News / Latest News

Creating workplaces where women can advance is not work women can, or should, do alone.

Men have an important role to play, not simply as supporters, but as active partners in challenging outdated workplace expectations, sharing caregiving responsibilities, sponsoring women’s advancement, and helping create cultures that work better for everyone.

For this special conversation on men as allies, Working for Women invited David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson, workplace gender-equity experts and authors of Fair Share, to discuss why gender equality benefits all of us, what meaningful allyship looks like in practice, and where businesses should begin.

Your work explores how men can help create workplaces where more women can advance and lead. How does greater gender equality benefit men, businesses, and the broader economy?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it best: “Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.”

When we move toward full engagement of women in paid work and greater engagement of men in care, here are the evidence-based benefits we all reap:

More advancement of talented women to leadership roles. Making space for dads at home will empower more talented women to ascend at work. Women are more inclined to pursue and thrive in higher-status leadership roles when their partners demonstrate tangible and instrumental support, such as domestic work and child and elder care.

A supercharged economy. More gender equity equates to a higher gross domestic product. Globally, we could see nearly $28 trillion added to the economy if women’s participation in the workforce was on par with men’s.

Higher productivity. Gender-balanced leadership teams make higher-quality, more fact-based decisions and tend to be more innovative, developing products and solutions that reach a wider range of people. Plus, they report better share prices and all-around financial performance.

Domestic bliss and improved personal relationships. Research consistently shows that more equitable sharing of paid and unpaid work leads to better health, greater well-being, stronger relationship stability, and even lower rates of domestic violence. And higher relationship satisfaction predicts higher work satisfaction, a win-win for workplaces and families.

Impact on future generations. Research shows that fathering that includes sharing housework and caregiving, as well as engaging in the mental load of the household, boosts children’s psychological health and educational outcomes. For daughters especially, seeing their dad share domestic responsibilities and champion their mother’s career helps them to be more likely to see themselves in the workforce and pursue careers beyond traditional gender roles.

What workplace structures or expectations continue to limit women’s advancement and economic security, particularly for caregivers, sole-income earners, and women in frontline or lower-wage roles? What can business leaders do to address them?

Archaic 20th-century workplace norms, attitudes, and customs around women and men have outlived their relevance and usefulness, and there is widespread dissatisfaction with the modern workplace because of it.

For example, outdated notions of caregiving, including that women are innately better suited for it and that professional careers and managerial work are incompatible with it, keep too many women from thriving and reaching their full potential in the paid workplace.

Traditional workplace cultures often map to sexist beliefs, such as taking days off is frowned upon; seeking others’ advice is seen as weakness; women who are promoted take jobs away from men; and women shouldn’t express strong opinions. These beliefs lead to behaviors with corrosive consequences for women.

Here are four traditional workplace culture norms that persistently undermine efforts to create the gender-fair workplace:

Ideal-worker norms. Assumptions that women are caregivers and men are breadwinners create highly masculine notions of the ideal worker. These include 24/7 availability, long work hours, willingness to travel or relocate for work, prioritizing paid work above all else, and privileging work identity and job status above other personal identities, such as caregiver.

Culture of presenteeism. Employees conform to expectations of face time, even when feeling unwell or ill, as a proxy for company loyalty and performance. This leads to advancement for those who stay the latest or work the longest hours.

Compartmentalization of work and life. Mention of family or caregiving obligations is taboo, and employees fear threats to inclusion and promotion due to subtle messages that parents, especially mothers, are distracted or uncommitted to their work and the organization.

Masculinity contests. Hypercompetitive displays of dominance, strength, and stamina, as well as outworking everyone else, hold undue influence over who is rewarded and advanced.

What can business leaders do to address them?

We’ve devoted most of our book, Fair Share, to showing gender-inclusive leaders how to make systemic and structural change to their organizations so that they work for everyone. Here are some key tactics for leaders:

• Stop framing gender fairness as a women’s issue. Pull men in by showing them what’s in it for them, personally and professionally, when they become full partners for a gender-fair workplace.
• Role-model power-sharing, authenticity, and world-class listening. Be honest about what you don’t understand; learn about the experiences of others and how your workplace might evolve.
• Cast a compelling personal, business, and moral “why” for getting these things right. Elevate gender inclusion, fair advancement of women, and better support for caregivers when you communicate with employees.
• Don’t allow gender fairness to become a siloed program or office. Bake it into your organization’s business goals and people policies.
• Prioritize balanced representation of women and men on your own team and ensure that women’s voices are pulled into every conversation and business decision.

Many men consider themselves supportive colleagues but may be unsure how to act. What are two or three meaningful ways they can move from good intentions to active allyship?

When it comes to gender collaboration, we find that most men have good intent. The foundational ideals of dignity, fairness, and opportunity for women, both those they love and those they work with, resonate at a deep level for them.

But many of us have got to be diligent about closing the aspiration-execution gap when it comes to really showing up behaviorally as genuine partners, collaborators, and allies with women, at work and at home, to promote a gender-fair workplace and broader society.

Here are just a few of the ways men can move from aware to active as allies:

Interpersonally: Listen generously, avoid assumptions about women, and demonstrate curiosity about the experiences and gendered headwinds of the women around you.

Publicly: Become a loud advocate and sponsor for talented women and talk about them even when they’re not in the room. Disrupt sexist or biased comments in real time, and make sure that women are getting credit for their ideas and contributions.

Structurally: Push your own organization for better transparency around gender-equitable pay and advancement. Take your full caregiving leave, be loud and proud about your need for flexibility and time away to care for kids or other family members, and train managers to welcome and support women back into the workplace to mitigate attrition of working mothers.

In Fair Share, you call for men and women to create more equitable workplaces together. Where should organizations begin, and how can leaders determine whether they are making meaningful progress?

This is a great question. Start with listening!

How are women at different levels in the organization experiencing the workplace day to day? What are their primary pain points and headwinds? What about working parents and other caregivers?

Begin conducting routine employee engagement and experience surveys. Create and deploy a care census to get a periodic read on the caregiving demands many of your employees are silently carrying outside the workplace.

De-gender programs that have too often been labeled “women’s” or “mothers’” programs, such as generous paid leave and flexible and hybrid work schedules, so that women and men use them equally. This removes the stigma at work and enables more equitable unpaid labor at home.

Then, year to year, track progress on gender-fair hiring, retention, pay, and advancement. Track utilization rates for caregiving leave and flexible work, with the aim of getting to gender parity in use.

Participate in employee resource groups for women and working parents to get a sense of how your gender-fair innovations are landing and where you still have work to do.

Putting Allyship into Action

As David and Brad make clear, allyship requires more than good intentions. It asks men to listen, advocate, share responsibility, challenge outdated expectations, and use their influence to help change the systems around them.

At Working for Women, we see the power of men and women working together to expand opportunity. Through our Skillunteering program, employees contribute their professional expertise to strengthen nonprofit partners and support programs that advance women’s economic mobility.

It is one way men can move from supporting the idea of gender equity to actively contributing to it.

Learn more about how your company and employees can put their skills to work through Working for Women.

David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson are workplace gender-equity experts and the authors of  Fair Share. 

 

How outdated work norms undermine careers, caregiving, and gender equity—and how leaders can fix the system.

The workplace is broken–and it’s holding everyone back. Women still struggle to grow in their careers, while men who endeavor to do their part at home are often stigmatized. This disconnect means that even when men take part in flexible work arrangements or contribute to caregiving, women end up picking up the slack and missing out on professional opportunities.

If companies want to reach their full potential and achieve true fairness at work, the workplace must change—and it starts at the top. In Fair Share, gender-in-the-workplace experts W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith offer a blueprint for how leaders can break down systemic barriers across the organization so that men can do more outside of paid work and women can take their rightful place in the ranks of corporate leadership. They suggest focusing on three key areas:

• Rethinking company culture and the structure of work
• Going all-in on caregiving options and employee benefits
• Making gender fairness routine through process and policies

Filled with examples and insights from both men and women, Fair Share offers a look at what companies can become when leaders finally break down the obstacles holding everyone back. By working together, men and women can create a better workplace, one where every individual can achieve what they want–both at work and at home.