A sideways look at ‘diversity’

I am a fan of a BBC TV series called “Silent Witness”. It’s somewhat macabre in that it focuses on a forensic pathologist (played by Emilia Fox) who is seen gruesomely cutting up dead bodies – those murdered in unknown circumstances. The “silent witness” is the corpse. In essence, it’s a murder-mystery – “whodunnit” – with added medical edge.

One of the aspects of this TV production is that the casting involves obvious diversity. In the current series, an older actress – Maggie Steed, aged 78 – is part of the forensic team. And a younger actress, Francesca Mills, aged 27, plays a crime analyst at the pathology clinic.

Francesca Mills is very pretty: she also has achondroplasia –  that is to say, dwarfism. But if she’s small, she’s also portrayed as bright, with the kind of mental curiosity which pursues clues to their logical conclusion.

Previously, “Silent Witness” scored a success with another disabled actress, Liz Carr, as the redoubtable Clarissa, again solving crimes with persistent sleuthing logic. (Liz Carr has subsequently become a strong campaigner against “assisted dying”.)

Employment

This programme has made me reflect on the whole point of “diversity” in employment practices – the “d”, in the famous trio of “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) that President Trump has now moved to ban from U.S. hiring policies.

There probably are injustices arising from DEI, as David Quinn analysed last week. I am told, for example, by insiders in the London publishing trade that it’s becoming ever more difficult for a “straight white male” to get his book published.

Authors from minority backgrounds, authors of colour or from sexual minorities are much more favoured. Women also have an advantage – but only an acceptable sort of woman. A conservative woman who penned a novel about a happy marriage would not be on-trend. (Novels by Irishwomen who hate the Catholic church are particularly fashionable these days.)

Agendas

So, within this DEI philosophy there are still plenty of hidden agendas – as there often have been in the past. Who doesn’t know of someone who secured a job because of social connections, or because they were going out with the boss’s daughter, or who had a political hotline? It’s always been said – I can’t prove it, but I haven’t seen it denied either – that RTE was a hotbed of “Stickies” (fellow-travellers with Sinn Féin-The Workers Party) and that was one route to get hired.

DEI surely needs to be carefully examined and assessed as a policy. But President Trump’s far-too-hasty claim that DEI contributed to the terrible airplane-helicopter collision over Washington DC on January 30 struck me as unacceptable: there should be solid evidence before such a statement is made. (It is claimed, in some quarters, that capable white males are being rejected in flight operations so as to advance women and ethnic minorities – but I’d like to see more hard evidence before accepting this as factual.)

Hiring should be fair, and the ability to do the job – especially when risk to the public is involved – must always be a prime consideration. DEI shouldn’t be rigidly applied. But showing imagination about inclusiveness and diversity – all other factors being equal – to individuals who might, in the past, have been automatically excluded is admirable, and indeed Christian. The visibility – and, as it happens, beguiling charm – of Francesca Mills seems to me to be very cheering.

The Seanad has some strong independent voices

It’s refreshing to see a revived interest in the Seanad elections, and congrats to hard-working re-elected Senators like Rónan Mullan, Michael McDowell and Sharon Keogan.

A few years ago, it seemed that the Upper House might be destined for abolition – political leaders often regard a revising chamber as a nuisance, and not wholly democratic, since it is not elected by direct vote.

It is not easy to devise a perfect parliamentary second chamber. There are usually anomalies in the system. But the key test is: does it work? Does it attract strong independent voices who are not beholden to being subdued by the party system? I’d say – yes.

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The centenary of Jack Lemmon’s birth is being marked this weekend of 8 February, and one of his best-known movies, “The Apartment”, is being re-released in a re-mastered version. It’s a superb 1960 Billy Wilder film about the pangs (and pains) of love in a corporate world.

I heard an RTE commentator recently say that this film showed that adultery was no big deal and “everyone” was doing it back in the day. To me, the storyline illustrates how miserably unhappy a young woman (Shirley MacLaine) becomes in an adulterous affair with a married man. There’s also a telling scene when Fran is ill, and her family is shocked at the (false) suggestion she might have had an abortion.

In the end, the good guy, Lemmon, wins the heart of the broken-hearted girl.