A North London employer has come under fire for using offensive language in its job adverts.
Camden People’s Theatre (CPT) put out two job adverts using the terms ‘benefit class, criminal class and underclass’.
People took screenshots of the job listing for an Artistic Director/Joint CEO, which was shared on social media, and were horrified at the choice of language.
Since then, CPT has said it’s reviewing the language of the adverts and is continuing its efforts to diversify its talent.
The blunder comes after new research this week showed the arts to be extremely exclusive.
It found that six in 10 of all arts and culture workers in the UK come from middle-class backgrounds, compared with just over 42% of the wider workforce.
The report was shared by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which broke down inequalities in the UK’s arts, culture and heritage workforce by background and region.
It also found that 90% of workers in the arts are white and only 20% are disabled.
People criticized CPT’s advert, saying it was ‘insulting’.
Anne-Marie Canning, CEO of The Brilliant Club which makes higher education more inclusive, wrote: ‘I have never seen this expression about socio-economic diversity before. It’s in an advert for a job. It seems insulting on many levels to many people.’
Diversity and staff Engagement Lead Keasha Brockett added: ‘Wow! This whole advert has not been written well at all on so many levels. In trying to include everyone, they have managed to offend everyone with the wording. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to hear how they came to this decision.’
Twitter user @Latsot added: ‘The idea that someone could “identify as” disabled is directly harmful as well as being horribly, incredibly offensive.’
However, some people said the wording had the right intention and signaled a time to change the words we use.
Reece McMahon, executive director of Chisenhale Dance Space in east London, said: ‘This language has actually become quite commonplace in the theatre sector.
‘Lots of it has come out of direct conversations with people who felt that “working class” no longer reflected the depths of their experiences.
‘And if anything the term “working class” had been claimed by lower-middle classes and so new language needed to exist.
‘I’d consider myself to be a product of a benefits class, and though I don’t use the term, it more accurately captures my experience growing up.
‘There is a sense of language like this further dividing an already minority and marginalized group though which I’ve always wondered how helpful that is.’
A representative from CPT shared the following statement with Metro.co.uk:
‘As the name suggests, Camden People’s Theatre takes access and inclusion really seriously. We constantly consult on and modify what we do and how we communicate to make sure we’re welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible – especially those who are excluded from the arts, more so now than ever. That’s the spirit in which this terminology was used – and we are not the only organization to use it. We regret that it has caused offense in some quarters and we are currently reviewing its use, to make sure we continue to be as inclusive and as respectful as possible.
‘We also warmly welcome the interest in arts and social inclusion that the reporting around this issue implies – and we hope to see it sustained. The conversation around access to and representation in the arts, and indeed in the media, is a vital one, and we’re committed to continue learning from and contributing to it.’
