Why Equality Needs to be an Inclusive Conversation, and We Need to Stop Marginalizing Men
Inclusive Action on Gender Equality in Leadership
There’s now a plethora of research that demonstrates that equality is good for us all. Gender parity leads to more successful, profitable businesses, thriving communities and societies. The World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations - these are just some examples of global organizations demanding that society and the corporate world wakes up and addresses EQUALITY, urgently.
Equality and a sense of belonging lead to workplaces of happy, engaged people, who, by definition, feel free to be authentic, creative and innovative. That makes them highly productive. That makes an organization 'sing'.
Specifically addressing the question - why aren’t there more women in senior leadership positions to effect policy and change? – it’s important to expose not just the biases and myths surrounding women, but also, crucially, those surrounding men.
It’s important to address how our over-identification or indeed lack of identification with what society expects of us as men and women leaves many people in a space of fear and anger.
And we must also recognize our biases and false assumptions around what makes a great leader.
Bias in these three areas perpetuates opportunities for the few and fails to utilize vast amounts of largely untapped and overlooked talent.
While most books on gender equality tend to be written and read predominantly by women, I deliberately wrote a book, Gender Dimensions in Leadership, specifically for corporate leaders, who at this point are more likely to be men. While it covers many areas, the book addresses many of the social, emotional and psychological issues men face that actually contribute to perpetuating inequality in leadership.
Conversations on gender disparity themselves frequently marginalize men, which doesn't help anyone. So, when we address this fact for men it’s incredibly powerful. They actually want to join the conversation on equality. They actually feel included and a sense of belonging. What a novel concept.
So let’s get this party started
Most CEOs of the Fortune 500 are currently white men, with only two male CEOs men of color. In 2019 only 33 were women, and only 2 of those women of color. Why do we mention color when we’re talking about gender? To highlight that these numbers don’t reflect the population, but one group. And that while we use gender as the lens, we must continually remember that inequality manifests beyond gender.
Vernā Myers, now Vice President for Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, coined the phrase “Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance”. While inclusion is an essential part of this journey, there’s something else that keeps slipping through the nets that needs addressing. Daniel Juday, an inclusion consultant and former Director for the Ohio and Indiana Diversity Councils, wrote an article on LinkedIn about why Vernā’s statement wasn’t entirely true. He articulated that the larger issue was around having the power for people to invite themselves and be part of the party committee.
Vernā gracefully responded to Juday’s article, in agreement that “the need to re-imagine culturally competent organizational cultures, where people who have been under-represented and marginalized are deeply integrated in the decision-making, shaping and planning, etc. of the organization,” was hugely important. She reiterated, very sensibly, that it’s a step by step process. Juday agreed, allowing that, "in lopsided power structures it is often necessary to attempt partial or incomplete advances." However, it seems that admitting they're partialsteps is a big part of the overall process. Until these marginalized groups with their enormous talents are also leading, we can’t hope to get fair representative influence.
Once we do, we’ll utilize the talents of more and better serve the needs of all.
And recognizing that men themselves are often marginalized in the equality conversation might also be helpful.
A Giant leap for humankind, now
We think the time for a step-by-step approach might be allowing a lot of companies pay lip-service to an issue that’s pressing and possible now. Yet we completely understand why Vernā used this diplomatic framing.
Change is hard, especially for people who can’t, don’t or won’t see the issues really at play. But if you’re permanently targeted as the group that’s responsible for all the injustice then you’re bound to shut down.
Beyond white feminism and patriarchy
Corporations want to be competitive, innovative and reap greater profits. There is a plethora of research showing that having more women in senior leadership roles can do just that. It seems having women in senior leadership roles is great for business and great for the workplace. But we need to understand fully the types of exclusion going on, that doesn't just effect women, but EVERYONE in some way. We need to investigate how to get to the party, dance at the party and have more women and minorities be in charge of the party committee at the same time, by properly engaging men in the conversation.
Might leaders serve their organizations better by taking massive strides, now, to share that leadership? An increasing body of research seems to think so. Might we achieve that by having more men in this conversation? Again yes, says the research. But most corporations are utterly ineffectual in this endeavour. Internal silos on diversity, inclusivity, equity, and now belonging, remain.
While it should not be seen as a next step in a kind of hierarchy of first white men, now there should be privileged white women, and then later Black and brown people and then other minorities, it has nevertheless been the case that much of the gender inequality rhetoric has been focused on white women. This has been to the exclusion of other groups of women on this topic, not to mention those of us who don’t readily identify with whatever white women experience, despite us being white women. Feminist theory itself is largely based on the white female experience, thus itself largely exclusionary in capturing the very unique and specific experiences of all women.
And much of the research into masculine ideologies has focused on patriarchy and the white male experience to the exclusion of others. In the discussion on equality men have actually been largely excluded. We seem to think equity is something women only need to fight for. We need to recognize that everyone loses when we don’t have equality. We need to understand that people, companies and societies thrive when we do.
We therefore use the lens of gender in a broader exploration that should speak to the hurdles for everyone, not just women, not just white women. After all, inclusion needs to do just that, INCLUDE EVERYONE.
We noted from our own research how much more is needed to further research and better voice the needs of differing groups. In gender equality conversations we really need to make a shift away from focussing solely on women, their issues and on how they apparently may need to change to fit. This latter ‘fixing women’ rhetoric being the biggest nonsense in much of the last decade's advise on how to create gender equality in leadership.
In the spirit of inclusivity and belonging there’s no point targeting an audience of only women, or white women or even white men. However, when certain groups are seen as having higher status, and have arguably the most power, privilege and influence, it is these groups that we need to target more effectively in this dialogue.
Because the balance of power and influence in many corporations is sitting in the hands of white men, their specific attention is needed. We can ill-afford to shut them down. But much of the rhetoric does exactly that. And until we address the stereotyping and biases against men, so they can feel involved instead of targeted, that will not change.
There are many men who want to stand up for equality, and their voices need to be raised up now in this movement. We need to stop putting all men in the same power-hungry, incompetent, misogynistic box, just because some men belong there.
We need to build bridges, not barriers erected through blaming rhetoric.
Issues with gender overlap many of the interests of all groups who experience biases and discrimination. Though many of the issues for Black, brown, disabled, older, younger, neuro-atypical, LGBTQ and many more minority sections’ issues are different, most of the oppression is interconnected. It’s ultimately about one dominant group over others.
And dominance is bad for EVERYONE.
Equality does lead to safe, thriving societies and organizations, so it's a worthy goal for us ALL to become completely involved in.
In the words of John Ameachi OBE, "You have to say something is wrong. Tell people what you stand for and tell people what you won't stand for, and live by the implications of that..... Equality is not a spectator's sport."
And ‘you’ means EVERYONE.
Because equality is a human issue.