press. The book is about his story and about why gay employees should do what he didn’t – come out; and why business should encourage and embrace diversity.
I feel like I’m missing something. And maybe I am. I don’t work in business. I’m also a fair bit younger than Lord Browne and have made any decisions about coming out or being out in a different context. I’m also a woman. I get that for some people coming out is a really difficult and painful journey/experience and it certainly seems to have been that way for John Browne. The fact that he didn’t come out on his own terms but was outed compounds that pain. I agree that people should be able to come out on their own terms (sort of anyway). I agree with quite a lot he says in the book actually. Hm. Still irritated.
So, here’s the thing, well two things. I don’t think anyone should have to come out of any closet. The whole idea of coming out suggests that heterosexuality is the norm and we need to announce that we are not normal. How many straight people come out? When straight people feel the need to come out as straight I’ll happily announce my sexuality right along with them. Until then, I’m just me. But even if we think people should come out then I don’t give a toss as to whether that’s good for business. In fact, saying ‘come on you gay lot, get your backsides out of that closet of yours, business needs a bit of a boost and needs to be able to get the most out of you’ or ‘come on gay people, your leaving too much of what you should be committing to your employer in the closet, get out of there’ makes we want to punch something.
Lord Browne addresses his audience well and tells his story well. I am assuming that his intended audience is other business leaders and he speaks their language and maybe it will make a difference and create more welcoming environment. Maybe. But I wonder how many gay and lesbian young people, still in education or emabarking on their business career, read his book and reconise themselves in the stories. The stories he tells, including his own, start from an incredibly privileged position which brings with it its own set of problems but mostly is just, well, privileged. I think I am irritated by the privilege and the lack of recognition for other stories. It seems that if you want a business career now it might be ok to be gay but it porbalby still isn’t ok to be from inner city Bradford with a strong West Yorkshire accent. I’m not sure that helps much, I am not sure business is really anywhere near to really valuing diversity – just privileged diversity.
I want to be able to celebrate this book, to say: read it, listen to the message, diversity is important, gay people should be able to come out (oh hang on, that’s it in’t it, should be able to – not should) and if you create an atmosphere where difference is valued, people will be happier but I can’t quite bring myself to say that. I know I should like it more than I do. I know I should admire John Browne for telling the story and trying to drive change; I know that maybe business can be a real driver for change but I am struggling to get past the feeling that it’s always the privileged that get to tell the story, define it and set the agenda. While we are distracted by a former BP Chief Exec, what storeis are we not hearing? Let’s not allow this book to be the only story we hear about coming out in business or at all, let’s listen, let’s talk and let’s come out if we want to – for us, not for business!
Reviewing ‘Straight Expectations’ by Julie Bindel
Curled up in our summerhouse on a giant beanbag in middle class sort of suburbia not a million miles away from Hebden Bridge I have just finished reading Julie Bindel’s new book ‘Straight Expectations’. Before I had finished the book Professor Chris Ashford published his review of the text on his blog. Initially I thought I didn’t really have anything to add to his thoughts. I agree with everything he says in that post so blogging a review repeating what he has already said seemed pointless. However, having finished the book now, I think I do have something to say.
Bindel’s book was on my list to read urgently (I have various lists!) for a number of reasons. I contributed to one of her surveys and was interested to see the results of that survey, I am strangely fascinated by identity; often disagree profoundly with Bindel and was slightly irritated by the subtitle ‘What Does it Mean to be Gay Today’ because surely that depends on a whole host of factors and I also thought the book might help me also develop my own research on LGBTQ legal academics.
Let me start by saying that I think you should read the book. It is an amazingly honest and open book and we need more of those. Ashford is right in calling it a very personal book and it is a book that certainly made me reflect, think, laugh cry, get angry and think a bit more. It’s a few hours since I finished the book and I can’t shake off the feeling that, as a lesbian, I must be such a disappointment to Bindel. But let me try and do this in some kind of order.
One of Bindel’s key arguments is that the campaign for equality and in particular marriage equality as well as the right to ‘acquire’ (her words) children is actually inherently conservative. I don’t really disagree with her. I have never been at all interested in marriage, gay or straight. I don’t particularly like weddings, I don’t get the point, the significance or why anyone would want to get married – actually particularly women. However, what I do get is that it is really really important to some people and that these people are not being screwed by the patriarchy, they don’t need liberating, they have thought about it and the implications and made the decision to get married. That of course doesn’t always hold true and I remain deeply suspicious of the institution of marriage but I just don’t believe that everyone entering into wedded bliss has been brainwashed into supporting the patriarchy.
It may surprise some people that the sections in Bindel’s book about children and the increasing trend amongst gay men and lesbians to have children irritated me the most. I don’t like kids. There are very few children I tolerate, even fewer that I like. I have friends with children and in spite of the joy that their offspring clearly bring them, I fail to see why anyone would want to put themselves through all of that. Quite frankly I find having cats stressful enough, I don’t have a biological clock (and strongly suspect it’s a societal clock rather than a biological one anyway), I have no maternal instincts… and even if I did I am not sure I understand this urge to have biologically related children. There are so many kids out there who would benefit from a loving stable home – why not look at adoption/fostering etc, particularly now the legal barriers have been removed (I do agree with Bindel here though that the law is way ahead of societal attitudes here). So, so far I have agreed with the narrative in the book – so why the irritation. Well, I feel deeply uncomfortable about making claims about what is and isn’t right for people. Personally I can’t really think of anything worse in my life than pregnancy and having a sprog but I have also seen a lot of people who have genuinely blossomed and come alive once they had children. Why criticise that? Why suggest that if they are gay or lesbian and have the desire to have children of their own, they are somehow letting the side down by wanting to become just like ‘them’ (meaning straight folk). I also felt a little uneasy about the distinction made (implicitly) between lesbians who had kids from straight relationships which they had left (good lesbian) and lesbians who decide to have children as single lesbians or in lesbian couples (bad or at least not so good lesbian). I just do not think that Bindel, me or indeed anyone else are in a position to tell people what they should or shouldn’t want from their lives, be that babies or marriage
This brings me to the points she makes about marriage and marriage equality. I was genuinely excited about the change in the law that allows same-sex couples to marry. Why? Because I believe in equality. Do I think it takes the gay rights agenda any further forward – well no not really. Gay culture is about much much more and just because we have achieved equal rights does not mean the fight is over. There is a long ling way to go and Bindel captures this well. I am not sure I agree with her that we shouldn’t have bothered with marriage rights but should have always worked to overthrow the patriarchy though – maybe the patriarchy can still be dismantled! But the thing is, I have never been particularly activist or political. I have never been radical in that sense. I have never dressed ‘lesbian’ (whatever that means), I have always just been me and that me has never had a particularly lesbian identity. My sexual orientation has never been a big deal. I have no coming out story, at some point in my life I started having sex with women that was that, then I fell in love with one, that didn’t work out, then I fell in love with another. No dramas, no big political statement, no big personal statement. Did I choose to be a lesbian or was I born this way (another key debate Bindel picks up on). I don’t know, I don’t care, I don’t see why we should get so hung up about this. I understand the arguments Bindel makes here but I don’t find them that interesting and do not think they help us further. I am who I am and I have always been open about my personal life but I have never made that personal political in the sense that Bindel clearly has. Part of me admires her for that.
So I said towards the beginning of this post that I felt Bindel would surely be disappointed in me as a lesbian. I am not an activist, I am not radical, I do not speak out against the patriarchy all that much, my life can hardly be described as alternative. I am not even hippy enough to feel comfortable in Hebden Bridge, I don’t often go to gay/lesbian events and the last Pride I went to was a few years ago in Halifax. I don’t wear cocktail dresses or high heels but I also don’t express my identity as a lesbian through what I wear. I live in a pretty middle class area in domestic bliss… The only two things that might make me an acceptable lesbian in Bindel’s eyes is that I am suspicious of the institution of marriage and that I don’t want kids. But I guess to Bindel I am still letting the side down, I am still striving to be too much like ‘them’ and am still too much of a respectable face of lesbianism.
Or am I? I say I’m just me but that just being me isn’t always easy. I challenge my students to think differently, to challenge the patriarchy, to accept me for me as a professional, as a woman and as a lesbian. Sometimes what I say and do in the classroom is radical. Sometimes what my friends with children do is radical, sometimes being just like them is radical… Bindel’ hints at some of this and I welcomed that acknowledgement even though she is quite dismissive of it in the end. So, I am aware that I am now just rambling – you should read Bindel’s book, it’s thought provoking and it gives a snapshot of what it means to be gay for some of us today – actually I don’t mean ‘us’ here because even though I responded to her survey and even though there are some sections with which I absolutely agree, I just don’t see myself in the book, I don’t fit and that is bothering me.
My Conversations 