Men As Allies: How To Support Women At Work
With women’s labor force participation rate at 57% — the lowest it’s been since 1988 — creating conversations and action on how to support women in the workplace is especially critical now to keep us from going backwards on gender equality. We have to stop talking about how to ‘fix’ women–they don’t need to be fixed, the systems do — and talk about fixing how many men show up in the workplace. After all, the majority of leadership positions are still held by men, so engaging more men is essential for advancing equality.
To get others perspectives on how men can be better allies to women in the workplace I (virtually) sat down with some amazing panelists for a Consciously Unbiased LinkedIn Live conversation. You might be thinking, ‘Why would we ask men their take on how men can be better allies to women?’ By bringing more men into the conversation, we take the pressure off of women and help those around us realize equality is not only a women’s issue, and that it never was. Being a male ally means that we are willing to look introspectively at ourselves and remind ourselves that equality is everyone’s fight. We discussed how important self healing is for men, how true allyship is a collaboration, and how being uncomfortable is part of being an ally. Here are some key takeaways.
Men Need To Commit To Healing Themselves First
“Healed people heal other people. And so we have to teach men. One of the things I try to teach men is to be committed to your healing journey,” says Pervis Taylor, mental health advocate and life coach. “That’s why I wrote the book Heal Forward. Heal with the future in mind, but you can only heal if you’re helping others to heal as well. So we have to get men to be committed and intentional on their healing journeys.”
Allyship Is A Collaboration
“Allyship is not about rescuing. This is not doing things for somebody. This is doing things with,” says David Smith, associate professor at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace. “We need to learn to come alongside and think about how we do this collaboratively. How do we show up as partners in the workplace and do this together? I think we have as much to gain and to learn as men, as do women in the workplace, we can do that for all of us together.”
Be Conscious Of Your Bias
“We all have biases. As a woman, I have biases against other women, too. There’s no button that you can consciously press and stop the bias,” says Hira Ali, CEO of Advancing Your Potential and author of Her Allies: A Practical Toolkit to Help Men Lead Through Advocacy and of Her Way To The Top: A Guide to Smashing the Glass Ceiling. “You have to actually question yourself all the time and take a step back, because we’ve grown up with deeply entrenched biases. We can ask ourselves, ‘What assumptions am I making on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, faith, or any other predictive characteristic?’ I think that would really help.”
It’s Time For Men To Put More Skin In The Game
“If you happen to be a male and you happen to be a male with any seniority, it’s not enough to be nice to women and to mentor them that way. You need to talk about talented women when they’re not even in the room, says Brad Johnson, professor of psychology at the U.S. Naval Academy and co-author of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace. “Tell other people why they’re rockstars, why they should be considered [for an assignment or promotion], and about their great performance. This requires more skin in the game and risk on your part, but you need to step up and do that. ”
Men Need To Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
“[White] men are not used to being uncomfortable, ‘’ says Henry Rowling, founder of Flying Cars Innovation. “White men are not used to walking into a room and it being full of people who are not the same as them, or even talking about allyship and women’s issues online. Not everyone’s going to agree with you. They may come back at you, but you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you’re going to change anything. If you don’t do that, then nothing will change at all.”
