Sexism is a complicated topic, both in organisations and society more generally.
As a man, I’m interested in how male leaders approach the topic of sexism. And – more importantly – how we can be advocates for addressing the issue.
I know I’ll never fully understand what it’s like to experience sexism first hand. The best I can do is approach the topic with humility – listening, learning and continually working to deepen my understanding.
On one level, many men would acknowledge that sexism is a systemic issue.
On another level though, many of us resist the idea that we’ve been advantaged due to our gender.
As though sexism is a systemic issue in theory, but not something that played a role in the organisations we’ve worked for or the careers we’ve built.
And it’s not because they’re not thoughtful, smart and caring men. The ones I’m thinking of are. But something blocks any recognition that advantage exists everywhere and that they – like me – have likely benefited from it.
I think part of the issue is that they can’t quite wrap their minds around the fact that they were given a leg up in their career. Because when they look back, they might like us to see that they didn’t come from wealthy families, go to privileged schools or universities, or have powerful benefactors who opened all these doors for them. Instead they might like to be recognised for how hard they’ve worked, the sacrifices they’ve made and the obstacles they overcame to get where they are today.
And, in the cases I’m thinking of, all of these things are generally true. I’m thinking of hard working, resilient men from humble backgrounds.
And so we’re tempted to think, “I won the race fair and square”.
But their efforts and beginnings are only part of the equation. What it ignores is the ways in which others – who might have worked equally hard and come from similar backgrounds – were not able to compete in the race from the same level footing, because of their gender (or other sources of systemic bias).
We have to look at the race in its totality. And what’s going on for everyone.
Because the reality is that some people have been running the race against a strong and invisible headwind that affects them but not others.
In some cases, men do benefit from an unfair tailwind – being assumed competent until proven otherwise, assigned more credibility in leadership or given other unspoken advantages.
But even when that’s not the case, the women in the same race were undoubtedly held back.
The problem therefore has to recognise relative advantage, not just the absolute advantage that any one man experiences.
We must look after everyone at the same time. We have to care about the fairness of the race, not just ourselves.
We have to eliminate the headwinds that hold some people back – but not others – in our organisations and in society generally.
And – of course – systemic discrimination is a beast with a varied diet that feeds not just on differences of gender, but also race and ethnicity, age, disability, caregiver status, neurodiversity and more.
We might not eliminate discrimination in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t all have a responsibility to develop our awareness around the ways in which the forces of discrimination affect our organisation and its people, and to proactively seek to neutralise them.
Leaders – especially men – must take a hard look at how promotions, pay and opportunities work in their organisation. And at everyday power dynamics, down to how people behave in meetings. They must look for the invisible headwinds at play – and do what they can to remove them.
A good place to start? By actively educating ourselves. There’s no shortage of research, books and lived experiences available – we just have to seek them out. Expecting women to carry the burden of explaining sexism to us only reinforces the imbalance we’re trying to address. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen. Once we’ve done the work to understand the broader issues, we can ask the women we work with about their experiences – and really listen. Not to debate or defend, but to understand. And listening is only the first step. The next is using our influence to challenge bias, advocate for fairness and push for structural change in the workplace (and society).
How can we help you?
If you’re an aspiring or established leader, we’d love to support your development.
Here are three ways:
- Subscribe to our free newsletter – we offer weekly actionable insights, expert strategies and inspiring content on leadership, management and personal development
- Connect with us on LinkedIn – we post practical advice on management and leadership every day
- Check out our range of practical tools, most of which are free to download
We’re Impact Society – join more than 7,000 aspiring and established leaders
from 50+ countries who are changing the world, one team at a time.
Read our story
