With privilege comes great responsibility

EDITOR’S COMMENT Privilege is a complicated word these days – not everyone wants to hear it. On one level, I totally get the negative reaction some may have to being told they have benefited from some degree of privilege they had no control over, no influence on and perhaps, for most of their life, no knowledge of. They may have overcome hardships, made sacrifices, worked tirelessly to get where they are. So, yes, I can see how, maybe the first time the P-word is applied to that person, it may rankle. To some extent, that may even have been my instinctual reaction. But it took only a little listening and reading for me to understand completely: when it comes to privilege, I may not have hit the jackpot but I lucked out pretty well. The way I see it is this: I am from a not particularly wealthy family, and grew up in a not particularly affluent area. We may arguably have been working class when I was born, but I spent most of my upbringing middle class (we had Sky TV, for some of my teenage years at least). I did well at school, went to university (where I was at the lower end of the family finances scale) and I have enjoyed a relatively successful career. All other factors being equal, would any of that, at any stage, have been easier if I was born female, my skin was a different colour or I was gay, or transgender? Of course it wouldn’t. It obviously would have been harder; there would have been more hurdles to clear, more challenges to survive. I have benefited my whole life from male privilege, white privilege, straight privilege – and continue to do so. I didn’t choose it, I didn’t make it happen, but it is there, and pretending it isn’t is not going to change anything. Thankfully, I’m not alone in realising it and in trying to own it. And change is happening. This year, a record number of people responded to our annual LGBTQ+ in Real Estate survey, this year subtitled Attitudes, Actions and Allies, because we wanted to hear from allies as well as the LGBTQ+ community. Many of the headline figures are positive – record levels of LGBTQ+ people being comfortable out in the workplace, and willing to recommend real estate as a safe space to work for others in the community. Fewer – though at close to 30% still, frankly, far too many – reporting experiencing or witnessing discrimination or microaggressions in the workplace in the past year. Many more firms named as “exemplars” for leading the way on LGBTQ+ inclusion. I had the pleasure of presenting these positive findings at Freehold’s annual AGM last week, and could see the genuine happiness among those in attendance at how the situation is improving for the LGBTQ+ community working in real estate. But that is qualified by the acknowledgment of all present that there is so much still to be done – as evidenced by the many anonymous comments from those whose experiences tell a different story. They might be those working in transactions, or with Middle Eastern clients, or in other sectors and firms that are not committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, and they have used this survey to share their voices. It is depressing, in 2024, to read of the things our LGBTQ+ colleagues across the real estate sector must face as part of their working lives – from the crass comments that arise from both malice and misunderstanding, to the lack of visible role models to drive them on in their careers, to the many who would like the freedom of being out in the workplace but have not yet felt comfortable being so. Solving these problems cannot be achieved by those in the LGBTQ+ community alone, in the same way that other forms of discrimination cannot. Everybody has to play their part. There’s an old adage, made famous by Spider-Man, that with great power there must also come great responsibility. Well, that’s true of privilege too. For all of those of us who benefit, in whatever form, it comes with a duty of allyship to those who do not. The P-word doesn’t have to be seen as an insult – it can be taken as an inspiration.