It takes a strong person to trust and allow others voices to be heard, listened to and acted upon.
Indeed. I haven't yet read the transcript of MacNamara's evidence, but these reported excerpts are heartbreaking – and worth repeating here:
In her written evidence MacNamara said: “Women working in No 10 and the Cabinet Office were experiencing very obvious sexist treatment. This was their experience, and it was impacting on their work as they were finding this distressing and frustrating on top of an already distressing and frustrating situation.
“The dominant culture was macho and heroic. Neither are the preserve of men (women can be macho and heroic too) but the culture was problematic because it meant debate and discussion was limited, junior people were talked over and it felt that everything was contaminated by ego. It was positively unhelpful when the country needed thoughtful and reflective decision making.”
She told the inquiry she had frequently requested counselling for the stress involved, without success.
In an email to staff she said: “Am concerned about the impact that recent months have had on our teams. And in particular that we are not providing enough support for those who worked during the intense period on C-19. What do I have to do to get a counsellor available that we can point people to? I have had a number of people break down in tears on me this week so this is urgent.”
In response, Katharine Hammond, the director of the civil contingencies secretariat, said in an email in April 2020: “Sadly I 100% agree this is an issue. Other things I thought might help:
– having more female professional voices in the room: chief nursing officer, commissioner, head of NCA all amazing women
– frankly, there are one or two men at DG [director general] level who just need to be told their behaviours are driving this and to stop it
– trying to make sure we don’t have a room full of men and all [the] women on Zoom (it’s harder to be part of the conversation)
– putting more women in the chair”.
[...]
To try to correct the bias MacNamara bought multiple copies of Caroline Criado-Perez book Invisible Women and handed them to officials and advisers. In her evidence she wrote: “The exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences, including the lack of thought given to childcare in the context of school closures. There was a serious lack of thinking about domestic abuse and the vulnerable, about carers and informal networks for how people look after each other in families and communities. There was not enough thinking about the impact on single parents of some of the restrictions. [...]"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/01/absence-of-humanity-helen-macnamara-evidence-to-covid-inquiry