Spatial awareness

Diversity, equity and inclusion has ruined it

I remember the interview well.

It’s 1983, I’m 21, and a seemingly endless succession of young men parade into the waiting room - some of whom I know, and who are freezing workers - get called in, and sometime later parade out again. I sit for hours wondering when it’s going to be my turn. They saved me ‘til last.

The room was large and modern. Three men sat at an elevated table and peered down at me. The questions were essentially variations on a theme. That theme was “but why do you want to drive trains?”

They were couched in different ways. “Are you afraid of the dark?” or “You do realise you’ll be working alone with one other person - a male - at all hours of the night and day?” or “How will you cope when you run over an animal, or a person?

There was no discussion around the fact that I held a Private Pilots Licence and had been flying gliders since I was sixteen, or had grown up on a farm driving tractors, trucks, motorbikes, and anything else I could get my hands on. I also noted that the other interviews had run at around the 20-minute mark. Mine was well over an hour.

As I was leaving, I thanked them before indulging in a small parting remark. I said, “if I don’t get accepted to loco school, I’ll be curious as to why.” They looked at each other and nodded.

The letter on NZ Railways letterhead arrived about a week later. I was in. As far as I’m aware, I am the first female to ever get the chance to step on the footplate - provided I completed the 13-week training and pass the associated engineering and signal exams by no less than 90 per cent.

Oh, but I had to prove that I could couple a locomotive to a wagon on my own first. To do that requires a steel coupler, which is exceedingly heavy.

So, I drove to Palmerston North, was shown how to do it, and then using my knees and thighs to help steady it, put the pin through, and boom. I drove home before the bruising appeared.

I later discovered no male was asked to do the same - I get that men are stronger without a doubt, but it was very fiddly - but not once in my entire driving career did I ever have to couple the locomotive to a wagon or train. Because that’s what the shunters do.

Needless to say that was the beginning of a memorable life chapter. I learned how to drive both freight and passenger trains, sure. But arguably the even bigger lesson involved human nature.

Many men simply never accepted my employment in what they saw as “man’s job” and showed their malice in ways designed to sabotage. Others became more like big brothers who went out of their way to protect me. Maybe two or three treated me as an absolute equal while working together managing that thundering hunk of moving metal. I’ve never forgotten them.

You know, the bumper stickers saying ‘Girls Can Do Anything’ were just starting to appear in 1983. I thought those were stupid because it was self-evident. Despite that, I seriously doubt my employment was anything resembling today’s DEI hire. I know I earned that job, and that I did it well. Vagina or no vagina.

It is possible that it was around the beginnings of ‘affirmative action,’ and they thought I might be a reasonable bet to take on. But it was far from today’s DEI cult - albeit it was likely the beginning of the ‘slippery slope.’

Now, the sinking of the Royal NZ Navy’s HMNZS Manawanui has become the poster child of the anti-DEI movement. In their world, Commander Yvonne Gray is both a vagina-haver AND a lesbian (like me) therefore she just HAS to be a DEI hire, AND it’s her fault for the sinking - all of which has been decided prior to any investigation, report, or any detailed information comes out about the cause. They started their very public screeching before the ship had even settled on the ocean floor.

As if Yvonne Gray didn’t have any prior experience at all, nor have to pass any test or exam exactly as the men must. They just chucked her up on the bridge and said, “go for it, baby!.” Give me a break.

Those critics are misusing DEI as a way to undermine the Commander’s competence - and they know it - notwithstanding that the Navy have flagrantly celebrated their own institutional fabulousness by widely publicising their employment of female ship staff, and which has possibly invited such an inquisition given the sinking.

But DEI denigration, at this juncture, is a red herring. For what?

I don’t want to use the ‘M’ word, but it appears unavoidable. When endless screeds of men on social media state straight-faced that women’s lack of spatial awareness is proven - PROVEN, I TELL YOU - to be inferior to men’s, you know it’s misogyny.

There are also many studies that have disproven that widely accepted trope. Yet when a few women pushed back against the screechers - me among them - we were attacked in a way that we know in our bones is just down-home women-hatred. Ask us how we know? That’s a book in itself.

What also disappoints is how many men ran cover for the men abusing us. I was told by various non-de-plume neck beards that I was “mentally ill” for being a “dyke,” and that same “mental illness” in Yvonne Gray is what sunk the Manawanui.

Yet, apart from one or two exceptions. other normally ‘good’ men said nothing or just said, “They’re only joking. They’d make fun of a male captain just the same if he sunk a boat!” Yeah, nah. I could show you receipts that would make you hair curl, and frizz, and fall out.

Maybe they/you don’t see female confidence on display that much because women, in the main, don’t tend to be attracted to driving trucks or trains, flying planes, or captaining ships?

It’s kind of like women’s sports not getting the TV ratings because (men often used to say) it’s not that interesting to them compared to male sports. That is until media started televising it anyway, and now the ratings are sound - from both men and women. Doing nothing is an endless loop of self-fulfilling prophecy if you’re not careful.

And look, the rabid DEI push has set up a narrative where now every man, some women, and their dogs believe that every female, dark-skinned person, or dwarf has not got through on merit. That’s the problem with promoting (sometimes fake) diversity, equity, and inclusion. Nobody trusts it.

I liken it to the LGBTQI+++ bullshit. Oh, the glorious “rainbow community” that I am assumed to be a part of. I hate the whole PRIDE shebang with the heat of a thousand suns. Why? Because it’s once again shoving us all into a box where from the outside it looks like we all agree on everything.

I don’t want the ‘T’ part anywhere near me, for example. What does child sterilisation and mutilation, or men in dresses have to do with me? Nor are we a tormented lot who need special status. It’s backward, but it’s designed to make it look to heterosexuals like we’re some generic group who agree on everything, when we don’t.

So, the end result of DEI and PRIDE is a vicious backlash. We are in that phase now. But we must retain our critical thinking skills.

I mostly disagree with both of those movements, but I can still see far enough through the frenetic knee-jerking to know the difference between hating the ‘diversity’ crusade and despising everybody you assume is aligned with them. It’s really just the screechers who end up looking like right tits.

As for the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui, Defence Minister Judith Collins was right to call out the “armchair admirals” who were bellowing from their La-Z-y-Boys. Most of those soft-handed blokes probably can’t even back a bloody trailer.

I did invite one of them rather facetiously - who, to his credit, did use his real name - to join me in a trailer backing competition.

Surprisingly, I’ve yet to hear back from him.