Women's group at work - disappointing

[AmberTheCat]

My company's diversity team has set up a women's support/networking/empowerment group, which I think is A Good Thing. I've just come away from the launch, though, feeling rather disappointed.

Disappointing Thing 1: The senior exec they've chosen to sponsor the group is a man. We have a pretty good number of female senior execs. No idea why they did this.

Disappointing Thing 2: Said man gave a speech in which he a) talked about 'man management', b) said he thought the main thing holding women back was confidence, and c) said he thought our company culture was conducive to women doing well, unlike the culture at his previous company which was 'entrepreneurial and fast-paced'.

Disappointing Thing 3: Many of the women I spoke to afterwards didn't seem to find Disappointing Thing 1 and Disappointing Thing 2 disappointing at all.

I blame you lot for raising my consciousness

i agree with everything cailin says - i don't think men should be put in charge of groups like this

to be clear, by senior management buy-in i don't mean a man sitting in on support sessions.

but at some point there is going to be a man making decisions based on this (one hopes) - because let's face it in most companies tehere simply aren't enough women with enough seniority. and that man needs to be involved in such a way that he is listening and understanding women's experiences - best of course in a non-identifiable way

Empower women by getting a man in to tell them where they are going wrong.

Great.

To be honest though, I think that as it stands, the idea of man genuinely listening to and understanding women's experiences is a bit pie in the sky. I do wonder if these initiatives do more harm than good in that they give everyone the sense that something positive is being done without the real issues ever being addressed.

My DH has, literally in the last month, started to really get into feminism. He is finding it beyond mind-boggling - he is crying, he can't watch things on tv, he is struggling at work. He is getting it, but he has a long way to go. I could see, in the past, him getting involved in something like this and wreaking havoc, unknowingly, with his uninformed views.

Something we were discussing last night actually is my feeling that there is very much an "of mice and men" problem with men getting involved in improving women's lot - the serious danger of them benevolently wielding power they don't know they have. (if you don't understand the reference, I'm happy to explain it).

Sorry that should say benevolently wield destructive power they don't know they have - causing damage without realising it.

Empower women by getting a man in to tell them where they are going wrong.

Can you imagine it?

"Women lack confidence, you should be more confident smile at men people when they talk to you. They'll like you! Except for those of you who are too confident, you should stop that. You don't want to appear to strident. Don't ask for raises either it's bad karma

i think you're right

i also think, and i don't know whether this is unfair of me, that there is a very good reason why the exec women in this case may not be involved. they may have declined to head it up, because they know (consciously or unconsciously) that if they are honest in their advocacy, it will most likely damage them personally and professionally. that may not be what happened, there may be all sorts of other reasons for putting a man, or this particular man, in charge, but i can absolutely understand why a senior woman might decline to head it up. there is a very deliberate "divide and conquer" aspect in many ways

His suggestion that women are not entrepreneurial is amazingly sexist. Surely someone should have pulled him up on that right away. Plenty of women like to own a business rather than work for others. It's huge fun and you can make a load of money. That is not being a man. It's being a human being.

That particular man was obviously going into that meeting thinking "I know where women are going wrong, I'll help them by showing them how to be more like men, that'll solve the problem." He just doesn't get it, at all.

Good point Pumpkin

Greengrow that's interesting you say that all the small business owners I know are female. People tend to use words like "mumpreneur" and bs like that to to belittle and ignore the fact that actually these are women who are running a business, supporting their community and are ALSO usually supporting half of (or all of) a family.

But entrepreneur or small business owner doesn't work for women for some reason

People tend to use words like "mumpreneur" and bs like that to to belittle and ignore the fact that actually these are women who are running a business, supporting their community and are ALSO usually supporting half of (or all of) a family.

*you know, just like men

OP are you in a position to be able to say anything about this?

He just doesn't get it, at all.

Amber I reckon you should direct The Man who is in Charge of the Women's Group to this thread, so that we can all tell him how he is doing it wrong .

"That particular man was obviously going into that meeting thinking "I know where women are going wrong, I'll help them by showing them how to be more like men, that'll solve the problem." He just doesn't get it, at all."

no, and it's also clear that the approach is arse-covering, really. similar to the way that you get employees doing compliance training for legal stuff. you give them the training that means that if they do something wrong you can say "not our fault; they had the training"

so for this troublesome gender disparity, you tell the women what they should be doing, and if there's still a gap it's "not our fault; they had the training"

Reminds me of this episode of Parks and Rec. Maybe send them a copy of the episode?

parksandrecreation.wikia.com/wiki/Women_in_Garbage

Leslie comes to Chris with her latest endeavor: a commission on gender equality. She has decided the lack of women in their government is criminal and that it's time to do something about it. Chris agrees with Leslie wholeheartedly and says that he'll call a meeting that day to discuss a course of action. Later, when the meeting assembles, Leslie is horrified to find that not a single department has sent a female representative. They get down to business, and Leslie points out that the number one offender of gender inequality is sanitation. Why are there no female garbage collectors? The department reps claim that the job is too physically demanding for the average woman. Unsurprisingly, Leslie takes this on as a welcome challenge.

Thanks for your thoughts, all - interesting to hear some different perspectives. Thanks especially for the suggestions of things the group could focus on - I'll put those forward.

On the 'is it ok to have a man heading up a women's group?' question, I agree that buy-in from men is helpful (and there were several men who attended, which I thought was good), but I don't think having a man head it up was the right way to get that buy in. It's not a male-dominated company or industry by any means - over half of the employees, and 30% of the board, are women, and there are several women who I think would have done an excellent job as sponsor. I don't know whether any of them were approached, but I do know that the woman who would have been my number one choice for the role didn't even know about the group, as I was in a meeting with her immediately beforehand and asked whether she was going.

Re. feeding back - I have done so in no uncertain terms! There was a feedback form distributed at the end, and I made my views very clear. I also think my stony face and raised eyebrows may be in the background of the video of Mr Dinosaur's speech (It will be interesting to see whether any of his comments are edited before it's posted on our intranet...)

I should say that not everyone in the room thought everything was hunky dory - I talked to quite a few people who felt the same way as me, so I hope our collective feedback will be taken on board.

It's a pretty basic thing to get wrong isn't it?

Yup...

Just thought I'd let you know that the video of the speech given by The Man Who Is In Charge Of The Women's Group was finally posted on our intranet last week. It was heavily edited, with all the controversial bits removed... Not sure whether to be pleased that they were recognised as inappropriate, or annoyed that a wider group than those present didn't get to see and discuss them.

I'd find that problematic too, and I'd want to talk to whoever was involved to ask if there were any thoughts of handing over to someone else (i.e. one of the women managers), and also if they're planning a programme of events or similar for the year ahead? Is there any opportunity to give suggestions on the sorts of things you'd like to see?

Oh, that reminds me...

Has this man actually said or done anything offensive or is your only problem the fact he's a man and you want your group to be strictly women-only no menz allowed?

Catalyst have some information on employee resource groups - www.catalyst.org/knowledge/topics/ergs-employee-resource-groups

I think you have to be a member to access some content, but some is visible to all, and I think this link is one of them.

My employer is a corporate member - might be worth checking if yours is.

Rissapuc - as Buffy said (and as I said upthread), i do think some of his comments betrayed an inappropriate attitude for someone heading up a women's group. I would greatly prefer my company to have chosen a woman for this role, but I think what he said is a bigger issue than who he is. I don't have any problem with men being part of the group - I think that's a positive thing.

I'm not sure who did the editing, but I'm going to do a bit of asking around about whether that's all they intend to do, or whether they've also spoken to the guy involved and/or considered replacing him. I'm actually leaving the company shortly, so feel empowered to be arsey!