Have just seen the 1922 Committee sharing cute quaint pictures of Nus Ghani, the Conservative MP from Wealden, and only woman of colour on the committee pouring tea for the white men around her. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Sometimes I think we watched too much West Wing and The Thick of It and ended up here, in the bad place where people will say I can’t take a joke and that I am oversensitive. But what is going on here?
Nus Ghani MP has her twitter profile picture in actual camouflage combat gear, yet on an important committee about our next prime minister, as the only woman in the room, and the only woman of colour, obviously she is pouring their tea for them.
Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (who I think is a powerhouse and absolutely incredible) tweeted me back “I honestly can’t roll my eyes back enough. this messaging is the pits".
How many of us have been the only woman in the room, so we are expected to take the minutes regardless of our seniority— in my previously company- despite being head of publishing- I was told, it was because I was just so good at it. How many of us are supposed to make the travel arrangements, because it all just goes more smoothly when we take change? And how many of us justify it to ourselves that if we make ourselves absolutely irreplaceable, that they will value us, that we will become equal, that if we take part in the joke, we won’t be the laughing stock in it.
WAKE UP CALL> playing along, doing all the tea rounds, taking all of the notes, being the mum and making sure everyone gets where they should on time, doesn’t make us one of them. It doesn’t make us equal. And when we aren’t doing it, they find the next woman in line to do it. This isn’t how you get equality. This isn’t how you get the seat at the table.
There are dictation apps for minutes.
They can pour their own fucking tea.
Stop being complicit. Stop playing along. It isn’t a good look.
Tea Parties
Weaponised incompetence is used usually to describe a partner but I personally think there's a hell of a lot of men in the workplace / government / running the show who do it too. They know a woman will step in and often make it easier for her to do that than you know ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING.