That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together

Introduction Men Aren39t the EnemyThis book began with a flight to Des Moines amp160In most ways it was uneventful amp160The businessman sitting next to me couldn39t have been friendlier amp160Over plastic cups of white wine we chatted about his business his new house in a New York suburb and his kids39 sports teamsThen I mentioned I was on my way to speak at a women39s conference amp160Suddenly my neighbor frozequotSorryquot he snapped amp160quotSorry I39m a manquotI looked down awkwardly into the bottom of my wineglass amp160My seatmate gave me a sideways glance and reached for an explanationquotI had to go through diversity training a few months ago amp160It was awfulquotThe words tumbled out of him amp160The facilitator had beaten up on him and his male colleagues he said amp160It felt like being sent to the principal39s office or being sat in the corner amp160Hours of his life wasted amp160And the message he and his male colleagues took away he told me boiled down to one accusationIt39s all your faultMy seatmate39s words struck me amp160The truth is I39d heard some version of them dozens of times before amp160I39d seen the body language the Don39t yell at me flinch more times than I cared to remember amp160I39d watched selfassured confident men curl into that defensive crouch when the subject of women or God forbid the phrase quotgender equalityquot had come upMy seatmate and I spent the rest of the flight in awkward silenceThe next morning several hundred women gathered in a hotel ballroom amp160I had been invited to speak about some of the most common issues women face at work being overlooked in meetings being underestimated watching men getting credit for our ideas amp160As I spoke I watched those several hundred female heads nodding in recognitionI stopped right in the middle of a sentencequotWe already know all of thisquot I said amp160quotWe need men in this room to hear the message insteadquotThat disconnect between men and women makes no sense to me amp160If women only talk among ourselves we can only solve 50 percent of the problem amp160We need men to join the conversation to be our partners amp160And as for the men most of them aren39t anywhere near villains amp160They don39t need beating up with a twobyfour amp160They39d like to see an equitable workplace they just can39t figure out what they39re supposed to do about itAnd yet men often recoil from the conversation about closing the gap amp160Some simply aren39t interested amp160Others are sure they have no problem with women themselves it must be some other guys who do amp160And some feel victimized as if the very topic is an implicit accusation amp160They39re sure the gap doesn39t exist at all that if anything women are getting an unfair advantage when it comes to jobs and opportunitiesIndeed by some measures outright hostility toward women has increased or at least become more visible over the past decade amp160One out of fiveamp160men in a global survey of more than 17000 people in 24 countries said that women aren39t equal to men amp160Almost half of women as well as men surveyed in Russia and India believe women to be inferiori And this was a survey done in 2017Those attitudes make it even more difficult for men who do want to reach across the gender divide amp160When Robert Moritz Global Chairman amp160of consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Int wrote a LinkedIn post about why the firm values diversity commenters professional men using real names called his ideas quotrepellentquot and quotan affront to every white manquot and argued there39s quotno such thing as a real business run by a nonwhite manquot amp160One suggested that he quotsurrender your job to a diversity hire and stay at home as a house husbandquotiiIt39s no wonder that men feel stymied fearful of speaking out on behalf of women amp160They39re just terrified of saying something wrong amp160When Catalyst a nonprofit organization focused on working women asked men what might undermine their support for gender equality a stunning 74 percent cited fear fear of loss of status fear of other men39s disapprovalamp160and most telling of all fear of making a mistake iii Men are walking around on eggshellsiamp160 Kully KaurBallagan amp160quotThree in four women around the world believe there are unequal rights in their countryquot Ipsos MORI March 7 2017iiamp160 Robert Moritz amp160quotWhite men Four things you can do to advance diversityquot LinkedIncom March 5 2015iiiamp160 Jeanine Prime andamp160Corinne A MossRacusin quotEngaging Men in Gender Initiatives What Change Agents Need to Knowquot Catalyst May 4 2009From the bookamp160That39samp160Whatamp160Sheamp160Said amp160What Men Need to Know and Women Need to Tell Them About Working Togetheramp160by Joanne Lipman Copyrightamp160amp169 2018 by Surrey Lane Media LLC Reprinted by permission of William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins Publishersamp160Photo credit GannettClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together

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Joanne Lipman

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