If people cannot understand the difference between a female CEO of a male health charity and a male person in spokesperson and parliament respresentation role for a female health charity perhaps they don’t understand organisational structure and organisation behaviour.
A role such as CEO can be mixed sex if it is something such as a large cancer charity and the CEO is not so much a representative duty. If representation is required in public or at committees etc, then it doesn’t work to have a female CEO of a male cancer charity. It never was appropriate for Wadhwa to be representing a rape crisis centre either for instance because that role was an advocacy role and, it turns out, even a service provider.
A representative role that is sitting in committees, public speaking etc for a female centred health issue that has been dismissed for decades should be female at the very least. In my opinion, it would be better for that person to have personally experienced the condition so they can given personal insight. It is why the male person in Scotland who was given the period ‘ambassador’ role was never appropriate either.
Having a male person in a role of spokesperson and parliamentary representative for Endometriosis is in no way appropriate unless that male person was a medical specialist in the field and no female person was available.
It is also rather misogynistic if the reason they have been given the role is because someone thinks it will help male people understand the issue better. Or that a male person will do the job better or that a male person will be considered to have greater authority and those decision makers will give his words greater attention.
Whether it is a large or small organisation, that role was not appropriate for a male person. Whether he was genuinely empathetic about the issue or was in the role to further his own career ambitions or personal validation. It was not appropriate.