This past week I finished a six-session pilot program titled “Men as Allies in Tech.” Each session was a 2 hour live virtual class followed by an hour of homework. This pilot was run by an organization called Women in Tech World and had men from three major organizations participate: the Federal Government of Canada, the University of Ottawa, and IBM Canada. The goal of this pilot program is “to provide a safe space for men who manage tech teams to raise awareness and education on gender equity in the workplace and provide concrete, actionable takeaways for use in daily allyship. ​ Participants will be supported in shifting their lens and building new skills to act as allies and partners for women in tech.” Based on the feedback from the facilitators and participants it may become a permanent program for men to take.

I have to say, this was one of the most enlightening, hardest hitting, yet inspiring programs I’ve ever taken. In this blog I’ll share a bit about what I learned and what I plan to do differently to be a better ally for women in technology. I won’t rehash all the damning facts that support the notion that this is a real problem – there are plenty of studies/articles easily found via your favourite search engine – but I will assume that you, the reader, accept this problem to be true. I’ll also caveat this to state that I’m writing this from a binary women-men perspective for simplicity’s sake but the situation is much worse for LGBTQ+ persons and minorities.

My Key Takeaways

1. The situations women face at work are mind-boggling. While I’ve known that many women face hurdles during their tech careers, I was somewhat oblivious or naive to some of the horrible situations that so many women have had to deal with. We heard stories from women about these situations and you almost didn’t want to believe what you’re hearing, yet they’re real. What’s worse is that many happen in group settings where people present do not speak up about the seemingly obvious transgressions.
2. Microaggressions are rampant. Beyond the bigger situations, many women face microaggressions on a daily basis. There are constant comments or actions that affect women’s ability to perform at their best free of discrimination. Some microaggressions are obvious; others are more subtle.
3. The difference between mentorship and sponsorship. I especially found this insightful. A common solution well-meaning organizations implement is more mentorship of women. This is not bad by any means, but it’s not sufficient. What we learned is that there are networks and systems that many women simply do not have access to. Two examples include company boards which are made up of exclusively or mostly men, and after work social events that aren’t convenient for women with children or taking care of elderly relatives. Women need access to these networks in order to proceed in their careers, thus sponsorship from those in those networks is necessary. If you have 12 minutes to spare check out this excellent HBR podcast for more on this topic.
4. Some men are oblivious of how they negatively impact women. This is not meant to be an excuse, rather recognition that there are systemic, cultural, societal, and other factors that result in many men simply not having a clue about how the things they say or do affect women. I’m guilty of this myself. This implies that there’s a level of education/awareness needed that isn’t prevalent enough in workplaces. All of the men who participated in this pilot program came in with varying degrees of knowledge/experience on this topic yet all walked away learning more about how they as people and their workplaces can evolve to be better.
5. No knights in shining armour required. Women don’t need men to come in as heroes to solve these problems. What women are asking for is an equal playing field where they can bring their full selves to work, be free from microaggressions and other worse situations, and have access to the networks and systems that lead to career progression.

There were a lot more takeaways but these were the ones that really stuck with me.

By the way, this kind of situation doesn’t just happen in corporate workspaces. This past weekend my wife ran into a microaggression and asked me for my insight on how to address it. She is a family physician and is working with a vendor to purchase some software. While her email name and signature state her “Dr.” title the male salesperson she’s working with kept referring to her by her first name only. This isn’t the first time she’s run into this. She has (and probably most female doctors have) observed that her male peers are consistently appropriately referred to as “Dr. surname” yet female doctors are consistently referred to by their first names only. Normally I’d advise her to let it go but based on my learning from this program this time I suggested she should call it out directly with the salesperson when they met on Monday for a demo. Fortunately he used her appropriate title so a potentially confrontational/awkward situation was avoided.

A program like this is useless if it doesn’t drive change, and the final session was dedicated to creating action plans on how we’d implement what we learned at work and at home. Here are some of the actions from my plan:

1. Actively watch for microaggressions in my own actions and by others, and not let them go unaddressed. Admittedly this one will be tough. One example is I want to stop using the term “guys” to refer to groups that include or are exclusively women. Yet it’s so ingrained in my style of writing and speaking that twice since I set this goal I referred to groups of exclusively women as “guys” – argh. The other easier-said-than-done part will be how I handle calling out microaggressions from others, especially potentially from those in higher levels of the organization.
2. I run two organization-wide intrepreneurship programs at work that involve people pursuing innovating differently than via their typical day jobs. Relative to the percentage of our population, the number of women who participate in these two programs is low. I am working on analyzing how we’re marketing/positioning these programs to determine why we’re not attracting more women. I’ve had two conversations with colleagues so far and received feedback from one that these programs feel like “just one more thing” that women have to do (especially during the pandemic where women have many additional pressures) and got suggestions from the other on groups that we could market the programs to for better awareness. There’s more that will be done here in the coming weeks.
3. Use the power of my role to sponsor more women. My current role as Chief of Staff to the VP of Development of our 4,200+ person global development organization means I have a lot of influence across our organization. I can use my platform to help support many of the incredibly talented women in our organization. I’m not exactly sure how this will manifest so I have to spend more time developing this action. Ideas are welcome!
4. Listen more. Seek out women’s perspectives on how announcements, programs, events, etc. work or don’t work for them and make changes to be more inclusive.

I said earlier that this program was inspiring. I’m hopeful of a better future just based on the fact that this pilot took place, and that it may become a permanent program. I’m equally inspired by how open/willing my peers who participated are to growing themselves and making meaningful changes within their organizations and with their colleagues. We were made aware of organizations working in this space, many of which I now follow on Twitter, and I’m inspired by the conversations and initiatives I’ve been reading about on social media.

To summarize, I consider myself fortunate to have participated in this pilot program and I truly hope it becomes a permanent course that other men can take and learn from. I know that I cannot solve this problem by myself but I can be a part of the solution, both personally and by guiding/helping other men. I also realize I’m not fully “woke” yet on this topic and that I have more to learn, which I’m committed to do. While I’ll strive for more, if I can help a handful of women have a better experience at work and advance in their careers then I consider that the minimum bar for success.

I welcome feedback on this blog.