Welcome to Diversity Lens.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day has passed, but we continue to promote accessibility awareness. Lucy 'British Blind Girl' Edwards, one of TikTok's influencers, teaches the world about living with blindness.

Lucy has over 1.7 million TikTok followers, and she established her channel a year ago to educate others since she was repeatedly questioned, “Do you know how you look?" "How does a blind person socially distance?" "How does a blind person pick up guide-dog poop?”.

Lucy explains the methods, tools, and resources she employs to increase awareness of disabilities.

Explore some of these to see if there are any that you are familiar with or that you may find useful.

Sociologists coined the phrase "motherhood penalty" to define the systematic disadvantage women face in the job upon becoming mothers, in terms of income, perceived competence, and benefits. Consider, how often the discussion of if a man has children or not becomes relevant in the workplace, compared to women?

According to studies, the maternity penalty accounts for 80% of the gender difference. The gender wage difference for women in their 20s and younger is not significant, but it begins to increase about age 30.

Adèle Haenel, a French actress, is leaving the film industry, claiming she can no longer participate in something that "defends a capitalist, patriarchal, racist, sexist, and structurally unequal world." Haenel has appeared most notably in Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a queer and historical romantic drama. Haenel had been expected to star in the forthcoming science-fiction film by director Bruno Dumont, but after unsuccessful conversations with Dumont regarding the script, she stated that she had to withdraw due to the film's "racist premise." It's a shocking move from Haenal, and a sad one considering her breathtaking performance in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which must cause us to question how much the industry has truly changed

The Impact Rankings for 2022 have been published by the Times Higher Education. These rankings, amongst other things, reveal which unis in the world are the best for gender equality. Topping the list this year is Chiang Mai University in Thailand; Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is ranked fourth and number one in the UK. GCU has 52% female senior academic staff. Professor Pamela Gillies, the head of GCU and its vice chancellor, said, "These results show that our university is one of the best in the world." The ranking gives each university a score based on "their research on the study of gender equality, their policies on gender equality, and their commitment to hiring and promoting women."

As many start to return to the office, the major question is whether working from home or the office is more cost-effective. Due to the cost of living problems and pandemic, Confused.com found that, on average, it is cheaper for UK office workers to work from home. Inflation is currently at a 40-year high of 9 percent, energy prices are increasing, and child care costs have skyrocketed. We have to be aware that this may not be the case for everyone, so it’s better for everyone to perform the calculations and compare their spending patterns from when they were in the office and when they started working from home.