Three things men can do to support women in a workforce
I have a ton of well-meaning friends, sometimes colleagues (male) constantly ask me how they can help with gender parity issues. I decided…
I have a ton of well-meaning friends, sometimes colleagues (male) constantly ask me how they can help with gender parity issues. I decided to write a short note about it. A cheat sheet for things that I have known to happen and something tiny enough that it can go unnoticed but it can have a ton of impact on improving our daily lives.
Don’t cut off women in a meeting. Even better, if you see them not speaking up in a meeting dominated by men, then try and turn to them and offer them a moment to speak up. A simple “What do you think?” is easy to do. In an animated discussion, don’t assume that everyone is going to speak and assert their opinions. I had a co-worker reach out to me and my male colleague to gather our feedback on a topic he was leading in a 60 min discussion. My male co-worker used up 45 min out of the discussion to state his opinions, while I politely waited for him to finish. In the end, I finally was asked for my opinion but I felt marginalized and not given my fair share. I talked to my co-worker about it, and he was mindful from then on.
When you are addressing a room, make eye contact with the women in the room as well. I have been in at least a dozen meetings now, where some how the male speaker in the room avoids making eye contact as he scans the room with the women in the room. In fact, even for questions addressed to me, the speakers have looked at a male colleague and addressed the question. There may be other factors in play here, the speaker may be shy or perhaps other social norms have prevented him in the past. However, a professional work situation is exactly that, professional. Not making eye contact when you are addressing a professional work colleague directly and instead choosing to address other male proxies has deeper implications.
If you are a manager, try to make it your goal to help female team members achieve their career growth goals. A staggering statistic is that there are 40% of females in STEM at entry level positions and that number drops to 12% as the women go up the ranks. Which means as females plan their careers, encounter gender-specific problems such as motherhood, they have fewer and fewer female leaders who have navigated these challenges successfully. The only way to reverse this trend is by going out of your way to successfully mentor female team members and offer them growth opportunities.
There are many others that I am sure my female colleagues will want to add to. I wanted to start with these three as we all work towards help build better communities. If you have others, please add to your comments. I will incorporate the top suggestions in a future article.