It’s a Womxn’s world
TedX, a non-official version of the sanctimonious ubiquitous Ted Talks programme, is more inclusive than official Ted because they have added a random letter ‘X’ into the word. On an unrelated note, TedX London have decided to start using the totally real and not at all just made-up word “Womxn” when they talk about members of the female persuasion, chapettes, fillies, gels, y’know, charming, delightful, non-men – them. They told a normal person bigot on Twitter who asked why they were using the word “womxn”: “No, that’s not a typo: ‘womxn’ is a spelling of ‘women’ that’s more inclusive and progressive. The term sheds light on the prejudice, discrimination, and institutional barriers womxn have faced, and explicitly includes non-cisgender women.” But are TedX really the inclusive group they claim to be? Trans Media Watch, a pro-trans lobby group told the BBC it would never use the word Womxn: “because we feel it’s important for people to recognise that trans women are women. Trans women aren’t a special, separate category.” So it turns out “women” is the most inclusive term after all. If TedX London hasn’t been cancelled by the end of the week then Twitter’s not what it was.

UN-Believable
What do we all know? UN Secretary General António Guterres knows what we all know. Quoting him, the main UN Twitter account even tweeted what we all knew: “The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls & boys”. We all know that once upon a time we were content with wokery spouted from one of the UN’s “rapporteurs” on grievance issues, like the one who went to Britain for two months and declared that UK Government policy was fundamentally racist. But now we know the UN Secretary General himself is alive to the real problem behind the pandemic – the rule of men. Men may be more likely to die of Covid than women but that’s obviously the sneaky patriarchy at work. We all know you can’t make it too obvious that you’re in charge of the world – just ask Mr. Guterres.

White Demons
We’re really getting to the weird enlightened stage of wokery now as a video has emerged of Ashleigh Shackelford, a proud member of the GIC running seminars in which she says all white people are “racist”, “born to not be human” and tells a room full of white people: “you’re all taught to be demons”. She also says it is not possible for them to ever not be racist, which begs the question – as she stands in front of a sign asking for donations – why anybody is bothering to pay her for her services? Aside from the trickier question of how many demons can donate via pin.

Lucky break
The New Statesman has gone above and beyond the law by advertising for a BAME candidate to join their journalism team. Everyone should break the law in a limited and specific way: it’s very fashionable. The role includes six months of training on topics like Media law and Investigative reporting. Perhaps the successful candidate could start by investigating whether the The Equality Act 2010 which bans racial discrimination in jobs applies to them? This comes as Shavanah Taj, Wales’ first Muslim woman to lead a union, has called for the law to be changed to allow employers to hire based on race. Taj, who became the head of a union presumably without any such positive discrimination, said: “How else is change ever going to come?” How indeed?