International Women’s Day 2022 #BreakTheBias
Each year on 8th March, we celebrate International Women’s Day.
It’s a wonderfully global event that I relish marking in some way. Each year there’s a theme and the theme for 2022 is #BreakTheBias, referring, of course, to gender bias.
This year, because I love to get involved with things and push myself, I did something I’ve not done before. I held an online event for International Women’s Day.
So, on 8th March and in conjunction with Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club, I delivered a presentation on how gender bias shows up in gender-based violence and inequalities in education.
The people who came along on the night were brilliant and engaged. And I was buzzing throughout.
I love talking about this stuff because different people have different views and I spent a lot of time discussing gender bias with people in the build up to International Women’s Day as well as on the actual day. It’s helped me to identify where my gender biases and blindspots are too. Because, let’s face it, we all have them!
In the weeks building up to this, I attended a webinar for professionals supporting women who are seeking mental health support after experiencing trauma. I had seen it on eventbrite and the summary made it sound really beneficial. Truth be told, I was excited about it. I am all too familiar with the impact that abuse and other forms of trauma can have on people. I am also a bit of a sponge when it comes to things that can help myself or my clients! When telling my partner about it, I acknowledged that the techniques which help women are likely to also benefit men and people outside of the gender binary. So, I excitedly waited. A bit like a child when they know something good is just a couple of days away.
On the day, I had an accountability call with a group of local business owners. I was late leaving that but soon was logged on to this webinar for supporting women seeking mental health support after trauma.
Oh how quickly my excitement vanished!
I had missed the beginning so I was playing a little bit of catch up. Still. I don’t think anything in the first 10 minutes would have made the crushing disappointment any easier.
Someone referred to a trans woman as a man.
When I called them out on this, another person piped up in the first’s defense.
Apparently I had found myself surrounded by transphobi…oh, sorry, gender critical feminists.
I was baffled and disgusted.
Leaving quite quickly, I couldn’t understand why these women (yes, it was all women) were so comfortable being open about their views in this webinar. I really couldn’t. I see people saying this kind of thing on social media but they normally get countered. In this webinar, no one else was challenging them.
Whatever someone’s personal beliefs, if they are mental health professionals of any description and are working with women who have experienced trauma, they should be approaching each client with acceptance. This whole “gender critical feminism” has no place, in my honest opinion, in healing spaces.
So I Googled the event organiser - she has a doctorate in pyschology eye-roll. And, she’s prolific with sharing her awful gender critical, trans-exclusionary sentiments.
I think I need to be doing better due diligence before I join events in the future!
Earlier this year, I saw a documentary which remarked on how the UK regards and treats trans people, but particularly trans women, these days is similar to historic treatment of gays in the UK back in the 70’s and 80’s.
That really hurt.
And it made it ever clearer to me that the whole of the LGBTQ+ community needs to support and celebrate trans women in all their different shapes, sizes and colours. Our demands for equality and our International Women’s Day efforts are severely lacking if they do not include all trans men and trans women.
So here’s a shout out to all the wonderful women out there!
Cis or trans. Able bodied or disabled. White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, or Native American. Straight, lesbian, bisexual or other m-spec identity. Young or old.
If you would like to catch the replay of my #BreakTheBias talk, I’ll include it below.
Master your emotions with Carole
