Make Class Yet Another Protected Characteristic? We Should Scrap the Concept Entirely
The last thing we need is more protected characteristics, says Toby in the Telegraph. Yes, there should be more white working-class men in the creative industries. But we should achieve that with more meritocracy, not less. Here’s how he begins.
Scarcely a day passes without someone making the case for another ‘protected characteristic’. It’s become a staple of the grievance-industrial complex – an excuse to flood the workplace with even more pointless diversity training.
The latest suggestion is that we make ‘class’ a protected characteristic, with Nazir Afzal, the Chancellor of Manchester University, arguing it’s the best way to close the “class gap” in the arts. He has co-authored a report that claims socio-economic discrimination is a major obstacle to working-class people securing jobs in the creative industries. It is titled ‘The Class Ceiling’ – geddit?
No doubt there’s some truth to this. As Ricky Gervais has pointed out, classism is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. But is adding class status to the ever-expanding list of protected characteristics really the best way to address this? At the last count there were nine in the Equality Act 2010, seven in the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 and five in the Sentencing Act 2020.
As I pointed out in a debate in the House of Lords about ‘hate crime’ a couple of weeks ago, if we continue in this direction we will eventually reach a point where every conceivable characteristic is protected. But if all are granted this special status, then it will become pointless. We will, in effect, be back where we started before the first protected characteristic – ‘race’ – was added to the statute book in 1965. Can’t we save ourselves a lot of time and effort by short-circuiting this process and scrapping them all now?
Take the problem identified by Afzal. Surely, the reason working-class people – and let’s speak plainly and admit the demographic we’re really talking about are white working class males – struggle to get jobs in the arts (or any other profession) is because the applicants with protected characteristics are ahead of them in the queue? The solution, then, is not to make ‘class’ a protected characteristic – which would then leave middle class white males at the back of the queue – but to make hiring decisions based on merit and nothing but merit. More meritocracy is the answer, not granting special privileges to yet another supposed victim group.
Worth reading in full.
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I thought antipathy to red hair was the last socially acceptable prejudice
Unfortunately anti-Semitism is not only socially acceptable but seems to be compulsory in parts of society.
Yes abolish the lot though I suspect the white working class men I spend time talking to are quite happy being builders and playing golf and wouldn’t want to spend time working with people in the “creative industries”.
There’s a reason why you don’t see many women digging up the roads or emptying the bins too.
You mean how some jobs are dominated by one gender or the other because people tend to naturally gravitate towards employment positions based on personal preferences and abilities? Like how you never see men working in nursery schools or as doctors’/hospital receptionists? Imagine that.🤯
If everyone is covered by their own protected characteristics then no-one is covered, or at least to any practical level.
If everyone must win prizes then the value of each prize approaches zero.
Treat people as individuals- how novel! It will never catch on!
Scrap the lot but until that happens how about white older men who have never been charged nor accused of tax fraud. Especially if surname Smith.
Is ‘socio-economic discrimination’ really a major obstacle to working-class people ‘securing jobs in the creative industries?’
In my experience ‘working class people’ don’t generally pursue jobs in the creative industries (other than in backyard bands which may or may (usually) not get lucky).
The main reason they don’t do this is because they don’t generally go to college to do artsy stuff (mainly because that’s what wan*ers do), and they would actually prefer to enter real jobs in local industry.
Rather than protecting the working-class’ immutable or social classification characteristics, maybe the focus should be on protecting their local job opportunities – ie the jobs which the creative industry wan*ers don’t do (but want them done, just not here – because wan*ers are appalled by anything so distasteful as a carbon footprint).
‘Working class’ – the clues in the name.
100%
There should be no protected characteristics at all.
my parents went to charity schools,left to work in factories at 14, my father went into the army at 19 to fight in WW2
he and my mother married when he was 30, he was a lorry driver, she a factory worker, they lived in rented accommodation. So far so working class, they had myself and my. brother, we had bus tokens and school meals, .
So working class.
My father worked hard made manager and was able to buy with a mortgage a small house. I went on to work my way up the ladder to become a board director on a Ftse 100 company, and all that came with it. I sent my son to Boarding school.
What class am I? do you stay the same regardless?
”I went on to work my way up the ladder to become a board director on a Ftse 100 company..”
It’s not the first time you’ve mentioned this point but I’ve never seen you chime in with your views when the topic of the alleged ‘feminization of society’ arises. Or that women supposedly make crap leaders and have only achieved their positions because they’re ‘DEI hires’. You should be able to speak from personal experience that this is not automatically the case, and yet you choose to keep your head down. In fact, your silence speaks volumes, along with all the other women on here.
Always easier to take the path of least resistance, stay quiet and ingratiate yourself with the ‘Boys’ Club’ whilst throwing your fellow females under the bus, isn’t it? That’ll be why I always fly solo and no woman has ever had my back on here, not once. Because moral cowardice/conformity is not how I roll and gaining approval from those who make up the majority is not what motivates me to post.
…but some animals are more equal than others.