Superpower: male colleagues urged to ‘hero’ women at work

A focus on men might not be the first thing you’d expect from a panel of senior female leaders discussing gender inequality on International Women’s day (IWD), 8 March 2023.

But speakers at an event, titled ‘How to hero women at work for the future’, organised by management consultancy r10, had practical advice for men to help defeat sexism at work. Sexism manifests in the gender pay gap, the motherhood penalty, a lack of support for the women experiencing the menopause, and a failure to improve things for the next generation of working women, the audience heard.

And tackling gender inequality is more urgent than ever as days before IWD 2023, the UN Commission on the Status of Women said that gender equality remained "300 years away".

With this devastating data in mind, the panel had a number of suggestions for their male colleagues, from men letting women finish what they are saying in meetings to not sexually objectifying women at work.

The panellists were Rachel Wilson, senior people business partner at QBE International, Hélène Stanway, advisory director at r10, Tamara Howe, director for commercial and operations at Naked Television, and Maneeze Chowdhury, CEO (UK), communications at creative agency Exposure, with veteran editor, formerly editor in chief of Sunday Times Style, Elle and Cosmopolitan, Lorraine Candy chairing.

Early on in the session, Candy was clear that women can’t tackle the multitude of gender related inequalities on their own. She asked the panel for their experiences of working in a heavily male dominated workforce and what men could do better?

Television industry leader Howe said that “coming to an event like this is a good start and engaging in listening is important”.

She also urged men to “hire us and promote us”, and encouraged men to think about their criteria for success. “People are known to hire in their own image. Well that's a problem if you’re all men, you're going to need to think outside the box, reevaluate.

“Think about who you hire, who's in your team? Who have you hired in the last year? Who have you promoted? Is there a pattern you need to break?”

Citing data that shows that men are 30% more likely to interrupt a woman than they are a man, Candy said: “Just let us finish. Let women get to the end of their sentence. Am I going to interrupt that woman should be one of the thoughts as well.”

QBE's Wilson recounted a war story from a number of years ago when she attended an event.

“I was a business partner at the time and I was with my manager. We walked into the room, and it was predominantly men, white men. And I was announced as the crumpet, the crumpet had arrived.”

Wilson has reflected on this experience a lot since then and wanted to be able to tell a really empowering story about how she loudly rejected this sexism and demanded to be treated better.

“But I didn't. I smiled nervously,” she said, describing herself then as younger and naive. She said that at the time, she “didn't even really feel that offended”. However, she was clear that now she was “angry for my younger self at that point because I would want so much more in that situation”.

For women in insurance and the financial services industry it is a “different world now”, she added. But she called on men to recognise that if a woman walks into a room and she’s the only woman, or one of very few, that's the first thing they think about.

She added: “Being the men in the room, it does sometimes help if you can acknowledge that, if you can be aware of that.”

“If you're aware of what that can mean and feel like for someone who's walking into the room, then go up and have a conversation with them. And if you see someone calling women crumpets, call them out and say that’s not ok.”

Responding to the same question from Candy, Stanway had spoken to the male attendees at the event before the discussion to ask them what they thought they could do on this issue. She said men are not mind readers and urged the women in the audience to “be direct and ask for what you want or what you need”.

She said: “They're not going to realise unless you tell them. So it's as much on you to voice what you want as it is for the gentleman, or anybody, to listen. It’s so simple, everybody can do it. Ask for and tell people what you want.”