Different Rules

I don't understand it: I spend time making sure that what I do 'for' other people is with their explicit consent. I contact and consult and research and engage and yet when I present that work to the cultural gatekeepers their reaction is to request NEW consultation, research and engagement. The energy put into this "admin" is irritating and pointless. It serves to slow down real development in an attempt to wear out the active and reduce their potential impact on the status quo. It is so much procedure for the sake of being able to say that it was followed in case something goes wrong. My stint in a public sector agency taught me that the primary goal of the average public sector worker is to follow procedure, if everything goes tits up, as long as you can show you followed procedure, your particular butt will be covered. There is nothing creative about that.

What REALLY pisses me off is to discover after a recent procedural road block, that the actions of a favoured individual had been accepted for well over a year without similar impediment. No questions were asked as claims for a group of people who were never consulted or made aware of the actions being taken in their names were being being articulated. What is it about this favoured individual that gives them that cachet of not needing corroboration whilst I must be challenged at every step? Could the fact that the majority of the doyens of the arts establishment in this region are white, middle class women have anything to do with it?