Ways men can win gender equality at work

Men have been challenged to support female colleagues in a new report looking at gender inequality.

The research claims to provide evidence based practical ideas for men who want to be allies to their female workmates.

Men who were interviewed for the work said they need to be more aware of the danger of a ‘boy’s club’ mentality, to stamp out ‘locker room talk’ and expressed support for candidate quotas when hiring. Women who took part in the research said men need to be more aware of workplace biases and make more effort to believe and understand women’s feelings.

The study of 600 employees by professional training company Roar Training found 47% of men don’t believe that women are treated equally in the workplace and 31% have experienced a co-worker being treated unfairly because of her gender.

Opportunities

Despite this there is a significant difference between men and women’s perception of inequality in the workplace. Sixty-four per cent of male respondents said female co-workers are given the same opportunities as them and 10% believe their female co-workers get more opportunities than them. Nevertheless, 91% of male respondents think that gender equality is either important, or extremely important to them, even though only 71% said they actively support gender equality in the workplace.

Some 27% of female respondents say they have been actively supported by a male coworker when being treated unfairly in the workplace. However, 56% were not actively supported.  Some 92% of women want an open dialogue, where issues can be addressed together, discussed on a case by case basis.

Gender parity

Kirsty Hulse, Founder of Roar Training, said: “The route to both achieving gender parity in the workplace, and ensuring those within businesses feel their is a commitment to this is undoubtedly nuanced, complex and subjective. This research suggests there is an agreed starting point when addressing the issue of gender equality in the workplace.

“There is seemingly no “rule” as to whether sexist behaviour ought to be openly called out, or the role of male allies is to facilitate positive change in the background. This is entirely subjective to the individual, and seemingly differs depending on which stage of their careers they are in. Based on this, the most effective male allies are those whom discuss openly their biases, actively listen to their female coworkers and ask how their female colleagues would best like to address these issues.”

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• gender equality