Can Men Really Be Allies?

A Surviving Facts Blog

Before I got Covid, my next blog was supposed to be about men supporting women. This one is for the men out there.

A few weeks ago, I wrote how women need to do a better job of supporting women. That touched some sensitivity, as I expected it would. When women support or refuse to see biased interpretations of women, we need the sisterhood to stand up. No doubt it’s scary to do so. But it’s necessary. We won’t make progress without it.

I once had a young female employee email HR about the unconscious use of sexist language in an all-employee webcast. She copied me. As much as my hands shook on the keyboard, I “replied all” thanking the young manager for speaking up and underscoring the validity of her points. This young woman had courage, and I hope I supported her.

I’m happy to note that I had a male manager also write to complain. That man is what I call an ally: despite fear of retribution, understanding his own position of privilege, he heard the bias too and called it out. Good for him.

What I heard from many other men was……… That’s a long bunch of nothing. So here are my questions.

Did other men not notice? That’s a problem in and of itself. I’m always surprised when a man says he has no unconscious bias. Dude, how could you know? It’s UNCONSCIOUS. Unconscious bias takes serious self-analysis. Ruthless self awareness. Talk to me when that has been done.

As an example of how unconscious unconscious bias can be… In a company webcast, a male colleague presented a PPT slide. The story was that two leaders- one male and one female- were on vacation. In the slide, the vacationing male colleague was represented by a cartoon figure in a suit, his chest puffed out like Underdog. The female? Her cartoon self rested on a lounge chair. She wore a bathing suit, oversized sunglasses and a smile. She also held a drink. The message many women saw was that the male colleague was still hard at work while the female colleague wasn’t. It subtly depicted a stereotype of the always-responsible male and the not-so-serious female. The presenter could not see the issue. Would you have seen an issue?

Do men believe there isn’t bias anymore? If the “authoritative guidance” (ha ha) of Instagram is to be believed, many don’t. One young man in a reel I watched just the other day asked for documentable proof of workplace bias against women. Let’s see, women in the US earn less for the same jobs, have fewer senior roles, don’t have maternity leave on par with other countries and lack accommodations to juggle between full-time work and child care. This hurts men too but only extreme denial would assert the damage is equal. Without doubt, women carry the greater burden.

Are men unable to observe one another’s bias in group settings? I’m not sure they can. The locker room camaraderie sets in and the shits and giggles take over. Years ago, I was in a meeting when one of the male participants compared the taste of a soft drink to female genitalia. The other 9 or so men in the meeting slapped knees and laughed. I was the only woman in the room. Also years ago, I had a male senior executive squeeze my breasts like melons as I was exiting and he was entering a room. It happened so fast that I wondered if I imagined it. Other people had been exiting and entering too. Didn’t they see it? To be fair, I don’t think anyone did. But I digress…

If men can observe one another in the great savannah of the meeting room, can they actually hold one another accountable for better behavior? I don’t know. I personally don’t have any experiences. However, others do. A good friend of mine was recently in a meeting when a male colleague commented that she spoke too much. Thankfully, a male leader jumped in and set the tone: everyone gets to speak and no one gets to monitor. I’d call that man an ally.

Unfortunately, I have too often seen men call out and attack women with whom they disagree. Any form of female self defense automatically leads to the woman being labeled- and not positively. If a woman does the same kind of call out or attack, she is “out of line” or “impossible to work with.” Truth-telling rarely does women any favors.

And the more subtle signals of bias. Power balance emerges by who speaks- who speaks first, who speaks longest, who is called on to ask or answer questions. Women notice these details. Do men notice? I truly don’t know.

Mansplaining is real too. After years of managing a certain area of a company without any glitches and while making huge changes the company had not pursued before, I had a male colleague explain publicly to me how to run the area. In that case I got a rare rah rah from another team who said they’d never seen the area run so well under me. Ah, shucks, thanks. But what’s sad and a teensy bit infuriating is that this had to happen at all. There was no need for the male upsmanship. My work spoke for itself. Or it should have. What was the mansplainer’s goal? What was his actual point? Did he just want to be heard too?

Micro aggressions abound, and this is where the real damage occurs. I found micro aggression to be particularly difficult when they took the form of whisper campaigns. No matter how many people came forward to report such incidences, how much documentation was amassed, somehow it always seemed to be turned back on the woman. I have never seen a woman succeed against a whisper campaign. Let me know if you have!

But there is hope. My daughters’ male friends are uncompromising supporters of women. I have heard them challenge one another as well as champion women.

So can men be allies? Yes, and no. Sadly, generation and age do seem to reflect a willingness to do so. Unfortunately, political research is beginning to show a greater divide between men and women at all ages. Even younger men, particularly white young men in the South who have not pursued higher education, are trending more conservative. The New York Times just published an article on this a few days ago.

Taking a positive view, I think most men intend well. But it’s that unconscious bias and subtle micro aggression that do the greatest damage. They are hard to define, hard to call out and greatly dependent on context or the people involved. That subtlety is why we are still having this conversation so many years after the women’s movement began.

So here’s what I ask men to do. Take a course on unconscious bias. And be real with yourself. Listen to women’s experience without automatic invalidation. Talk to your sisters, girlfriends, spouses, daughters, granddaughters, friends about their experiences. Try to understand how confirmation bias from other men works. Then, when you see male power dynamics, speak up, every time, no matter how uncomfortable. Will you do it?

I’d love to hear thoughts on this from both men and women. What are your experiences?