Identity, social location, and DEI

Image description: Graphic of map location pin in blue against a white background.

Note: This is a post I drafted three years ago, before SCOTUS handed down their various foolish decisions regarding affirmative action, and before the MAGA cohort really focused on making the destruction of DEI initiatives a plank of their platform. In case the post isn’t clear, I applaud any organisation’s attempt to improve access for all: I approve, in theory, of DEI initiatives. I am also cynical about some corporate commitment to DEI, and extremely sceptical of how much of it is conceptualised and executed.

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The other day I was idly reading a thread on social media1 about identity, bias, access, and privilege, and found I had opinions I wanted to express—but was holding back. I realised it was because my thoughts weren’t clear on the relationship between all those terms. So I started thinking about access and privilege and social location and how they all interact with bias and identity, and decided to try sort it out by writing it down.

Social Location

I’m going to assume most of you have your own working definition of identity and of bias, and as I think one’s level of access and privilege depends on one’s social location, let’s start with that. Based on the societies I know best—that is, rich, English-speaking countries—here’s my definition of social location:

The position a person holds within their society based upon characteristics/attributes considered important by that society, such as wealth, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, religion, age, disability, and education. These characteristics/attributes, and their influence on social location, are relative and intersectional.

Social location determines the way the world regards you, the way the world treats you, the way it assigns you rank and privilege, and position and worth, and merit and influence, and power and status (etc). Basically, your access depends on your social location.

Clear? Onward!

Queer

Several times over the years I’ve encountered pseudonymous authors claiming they are oppressed because they’re Queer—even though the writer is, say, a cis woman who is married to a cis man, has two children, and is using a pen name because she’s not out to her family, friends, or community. I’m talking here of the kind of person who once kissed a girl and never told anyone; who, while she fancies the pierced and tattooed barista at her coffee shop, wouldn’t dream of (well, okay she might dream but she wouldn’t initiate or even talk about) sex outside her cishet marriage. She may self-identify as Queer in her secret heart, but in terms of how she’s seen by her society and therefore treated by that society, her functional identity is straight. Her secret queerness has zero impact on her social location and therefore access and privilege.

At the risk of being repetitive: if the world thinks you’re straight it treats you as such. And if it treats you as such then you have straight privilege. If you’re in a consensual, age-appropriate monogamous relationship with a cishet person of the opposite sex, and if you never mention and have never mentioned to others how you feel, you cannot be oppressed or marginalised because of your sexual orientation; you cannot claim the world refuses you access because you’re Queer. Secret selves, if they’re secret enough, have zero impact on social location. Does it suck that homophobia—internalised or otherwise—is probably the reason you don’t want to be open about your innermost feelings? Yes. But it makes no difference to how the world treats you.

Disabled

What about disability? If your condition is invisible, if it has no impact on your daily life2—your work, your relationships, your access, your prospects—and if no one but your medical provider knows you have a condition/impairment, then you are not suffering from being treated differently than a nondisabled person. You might secretly identify as Disabled but your hidden condition has no impact on your social location. In terms of your social access, therefore, you function as nondisabled. Does it suck that it’s ableism—internalised or otherwise—that gets in the way of your disclosure? Yes. Does it mean you might be suffering emotionally because of ableism? Yes. But does it make one jot of difference to how the world treats you? No.

The place where it gets complicated is if, in order to retain your access and social status, you stress out so much about the secrecy that your anxiety a) gradually changes your behaviour and therefore the way others behave towards you, or b) exacerbates your physical, neurological, or emotional condition to the extent that it’s no longer possible to hide it. At which point, congratulations! You are Disabled and that will influence your social location—your access and your privilege.

Invisible disability can get complicated, too, if you want to emigrate to a country such as Canada, which will assign you negative points for certain conditions or impairments (which they check, and test for, and often find). Then, oh yep, definitely, in Canadian immigration circles at least, that most certainly has an impact on your social location—you fall right down to the bottom of the hierarchy (unless you also have a couple of doctorates, several million dollars, and a handful of royal genes3)—but it won’t affect your social location in your country of origin unless you tell people why they wouldn’t let you into Canada.

Immigrant

And speaking of immigration, I could call myself an Immigrant—technically I am. But no one in the US treats a white, English-speaking middle class(ish—and, oh, class is a whole other conversation) woman (ditto) whose PhD is regarded as valid in this country, the way they treat poor, BIPOC, English-as-a-second-language speakers whose educational qualifications—a medical licence, say, or engineering, architecture, or speech-therapy degree—is suddenly not worth the paper it’s printed on. Immigrant, therefore, has no impact on my own personal social location.4

Old

Social location, of course, does not depend on a single attribute or identity but on the intersection of those attributes or identities. Everything is relative and specific to an individual and their situation. Take the intersection of age and profession as an example. I’m 64. If I were a professional tennis player I would be regarded as Old.5 As a novelist, however, I’m not. It’s true that I’m no longer a Young Turk, that I no longer qualify for any of those Best-Under-(small)N age lists,6 but professionally I’m in my prime. In professional terms, therefore, I can’t claim Old as part of my social location. But if I were currently seeking full-time employment—in, say, higher education or some corporate situation—I would be discriminated against; I would be Old. Luckily I’m not looking for FTE. At this specific-to-me intersection of age and employment, therefore, Old does not affect my access.

Corporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

I could go on (and on—there are so very many examples). But if it was just the usual straight white nondisabled well-heeled middle class individuals making overblown claims in public forums—which I’ve been observing and rolling my eyes at for more years than I care to recall—I wouldn’t have bothered writing a public post. But lately I’ve been seeing something similar from corporate entities, purely for the purposes of boosting their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) scores.7 And that, Dear Reader, actively pisses me off. 

Before we go any further, here are my quick and dirty definitions of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion:8

Diversity: Making an effort to employ people from/with a variety of backgrounds, attributes, and levels of social access Equity: Creating fair access, opportunity, and advancement for all those diverse employeesInclusion: A kind of radical hospitality—making sure all employees feel a sense of belonging and value

So, Nameless Corporate Entities—but particularly media corporations—here is my unsolicited opinion:

If, in your anonymous employee survey, a worker checks an ‘invisible disability’ or ‘queer’ box but you can’t tell who they are, and they’re not out to you, then, while the simple fact of their existence could (arguably) count towards your diversity goals it most certainly does not count towards a claim that you, as an employer, are being equitable or inclusive. To prove you are inclusive of employees who identify as members of traditionally oppressed groups, or that you treat employees of all identities equitably, you have to be able to show that you have done so despite their differences. And you cannot do that if you don’t know who they are. If you can’t identify the employees you count as ‘diverse hires’ then you have not proved you wouldn’t discriminate against them if you did know who they are.9 So, no, ignorance might be bliss for you as a corporation but it is proof of neither lack of bias nor equal access. Ignorance does not equal DEI.

Let me say that again in bold:

IGNORANCE ≠ DEI

So there you have it.

Writing it all down has, as usual, helped to clarify things for me. Maybe it will help you too—or maybe just give you a rage aneurism. But in the end this post isn’t about you, it’s about me.

Nevertheless, if you want to talk about it I’m open to all reasonable, assume-good-intent discussion.10

On a platform I no longer use ︎Seriously, pay attention to this wording. If your condition/difference/impairment does limit your activities, and people—an employer, say—treats you differently because of it, then essentially your disability is not invisible—it’s just not immediately apparent. ︎When it comes to social location all attributes and identities are intersectional. It’s just that the Canadian immigration points system is brazen about it. I have a PhD, I’m fluent in English, I’m married, I earn my keep; if I could just add a zero to my net worth they’d let me in despite all the points I lose for using a wheelchair. (And, yes, I know they’ve promised to fix this ableist crap—but they haven’t yet.) ︎At least in this country. When I go back to England—and please note I’m referring specifically to England here, not Wales or Scotland or Ireland—I’m treated as irrevocably tainted by my association with their amusing but inferior colonial cousins. But it’s a fond sort of condescension, so I cope. ︎I’m guessing a tennis player starts being seen as Old well before 35. By 64 I’d be officially Decrepit.  ︎I could argue, too, that at a certain age, the awards stop being awarded—except those things based on a body of work: things like Honorary Oscars, various Medals of Service to this or that, Halls of Fame of various stripes, and so on. Actual competitive awards? There’s a perception of, Oh so-and-So? they don’t need any more awards! Let’s give it to someone to whom it will make a difference… ︎Why do corporations like to boost these scores? To burnish their public image (and thereby increase market share), or attract social investors (and thereby increase share prices) or to win contracts. It’s serious business. ︎No doubt you have your own definitions. There are also a variety of definitions online, ranging from folksy to academic to self-serving. But this is how I’m using these words for the purposes of this post. ︎Also, you might want to ask yourself if/why your employees feel the need to remain anonymous. ︎Anything else will be deleted. Life’s too short to waste it on those who like to fight just for the sake of fighting—except if you want to take it into the boxing ring, in which case I will happily, and with zesty joy, beat the living shit out of you. ︎