Let's not beat around the bush . . .

Beating around - or about - the bush is an Australian expression for wasting time by refusing to admit or face up to facts.

So . . . one of the main reasons we still are fighting for inclusivity and an end to discrimination in workplaces etc, is that too many people don't want to change. Some do, or will if convinced, but there are a significant number who just don't think they are doing anything wrong and don't want to change. This is the reason there are still some men in male dominated workplaces, and some women in female dominated workplaces, who are being passive aggressive about change, and pay lip service only to inclusivity.

Those people are hurting not only themselves (especially their job prospects), but also the companies they work for, and society more generally.

These people are indulging in the same sort of cognitive dissonance and lack of moral courage that climate crises deniers/sceptics are.

(And when they're police not taking hate crimes seriously - see here - the harm is greater.)

The truly difficult thing is that just confronting them or having a rant like this post doesn't change them: they have to be mollycoddled and nursed through the apparently tough challenge of facing the true nature of reality - which is frustrating, and increases the pain and trauma of those who are trying to get a modicum of decency, rather than abuse, from those people. (They're generally in powerful positions, so can't be sidelined or ignored - mind you, I have been very heartened by the decent people now appearing in such positions in ever increasing numbers, so maybe they will be moved into irrelevancy - eventually.) Rants like this are good for letting off steam (and I'm doing so because work has intruded and utterly stuffed up my first week of holidays), but they don't change the dinosaurs (and recall I mentioned the female dinosaurs in female-dominated workplaces: they're fewer in number, but they do exist).

There are a lot of other problems slowing, stopping or even reversing change, such as the strategic error of feminists in the 60s and 70s who aimed at just removing identification of gender rather than dealing with the underlying bigotry - they got a short term tactical gain, but we're still paying the price (and the use of chairperson as the female version of chairman is the perfect example of the resultant problem).

Going back to my day job ... nah, I'll leave it at that.