The past few days you couldn’t ignore Joris Luyendijk. I had never heard of him until the book The Seven Checkmarks passed by. I read his book, several columns, his opinion piece and the interview de Volkskrant† I checked several social media posts and attended his book launch remotely. I have been warned that there is a chance that the text below may work against me. I could come across as a frustrated woman. I certainly feel a bit of frustration or maybe that’s my ego.
Like Luyendijk, I am not a diversity & inclusion expert and certainly not a privilege experience expert, but I am now a seven tick expert. That’s how fast it goes.
Tech sector
When it comes to diversity and inclusion in the tech sector, you’re still dealing with 85 percent men. For the past few months I’ve been desperately looking for a way to address those 85 percent men. The fact that Luyendijk seems to be succeeding in this feels doubly. On the one hand, I know it’s a good thing that the group I couldn’t reach now also wants to hear the story. On the other hand: I also wanted to tell the story myself. With the caveat that it probably wasn’t listened to anyway. Apparently you need a Joris for that.
Then what is it that rubs? Why can’t I just be happy that the story of discrimination and inequality of opportunity is now known to many more people. And that we finally know exactly what it means when companies say they go for the ‘best person’ during an application process? This is probably due to the intention behind Luyendijk’s story. A story that was also riddled with assumptions and looking down on people during his book launch. For example, he told that Hugo de Jonge does not have seven ticks. And that he was happy about that. As if he couldn’t imagine such a person belong in his group. ‘Whenever I hear Rutte that he goes for quality, I always think of Hugo de Jonge’, he said with a laugh.
Revenue model
After reading the columns of Aaf Brandt Corstius, Marcel van Roosmalen, Özcan Akyol and Erdal Balci, I can only conclude that this story was written with a business model in mind. Luyendijk probably looked at Google Trends 2.5 years ago and saw that certain topics are becoming increasingly important. I imagine he has read a number of books and blogs on the subject. It was just about the time he failed at the Guardian† This is something that is very important to him, as is apparent from his book presentation.
Just out of nowhere he shows a video in which he can be seen with the logo of The Guardian there. You have to imagine that the seven ticks never fail. And while reading all the information about discrimination, inequality of opportunity and white innocence, he can suddenly point to the culprit of this failed adventure. That was not his possible lack of talent or perhaps his arrogance. No, it was because he was not from the UK himself and therefore lacked a certain culture; and of course native language skills.
That he did not have these problems in Egypt and Lebanon (places he mentioned all too often), we forget that for the sake of convenience. He is of course fluent in Arabic and knows all about that culture. Suddenly he ‘understood’ what people with fewer check marks went through in the office. The marketing model started to work and together with Vincent Rietbergen of the multimedia initiative the Haagsch College, we immediately looked at whether this book could also be converted into a lecture.
In recent days I have heard more and more that diversity & inclusion professionals and experts by experience are no longer awarded certain assignments, because these companies prefer Luyendijk. And I know why. Luyendijk told it himself during his book presentation. While D&I professionals say what is not going well and share their own, sometimes harrowing, experiences, Luyendijk takes a different tack. He ensures that the senior managers can tell their ‘subjects’ during his lecture that they do indeed belong to the seven ticks.
stuffy men
These men had become a little anxious after all the news about women’s quotas, abuse of power and Black Lives Matter. All their lives they have been told that they are the cream of the crop. That has recently come to a head. But during Luyendijk’s lecture, that feeling is back again.
Luyendijk proudly said that the seven ticks went for a walk with people with less than seven ticks. Just to hear what that’s like. “We need to be helped to understand what it means to be discriminated against,” he said during his book launch. By the way, let’s not forget the women with six ticks. They may not have seven because of being a woman, yet they have walked the same path as the men with seven ticks. They are in the same bubble and understand just as little about people with fewer ticks.
Despite the fact that he indicated a few times that he was certainly not a diversity & inclusion specialist (because you had to study for that for a long time), he was only too happy to answer questions that he cannot answer at all with his current knowledge. But a man with seven ticks won’t let that stop him. It’s just a shame that someone with seven ticks takes up all the space for this topic too, and many people applaud that.
I personally think that we finally have a Key Performance Indicator (variables to analyze company performance, red.) against which we can measure whether a company is a toxic work environment. What is that? As soon as they book a lecture by Joris. That has nothing to do with diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, but everything to do with people with seven ticks who feel proud as a monkey (a silverback gorilla, according to Joris) with seven cocks.
Chantal Schinkels is author of The IT girl.