Celebrating men at work..... — CG Pro-Active HR

Nov 2

Nov 2 Celebrating men at work.....

….and not just in November!!

How you support men in your organisation may well depend on the industry you work in. If you’re in a female dominated industry (care, social work, HR, etc) you will need to be engaged in initiatives to encourage more men in to your industry. Whereas, if you’re in a male dominated industry (engineering, manufacturing, etc) you will need to engage the men in your organisation as allies for the work you’re doing to encourage more women in to your industry. Either way, considering, supporting and including your Men is important!

When we think about equal pay, we generally assume men are the higher paid, and overall they are. There’s also an overall advantage for men amongst senior professionals, in pension contributions and other benefits. But this overall advantage doesn’t apply to all men - men of colour and trans men for example are often disadvantaged. And the generalisations risk leaving some behind.

Many of the differences we find can be traced back to the societal differences in gender responsibility for childcare, the stereotyping of job roles (men’s work vs women’s work) and/or the social value historically placed on traditionally women’s work such as care and catering.

Whilst some of these are improving, many are alive and well in 2023!! Just take a look in your local supermarket toy or clothing section....

This is just the fancy dress example – princesses for the girls, super heroes for the boys.
But you also see it in T-shirts choices, colour options, types of toys in each colour option, images on birthday cards, and so on.
And, we, as the adults, buy in to the stereotyping when we make our purchases, continuing the messaging about male and female roles in our society.

There’s so much gender messaging in society that research found children’s career ambitions are already limited by stereotyping by the age of seven!

I know we can’t tackle all of societies ills but we can be aware of the impact of stereotypes and related messaging and do our best for our children. And in the workplace, we can support initiatives that work to minimise the impact of gender differences and the impact of intersectionality. For example: