There aren't many pieces I read that light up a lightbulb in my head. But you've done that about something that had been bothering me about corporate responses to social justice activism that I'd not been able to articulate. Thank you!
I read this article back in June, and it completely blew my mind. Your take is spot-on, and explains so much of what is going on in our culture right now. Everywhere I look, I see woke capitalism. As a civil servant friend pointed out, "it is cheap".
This is excellent. Thank you. I've been looking at and researching this nexus of issues with a view to putting thoughts on paper. Glad I've read this first.
Thank you for this piece, found via Twitter, which crystallized a lot of my thinking. I have subscribed.
Our family has recently joined the charity Anti Slavery International, precisely because it focuses on economic radicalism and long-term practical solutions rather than social radicalism and virtue signalling.
A good example from the campaigning of Anti Slavery International, very much along the lines of your article and its final paragraph: the Premier League having Black Lives Matter on player's shirts and players and managers taking the knee before a match (social radicalism to virtue signal without cost), while doing and saying nothing about the modern day slavery of black workers building the stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar (which would involve difficult economic questions and be messy for individuals within the Premier League and their jobs/status).
A question to Helen: do you celebrate examples where companies do make a real difference? Or do you still think it's cynical branding? I am thinking of Asos, a corporate sponsor of the charity I mention above, who do actually visit factories in their supply chain and switch away if they don't follow guidelines. I also know personally an ex-employee of Mark's and Spencer whose job it was to visit suppliers of their clothing in Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam - unannounced - and check for working conditions etc. Examples such as these are self-serving behaviour by the companies for sure - they have an ethical brand - but they do make a real practical difference as well as being social radicalism/virtue signalling .
This article is fantastic. You succinctly express all the things that usually get me denounced as a "crypto-fascist" "class reductionist" "nazbol" "tankie" etc etc whenever I try to argue them to a well meaning but misguided social radical. We need to get this message out there.
That said, I suspect a lot of the most vocal supporters of this social radicalism already know everything you have argued. The only reason they deny it is because they are, in reality, economic conservatives, and they don't want to be revealed. They are simply not interested in helping poor people, regardless of their colour or gender, because that would be counter to their interests- if anything, wealth appears to be the remaining acceptable form of discrimination.
This is no longer a movement of the left. If it ever was to begin with, it was co-opted long ago.
I wonder if Helen Lewis or anyone here in the comments has read a book called 'The Rebel Sell'. It explains in great detail how anything 'countercultural' ends up driving capitalism itself.
It's interesting that some of these points are similar to those which Jordan Peterson has been raising for a number of years. I don't follow your writing closely enough to know if this is a sudden pivot or if you've gradually softened your stance on these radical agendas.
I've been a reader of this journalist for most of her career. There's no "pivot" or "softening" here rather an analysis of a purported, but bogus, pivot in society. While Mr Peterson objects to the pivot itself, Ms Lewis objects to its superficiality. These are quite different things.
Well remembering some of the views she so confidently posed to Peterson, this piece suggests she has rethought some those convictions. I don't think Peterson opposes the pivot but what he sees as the superficiality of it. Just like Wesley Yang, his politics are liberal. He just has different views about how we can achieve a more equal and harmonious society.
Lots of interesting thoughts here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of places you might want to revise. First, you create a tension between, on the one hand, saying that women are held back by the perception that they'll "sod off at 30 and have babies" but then say that a feminist firm needs to have creche facilities in order to ensure the advancement of women? There's already too much conflation of women's issues with support for working mothers. Not all women have children; that isn't what defines women. Don't fall deeper into that trap. Second, is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish "women’s single-sex spaces". I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them. So there can still be women's safe spaces, but they won't be defined on any sort of biological sex or gender assigned at birth basis.
"...is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish 'women’s single-sex spaces'. I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them"
Don't be disingenuous. If trans women can access them, they're no longer single-sex spaces.
Stonewall, and you, are free to define "woman" metaphysically, as a "gender identity", and argue that the rest of us should follow suit, but "trans women" remain males. That's what makes them "trans".
Women that had the baby, mostly cannot go back to work because the childcare costs too much. If your firm is feminist, it must embrace the idea that some women dó want children, not that some women do not.
Feminists will not accept the phrase ‘not all men’ and I will not accept ‘all trans women’. Because if I have to accept their ‘all men are predators’ then I am not willing to share a safe space with someone that may well still contain most or all the parts that lead to the predatory behaviour, both their equipment and what may course through their veins. There may be only one Jessica Yaniv but it is an example.
'Many groups which face discrimination do so on grounds on both identity and class: women at work, for example, are held back by the perception that they aren’t suited for, say, maths jobs - as well as the belief that they’ll sod off at 30 and have babies. An employer might not see the worth of a black job applicant because he or she doesn’t speak the way they expect - or that applicant might not be able to take the job because their immigrant parents can’t subsidise them through several years of rubbish wages.'
Are you suggesting that some women DON'T in fact 'sod off at 30 and have babies'? That women are, when seen in terms of statistical averages, just as interested in, and as good at, Maths as men? That employers should employ someone who doesn't speak the way they'd like them to speak with clients and customers? That companies should subsidize immigrant workers, but not indigenous workers, 'through several years of rubbish wages'?
Why? On what overarching morality are these assumptions based? If companies were charities or communities then I might agree with you but surely the raison d'etre of a company is to make money.
When you apply for a job you weigh up all the pros and cons of each prospective employer: does it have a creche? Will it subsidize me through the hard years? etc. Then you choose the firm most in line with what you want. Bearing in mind that nothing in this world is perfect, what exactly is wrong with any of this? And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?
Here's an idea. How about you write your own essay, filled with all the tired, usual-suspects arguments you've so generously contributed here, and jog on? You might find that nobody could care less what you've got to say, but I'm sure you're up for the challenge.
Actually I regularly do write essays with those same 'tired arguments' on my own blog and you are right, almost nobody bothers to read them. Whether that means they are misguided or merely out of fashion I really couldn't say.
By the way, I forgot to say that I thought your essay was really good and very well written. I just disagreed with you on the points you made about workers rights. I would have been interested to see how you defended them, but never mind.
I'm not Helen, Rob. Didn't write the essay. I will apologise though for replying rather harshly previously. I am just sick to death of hearing straw man arguments, literally over three decades, that divert attention from the important points Helen raises. If the current direction of travel does not change, things are going to get very bad for women, and that's from a standing point of an epidemic of violence and murder as it is.
Oh sorry, I got mixed you up with the writer. Got it now.
I completely agree that the article was fascinating and the distinction between economic and social capitalism was completely new to me. It was because I liked the article so much that the bits I disagreed with rather stuck in my craw.
I think your description of my points as 'straw man arguments' is not quite right. That suggests that I'm merely using sophistry to try to win an argument but that is not it at all what I'm up to. I genuinely believe that workers rights don't always perfectly align with the running of a successful business. I think one reason why China has managed to undermine much of our manufacturing base is precisely because their workers don't have the same rights ours do, thereby making chinese manufacturing cheaper.
Also I try to imagine what I would do if I were the boss of a company and though I am neither sexist nor racist (you will just have to take my word on that) if I interviewed a man and a woman who were equally talented but there was a good chance the woman would at some point leave to have a baby I would probably choose the man.
Also if I had two candidates and one of them spoke like George Alagiah and the other like Frank Bruno I would choose the former. And if I had two equally good candidates and one would have to be subsidized for several years while the other wouldn't then I would choose the latter. I genuinely can't see what is 'straw man' about any of this but I am willing to be shown.
“And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?“
Probably quite well, the crèche offering especially would be very attractive to prospective employees, enabling said company to attract better talent (especially female talent) and retain employees whilst they go through periods in life where childcare cost and timing becomes a big factor.
Also, precisely what overheads do you anticipate being created by a company being inclusive in its use of pronouns?
I have a certain cynical faith in companies to do anything that maximizes profits and if, as you claim, having a creche is such a winner then I expect every company to have one in the future. Any that didn't would surely lose out on the fight to get the best employees. That is, if your claim is correct. The fact that all companies presently don't have creche facilities makes me wonder if you haven't missed out something in your analysis.
Did I say anything about pronouns or diversity? I think you must be mistaking me with a different bigot.
Sounds quite common sense to me. Seems these days we all have to have labels and new things where really the bottom line is simply to treat people fairly with common sense and decency rather than peeen ourselves w labels and buzzwords. But power and position and fashion and standing out seem to be more important than being aware and acting. Project management is a bit like this. Big companies have used expensive agencies to spread the new big thing and then used them again to switch back, with new language at each turn. Actually these skills are very old and common sensicle. It’s expensive to reinvent the wheel but I guess that’s what keeps inflation and the economy going.
There aren't many pieces I read that light up a lightbulb in my head. But you've done that about something that had been bothering me about corporate responses to social justice activism that I'd not been able to articulate. Thank you!
I read this article back in June, and it completely blew my mind. Your take is spot-on, and explains so much of what is going on in our culture right now. Everywhere I look, I see woke capitalism. As a civil servant friend pointed out, "it is cheap".
This is excellent. Thank you. I've been looking at and researching this nexus of issues with a view to putting thoughts on paper. Glad I've read this first.
Thank you for this piece, found via Twitter, which crystallized a lot of my thinking. I have subscribed.
Our family has recently joined the charity Anti Slavery International, precisely because it focuses on economic radicalism and long-term practical solutions rather than social radicalism and virtue signalling.
A good example from the campaigning of Anti Slavery International, very much along the lines of your article and its final paragraph: the Premier League having Black Lives Matter on player's shirts and players and managers taking the knee before a match (social radicalism to virtue signal without cost), while doing and saying nothing about the modern day slavery of black workers building the stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar (which would involve difficult economic questions and be messy for individuals within the Premier League and their jobs/status).
A question to Helen: do you celebrate examples where companies do make a real difference? Or do you still think it's cynical branding? I am thinking of Asos, a corporate sponsor of the charity I mention above, who do actually visit factories in their supply chain and switch away if they don't follow guidelines. I also know personally an ex-employee of Mark's and Spencer whose job it was to visit suppliers of their clothing in Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam - unannounced - and check for working conditions etc. Examples such as these are self-serving behaviour by the companies for sure - they have an ethical brand - but they do make a real practical difference as well as being social radicalism/virtue signalling .
This article is fantastic. You succinctly express all the things that usually get me denounced as a "crypto-fascist" "class reductionist" "nazbol" "tankie" etc etc whenever I try to argue them to a well meaning but misguided social radical. We need to get this message out there.
That said, I suspect a lot of the most vocal supporters of this social radicalism already know everything you have argued. The only reason they deny it is because they are, in reality, economic conservatives, and they don't want to be revealed. They are simply not interested in helping poor people, regardless of their colour or gender, because that would be counter to their interests- if anything, wealth appears to be the remaining acceptable form of discrimination.
This is no longer a movement of the left. If it ever was to begin with, it was co-opted long ago.
This is excellent Helen. It exactly crystalises my thoughts about diversity initiatives. Thank you.
This is one of the best things I've read in a long time!
So good! I]”synthetic activism” brilliant.
Helen, this is, as ever, an excellent read. Thank you.
I wonder if Helen Lewis or anyone here in the comments has read a book called 'The Rebel Sell'. It explains in great detail how anything 'countercultural' ends up driving capitalism itself.
Wonderful piece, this. Should be on The Atlantic.
Good well argued points
I was wondering why all these companies were jumping on the BLM bandwagon.
Just like to say - this is a great analysis.
It's interesting that some of these points are similar to those which Jordan Peterson has been raising for a number of years. I don't follow your writing closely enough to know if this is a sudden pivot or if you've gradually softened your stance on these radical agendas.
I've been a reader of this journalist for most of her career. There's no "pivot" or "softening" here rather an analysis of a purported, but bogus, pivot in society. While Mr Peterson objects to the pivot itself, Ms Lewis objects to its superficiality. These are quite different things.
Well remembering some of the views she so confidently posed to Peterson, this piece suggests she has rethought some those convictions. I don't think Peterson opposes the pivot but what he sees as the superficiality of it. Just like Wesley Yang, his politics are liberal. He just has different views about how we can achieve a more equal and harmonious society.
Lots of interesting thoughts here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of places you might want to revise. First, you create a tension between, on the one hand, saying that women are held back by the perception that they'll "sod off at 30 and have babies" but then say that a feminist firm needs to have creche facilities in order to ensure the advancement of women? There's already too much conflation of women's issues with support for working mothers. Not all women have children; that isn't what defines women. Don't fall deeper into that trap. Second, is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish "women’s single-sex spaces". I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them. So there can still be women's safe spaces, but they won't be defined on any sort of biological sex or gender assigned at birth basis.
"...is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish 'women’s single-sex spaces'. I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them"
Don't be disingenuous. If trans women can access them, they're no longer single-sex spaces.
Stonewall, and you, are free to define "woman" metaphysically, as a "gender identity", and argue that the rest of us should follow suit, but "trans women" remain males. That's what makes them "trans".
Women that had the baby, mostly cannot go back to work because the childcare costs too much. If your firm is feminist, it must embrace the idea that some women dó want children, not that some women do not.
Feminists will not accept the phrase ‘not all men’ and I will not accept ‘all trans women’. Because if I have to accept their ‘all men are predators’ then I am not willing to share a safe space with someone that may well still contain most or all the parts that lead to the predatory behaviour, both their equipment and what may course through their veins. There may be only one Jessica Yaniv but it is an example.
'Many groups which face discrimination do so on grounds on both identity and class: women at work, for example, are held back by the perception that they aren’t suited for, say, maths jobs - as well as the belief that they’ll sod off at 30 and have babies. An employer might not see the worth of a black job applicant because he or she doesn’t speak the way they expect - or that applicant might not be able to take the job because their immigrant parents can’t subsidise them through several years of rubbish wages.'
Are you suggesting that some women DON'T in fact 'sod off at 30 and have babies'? That women are, when seen in terms of statistical averages, just as interested in, and as good at, Maths as men? That employers should employ someone who doesn't speak the way they'd like them to speak with clients and customers? That companies should subsidize immigrant workers, but not indigenous workers, 'through several years of rubbish wages'?
Why? On what overarching morality are these assumptions based? If companies were charities or communities then I might agree with you but surely the raison d'etre of a company is to make money.
When you apply for a job you weigh up all the pros and cons of each prospective employer: does it have a creche? Will it subsidize me through the hard years? etc. Then you choose the firm most in line with what you want. Bearing in mind that nothing in this world is perfect, what exactly is wrong with any of this? And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?
Here's an idea. How about you write your own essay, filled with all the tired, usual-suspects arguments you've so generously contributed here, and jog on? You might find that nobody could care less what you've got to say, but I'm sure you're up for the challenge.
Actually I regularly do write essays with those same 'tired arguments' on my own blog and you are right, almost nobody bothers to read them. Whether that means they are misguided or merely out of fashion I really couldn't say.
By the way, I forgot to say that I thought your essay was really good and very well written. I just disagreed with you on the points you made about workers rights. I would have been interested to see how you defended them, but never mind.
I'm not Helen, Rob. Didn't write the essay. I will apologise though for replying rather harshly previously. I am just sick to death of hearing straw man arguments, literally over three decades, that divert attention from the important points Helen raises. If the current direction of travel does not change, things are going to get very bad for women, and that's from a standing point of an epidemic of violence and murder as it is.
Oh sorry, I got mixed you up with the writer. Got it now.
I completely agree that the article was fascinating and the distinction between economic and social capitalism was completely new to me. It was because I liked the article so much that the bits I disagreed with rather stuck in my craw.
I think your description of my points as 'straw man arguments' is not quite right. That suggests that I'm merely using sophistry to try to win an argument but that is not it at all what I'm up to. I genuinely believe that workers rights don't always perfectly align with the running of a successful business. I think one reason why China has managed to undermine much of our manufacturing base is precisely because their workers don't have the same rights ours do, thereby making chinese manufacturing cheaper.
Also I try to imagine what I would do if I were the boss of a company and though I am neither sexist nor racist (you will just have to take my word on that) if I interviewed a man and a woman who were equally talented but there was a good chance the woman would at some point leave to have a baby I would probably choose the man.
Also if I had two candidates and one of them spoke like George Alagiah and the other like Frank Bruno I would choose the former. And if I had two equally good candidates and one would have to be subsidized for several years while the other wouldn't then I would choose the latter. I genuinely can't see what is 'straw man' about any of this but I am willing to be shown.
“And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?“
Probably quite well, the crèche offering especially would be very attractive to prospective employees, enabling said company to attract better talent (especially female talent) and retain employees whilst they go through periods in life where childcare cost and timing becomes a big factor.
Also, precisely what overheads do you anticipate being created by a company being inclusive in its use of pronouns?
I have a certain cynical faith in companies to do anything that maximizes profits and if, as you claim, having a creche is such a winner then I expect every company to have one in the future. Any that didn't would surely lose out on the fight to get the best employees. That is, if your claim is correct. The fact that all companies presently don't have creche facilities makes me wonder if you haven't missed out something in your analysis.
Did I say anything about pronouns or diversity? I think you must be mistaking me with a different bigot.
Sounds quite common sense to me. Seems these days we all have to have labels and new things where really the bottom line is simply to treat people fairly with common sense and decency rather than peeen ourselves w labels and buzzwords. But power and position and fashion and standing out seem to be more important than being aware and acting. Project management is a bit like this. Big companies have used expensive agencies to spread the new big thing and then used them again to switch back, with new language at each turn. Actually these skills are very old and common sensicle. It’s expensive to reinvent the wheel but I guess that’s what keeps inflation and the economy going.