Nearly twenty years ago, whilst doing some research for Opportunity Now (Diversity Dimensions: Integration of Diversity into Organisational Cultures) one FTSE 100 company stood out. Pearson PLC had had two top female executives on the board for six years – Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO and a finance director, Rona Fairhead. This was highly unusual at the time and it was achieved without any specific diversity goal or initiative. I interviewed a few male board directors to discover more. What I found was that these men were much more liberal and socially aware than most FTSE 100 directors, were not threatened by female leadership and were prepared to make room at the top for these women. The corporate world, particularly at this level is extremely competitive and it is no good pretending that women aren’t competing with men … they are.
Power once obtained is hard to give up. For men and women to work together at all levels of organisations, men must be prepared to give up some power. Power never sat happily with the concept of diversity and inclusion but as this post is about men and their support it is really important to bring it into the room. The subtitle of my book Men’s Work Women’s Cultures is Overcoming Resistance and Changing Organisational Cultures because the resistance to women’s equality is real and needs to be addressed.
Most of the men working in the field of diversity and inclusion will, like the Pearson male directors be liberal minded. They are on our side. We need them to persuade other men both at senior levels and middle management of the very real barriers to women’s progress at work and to actively support their female peers. This isn’t an easy.
Male ally isn’t a new term. It has been used on occasion for many years to describe men in organisations who support the efforts for women’s equality. Professionals know that without male leadership behind policies and practices plus the support of middle management change just doesn’t happen. There has been an increase in the use of the term within the DEI sector with some men, mostly consultants now describing themselves as male allies and promoting the term ‘allyship’. This post isn’t to berate these men at all as their work is very important but ‘ally’ is not a term I like as it brings to mind warring factions and implies that non allies are by default enemies. This in itself may unintentionally create a them and us, a good guys and bad guys scenario, making men defensive.
I have assumed that the role of a male ally was to use their more ‘listened to’ masculine voice to highlight organisational barriers to women’s progress in organisations and persuade male leadership and male employees of the need for change. A recent LinkedIn post by a well known ‘male ally’ listed all the subtle and not subtle barriers this man thought women faced in the workplace. He was correct in his choice of barriers but it wasn’t difficult… women have been listing these for years. The quite substantial attention he received was from women (out of 223 reactions only seven were from men). In a similar vein another well-regarded ‘male ally’ put up a post about a talk he gave at an Inclusion conference. But guess what – the audience were almost entirely women, just as it usually is when anyone male or female gives a talk about diversity, gender or inclusion. The hardest part of this work is persuading men to accept that the workplace is still gendered in their favour and change is needed. The business case only gets you so far. It is easy to fill a room with women who are grateful that a man understands their hurdles. But if you cannot fill a room with men, perhaps start with a small group.
What do women want from ‘male allies’?
For me it is to enable challenging conversations with men and start the work that men need to do, both to benefit themselves but also women in their organisations. A Catalyst Report in 2009 , Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives, showed that 74 per cent of male interviewees identified fear as a barrier to men’s support of gender equality – fear of loss of status, fear of making mistakes and fear of other men’s disapproval. This research itself could form the basis of a productive discussion with men.
Men’s issues today and the changing role of women
Most of the male ally literature discuss the problems women face in organisations in terms of women’s issues rather than in terms of men’s issues. However there is a lot more social commentary on men and boys today and it tends to focus on their ‘lostness’, their loneliness, the high level of male suicide, the current crisis in masculinity. (Richard Reeves, Jordan Peterson, Chris Williamson) Women, myself included, are also concerned and beginning to comment on the topic and show support. There is also concern about the fact that women are steaming ahead on the educational front leaving men behind – Young women are starting to leave men behind FT.
A focus on this is very welcome, as emotionally stable and happy men and boys is good news for women and girls and society in general. However some of the commentary carries an undercurrent (sometimes stated more overtly) of blame toward women and particularly feminism for somehow emasculating men. The sub text is ‘If only women hadn’t taken men’s places, they would be ok’.
Very little of it (commentary) acknowledges let alone interrogates men’s historical relationship to women and their role in women’s subjugation or the changes that women have fought for in the face of male resistance. For all their frailties the fact remains that men still hold most positions of power and have the most influence over our culture. In other parts of the world they continue to dehumanise women with impunity. Women campaigned for change in their own lives and so can men.
Men should be educated about the history of women’s rights and encouraged to discuss their fear of losing status and power, their desire or not to spend more time caring for family members, their ability or not to express emotion and vulnerability, what kind of lives they want, what kind of relationships they want – in the safety of male only groups.
Understand women’s everyday lives and concerns and communicate them to male employees
Recently the interruption by Siorse Ronan during a TV chat show in which young men were joking about the uselessness of having a mobile phone when being threatened at night ignited much discussion about gender relations. How good are they? Saoirse Ronan’s polite reminder to her male panellists on Graham Norton that women are constantly pre-empting attack got cheers from women in the audience. The young men on the panel were dumbstruck. Because they had never thought about it before. Why not? Do men not think about the fear that women might have walking alone at night or in an isolated place? Men that harangue women for not wanting males in our spaces regardless of how they may identify are showing the same lack of awareness as Eddie Redmayne and Paul Mescal were on that show. We have no idea whether a man walking towards us is harmless or not? Women who have We are brought up to assume he may not be. This leads me on to why women may fear men and another topic for male allies to address with other men.
Discuss the ubiquity of male violence and sexual violence and its impact on women
Like many other women I wrote and posted about the Pelicot case REFS and like them received huge number of comments and interest. But my search to find a male writer commenting on the case has failed to find anything. This horrendous case rather crushed the often repeated defence of ‘not all men’ when we generalise about men’s bad behaviours. The image of the lineup of fifty or so very ordinary ‘respected’ men who had chosen to rape an unconscious woman really shook women up. The publicity around the case provided a brilliant opportunity for men to discuss male sexuality, where and why it is used against women and harms women but instead we get silence. Left for women to discuss and shake their heads in disbelief.
The increased sexualisation of women and girls has an impact on all women’s lives both inside and outside organisations. When we walk into work we carry with us all the values of wider society. If most of the men in your department consume pornography what do they actually think of the woman manager in front of them? I remember the campaign to ban Page 3 of the Sun newspaper led by Labour MP Clare Short, for which she was ridiculed daily. It was uncomfortable to sit opposite men on the bus or train whilst they gawped at the bare breasts on Page 3. But that looks harmless compared to what many men watch these days. We know that 67% of all pornography depicts violence towards women. What do men think about pornography?
The specific barriers women face in the workplace are widely known. What is less known is the impact of the wider social context and the role men continue to play consciously and unconsciously for any remaining inequality. Male allies can play a key part in facilitating discussions of ways in which they can institute meaningful change for themselves and for women.
List of resources…. Earlier
Male Order, Unwrapping Masculinity ( Chapman and Rutherford 1987) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Male-Order-Masculinity-Rowena-Chapman/dp/0853156905
In the Company of Men by Gruber and Morgan(2004) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Company-Men-Dominance-Harassment-Northeastern/dp/1555536379
Men’s Silences: Predicaments in Masculinity by Jonathan Rutherford 1992 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mens-Silences-Predicaments-Masculinity-Orders/dp/0415075440
Masculinity and the British Organisation Man since 1945 by Michael Roper 1994 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masculinity-British-Organization-Since-1945/dp/0198256930
Men as Managers Managers as Men D. Collinson and J. Hearn(1996) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Managers-Perspectives-Masculinities-Managements/dp/0803989296
Updated here 2023 Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations. Theories, Practices and Futures of Organizing : edited By Jeff Hearn, Kadri Aavik, David L. Collinson, Anika Thym
And more recent
Engaging Men in Gender Initiative: The Catalyst Research https://www.catalyst.org/research-series/engaging-men-in-gender-initiatives/
Collaborating with Men. Changing workplace culture to be more inclusive for women: Murray Edwards College Cambridge University 2018 https://internationalwim.org/iwim-reports/collaborating-with-men-changing-workplace-culture-to-be-more-inclusive-for-women/
Men as Change Agents: Women’s Business Council published by the Government Equalities Office 2018 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75604840f0b6397f35df2a/Report_on_Men_as_Agents_for_Change_in_Gender_Equality.pdf
Why do so many incompetent men become leaders by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 2019 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Many-Incompetent-Become-Leaders/dp/1633696324
Men Stepping Forward. Leading your organisations on the path to inclusion by Elisabeth Kelan.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Changemakers-Practices-Inclusive-Leaders/dp/1529230020
Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Culture by Niobe Way https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rebels-Cause-Reimagining-Ourselves-Culture/dp/0593184262