“Diversity” and “inclusivity”


 Posted on August 15th, 2020
 by Patrick – No comments. The post is really that bad, huh?

Part of my regular morning routine includes scanning some of the dailies to see what’s been happening while I’ve been asleep. I tend to focus on news produced internationally because not only is local (i.e. Canadian) news irretrievably biased, it’s also woefully myopic. If I relied on them exclusively to tell me what’s happening around the world I’d be a very dull boy indeed.

But occasionally there’s an article, like the one in today’s Toronto Star, that inadvertently provides enough entertainment value to be worth a read.

Here we’re introduced to the work of the Founders Fund (not to be confused with the Founders Fund), a business incubator “by women, for women”.

At the outset it’s important to note that I take absolutely no issue with ladies supporting each other to build business. In fact, I think it’s great!

It sucks that a similar men-for-men organization would be screamed out of existence, this despite the fact that the growing inequality gap means that nearly as many men might also be helped out of increasingly abject poverty, not to mention increasing obscurity, but I don’t want to dwell on that.

What struck me as funny is the liberal use of words like “diversity” and “inclusivity” in the literature of the organization.

Really? Overtly excluding roughly half of the earth’s population is “diverse” and “inclusive”? I must be using the old, non-woke dictionary here.

I had to chuckle when I read that the fund (which keeps 50% of its members’ fees), supports “women-identifying entrepreneurs”. So it’s not just biological women who can apply for funding, it can also be any dude who’s willing to throw on a dress and call themselves a lady.

A couple of ladies from the now-banned show Little Britain.

Honestly, though, that sounds pretty damn sexist.

Why would women need to wear dresses and even “act like a lady” to be considered women? I would expect that any guy walking into the Founders Fund offices claiming to be a woman, no matter how “cisnormative” and stereotypically masculine they may seem, would be considered for funding. Surely no one else, including any medical professional, has the right to override one’s self-identification.

It’s a funny corner this exclusively “inclusive” mindset has painted itself into.

The Star article goes over some of the types of businesses that are being supported by the Fund, such as Alder Apparel, which has chosen to focus on the apparently dismal dearth of “functional and fashionable women’s outdoor clothing”. A quick Google search seems to suggest otherwise but I’ll be the first to admit that the subjective world of fashion mostly escapes me so I could definitely be wrong there.

Although a number of prominent images on Alder’s site, not to mention many of those that appear in their extended image galleries, appear to feature traditional “thin, white and athletic” models (an image that Alder claims to be challenging), there’s a handful of differing body types and races on display so, I guess, racist patriarchy smashed?

The Founders Fund has invested in other ventures such as a pricey panic-attack app (which prior to the funding had for some reason somehow excluded “Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities”), athletic hijabs, something called a “a family mealtime experience”, a company that produces “gender-inclusive underwear for people ‘who defy gender norms.'”, and my contextual favourite, a “peer-based program to enhance students’ critical-thinking skills.”

Not mentioned is the fact that both the Fund and Alder, perhaps others, seem to be connected to Shopify, the same Ottawa-headquartered company that provided the building blocks for the government’s contact-tracing app.

I wonder if that “critical-thinking” program will touch on some of these subjects. Oughta be a hoot.

What's on your mind?