A few men have asked me why they can’t participate in the upcoming discussion I’m having with Emily Logan Stedman and Rachel Clar about women who don’t support other women. (See the information at the end of this issue to sign up!) The simple answer is that Emily, Rachel, and I wanted to create a safe space for women to talk about a subject that is often painful. In addition, this topic is particularly hard for women to talk about with men—because no thoughtful woman wants to reinforce stereotypical ideas about professional women by complaining about a senior woman who isn’t supportive. The one time I raised such an issue to a male colleague I got a response like: “Yeah, women lawyers are b*#$%!@.”

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to discuss issues of gender equity in the legal profession with men. On the contrary, having those discussions is absolutely essential to creating workplaces where women—and men—can thrive. For this reason, it’s important to ask the best way to get men to engage on these issues.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: there are some men who are never going to have these discussions with us. They’re not interested in issues of equity and are perfectly happy living in a world surrounded by white men who look and act like them. We don’t need to be Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill trying to engage those men.

But there are men out there who want to get involved in issues of gender equity, and they’re not sure how to do that. It turns out there has been some research on how best to facilitate these types of discussions.

What the Research Tells Us

A few years ago the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession wrote a full report on this very issue “to better understand why some men were actively engaged on issues facing women lawyers while others were not.” It wanted to identify practical steps that we can all take to encourage men to proactively advance women in the legal profession.

The report’s primary conclusions are that:

1. Men want to be invited to join “women’s” events.

2. Men want to see the benefit of participating in such events to their organization and themselves.

3. Men want to know how to support women.

4. We need to create a safe space for discussions.

The report identifies things that men—and women—need to do in order to bring interested men into the fold. Importantly, the report doesn’t just focus on the things men need to do, but suggests that women more actively engage men who may be interested in the advancement of women in law. One chart in the report shows that 38% of men—and no women—reported seeing women successfully engage men in a discussion about their careers by making the business case for supporting women:

Men in the Mix also explored why some men don’t support women. Intriguingly, men and women had the same perceptions about why this is the case. First, some men have an implicit bias against women. Second, there was a “fear that the investment in women wasn’t worth the effort because of women’s family commitments.” (Excuse me?) Third, men’s “self interest in desire to keep any advantage to themselves.” Finally, although a small minority, 7-10% of men expressed that the Me Too movement had made them less likely to engage in efforts supporting women.

When it comes to the reasons men don’t participate in women’s affinity groups, some of the responses were surprising. As you can see below, while women thought that men were afraid of saying the wrong thing, only 14% of men indicated that they felt this way:

But while men weren’t necessarily afraid of saying the wrong thing, several of the above categories indicate that men experience different types of fear in participating in women’s affinity groups. One male participant was quoted as saying “that you have to adopt a hardline feminist view otherwise you will be considered a sexist, so there is no freedom of expressing your own opinion or even opportunity to brainstorm/discuss.”

So, while I don’t particularly like, as Men in the Mix did, using the phrase “safe space” to describe what is needed, it’s clear that we need a place where men and women can have productive discussions without attacking each other’s motives. And, as the report says, men need and want to be personally invited to participate. Here were the suggestions for action:

There are lots of resources at the report’s website, including a template slidedeck you can use to make the case to your workplace for engaging in these steps.

It’s not just the ABA Commission who has looked into this issue. In 2016, The National Conference of Women’s Bar Association started its GOOD Guys Program, “a program designed to break the impasse in women’s advancement by engaging . . . [men]” in the conversation. Since that time there have been events all over the country that seek to encourage and reward men’s participation in women’s events:

Closing Thoughts

I previously wrote an issue about male allies. But recruiting male allies is more about having allies in places where women are either not invited or are in significant minorities: the rooms where promotion and compensation decisions are made, the rooms where assignments are given or business is referred, and the all-male networks and social events. We need people to advocate for us in places where we aren’t—and often can’t—be.

But in addition to having male allies—and in order to make men good allies—we need to have conversations with them about our experiences and needs. And men need to be able to, without fear, ask about how they can help us.

So while the upcoming discussion will just be among women lawyers, you can expect that there will be others in the future that include men. (I know I have many who read this newsletter!) If you’re interested in these types of discussions, let me know what you’d like to talk about! Or tell me about how your employer has discussions about gender equity that do—or don’t—work.

Coming Up On April 10!!

I’m excited to announce that on April 10 at 3:30 Eastern I’ll be doing a live discussion with two of my friends, Rachel Clar, Founder and CEO of Interconnected Us, and Emily Logan Stedman, a partner at Husch Blackwell. We’ll be talking about Women Who Don’t Support Other Women and What To Do About It. Rachel and Emily are fabulous, so, if you are a woman lawyer, you should absolutely join us (and follow both Rachel and Emily on LinkedIn if you don’t already) for a candid discussion of a tough topic. You can sign up at this link.

Share Comes Now!

If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please share it with others and encourage them to subscribe. I draft it on Beehiiv (Comes Now (beehiiv.com)) but also provide the Tuesday issue in a LinkedIn newsletter. You can subscribe to the Tuesday posts either place. I do not post Thursday’s What I’m Reading & Thinking issue on LinkedIn. You need to subscribe to the full newsletter on Beehiiv in order to receive that issue.

Have a topic you’d like me to address? Want to tell me where I got something right or wrong? Send me an email at [email protected].