Engaging Men in Gender Partnership

MALE
MILLENNIALS
ALLIES OR OBSTACLES
IN GENDER EQUALITY?
with Dale Thomas Vaughn

“MEN OF QUALITY ARE
NOT AFRAID  
OF WOMEN WITH
EQUALITY…  
YOU ARE ONE OF THE  
LEADERS OF MEN OF
QUALITY.”
Gloria Allred

IT WAS TRULY AN
UNPRECEDENTED, POSITIVE, AND
POWERFUL EXPERIENCE IN MY
LIFE TO BE SURROUNDED BY
MALE ALLIES.
I HAVE NEVER FELT MORE
SUPPORTED, LISTENED TO, AND
INCLUDED BY A GROUP OF
MALES.
Amy Logan 
President, US National Committee for
UN Women - SF Bay Chapter

I WAS SURPRISED TO FIND THAT
AS A CIS GENDERED WOMAN, I
FELT MORE “AT HOME” AND
WELCOME AT THE BETTER MAN
CONFERENCE WITH TOPICS THAT
RESONATED WITH ME MORE THAN
AT ANY WOMEN IN TECH EVENTS
OR EVEN THE LESBIANS WHO
TECH SUMMIT.
Dara
Senior Vice President at MSL
GROUP North America

As Seen On:
Previous Speaking, Clients and Programming:

TODAY’S AGENDA
TODAY WE’LL COVER
1. WHAT IS THE IMPACT
MILLENNIALS COULD HAVE ON
GENDER PARTNERSHIP?
2. WHY ENGAGING MEN
(ESPECIALLY MILLENNIAL MEN)
IS IMPORTANT
3. HOW TO BUILD SYSTEMS INTO
YOUR BUSINESS TO ENGAGE
MEN

GENDER PARTNERSHIP
WHAT IS GENDER PARTNERSHIP?
▸ EQUALITY: The state of being equal in rights, treatment, quan4ty, access or value to
all others in a speciﬁc group.
▸ EQUITY: Ac4ons, treatment of others, or a general condi4on characterized by
jus4ce, fairness, and impar4ality.
▸ PARTNERSHIP: Full, synergy-crea4ng collabora4on between people or groups
working together toward a common goal.

CONTEXT
WHAT IS NEEDED FOR GENDER PARTNERSHIP?
▸ (Test the systems)  
IDENTIFY BARRIERS AND BLIND SPOTS
▸ (Preparing the Astronauts)  
LEVERAGE WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP
▸ (Start the Countdown) 
ENGAGE MEN

WHAT’S THE
SECRET TO
ENGAGING MEN?

ENGAGING MEN
Roll-Out of the Gender Partnership Process
3 Years to Sustainable Culture Development
Gender Leadership Group
• Engaging Men as Allies: Why and How – a 3-hour workshop with the Women’s ERG
• Quarterly conference calls: To celebrate wins and coach on breakdowns.
• Gender Partnership: What’s In It for Men? - Women's ERG-sponsored workshops for
men to learn about Gender Partnership and the case for men as advocates for it.
• Cross-Gender Communication: A “gender fishbowl” communication event to launch
the next era of gender relations (the men in the event in number 3 above would be the
prime audience for this event, and would be encouraged to bring other men as well)
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
•Enrollment of senior executives as advocates
• Full engagement from the top leadership is the single most important factor in culture change.
• Initial Engaging Men Workshop for senior executives followed by individual coaching and
quarterly one-day refreshers to engage with what is working well, needs improvement..
• Enrollment of middle management through a process similar to that for senior executives.
• Middle managers are where the rubber meets the road in terms of executing on the new culture
of gender partnership. They will need to be fully engaged and given tools to create gender
partnership in their teams, their relationships with each other, and to be role models for the
organization.
• Roll-out of the initiative to all levels of the organization through short workshops, webinars, brown-
bag lunches, and internal communications efforts
• Anchoring of inclusive leadership as a core value with creation of forums, structures, and processes
to ensure sustainability of the new culture.
A Foundation in Allies
Leadership Buy-In
Cultural Value
SUSTAINABILITY
LEADERSHIP
COMMITMENT
COMMUNICATION
IMPACT
THE MANDATORY MIND SHIFTS
1. IMPACT 
WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO ME?
2. COMMUNICATION 
HOW DO WE OPEN THE DIALOGUE?
3. COMMITMENT 
HOW DO WE MEASURE COMMITMENT?
4. LEADERSHIP 
WHO ARE VISIBLE ALLIES AND MODELS?
5. SUSTAINABILITY 
AWARENESS VS. CULTURE CHANGE

Top 8 Ways to Engage Men 
In Full Gender Partnership in Your Workplace
If you are an
organization or
Team
If you are a
Woman
If you are a Man
who “Gets” it
1. Bring Men
Together
Use the men in your organization who
“get” it to engage men who are still on
the sidelines to get into the game.
Ask each member of your women’s
initiative to invite a male colleague to
their next event.
Tell men what’s in it for them,
personally and professionally.
2. Have honest
conversations about
the impact of gender
Start a men’s conversation. Share
with employees, suppliers and
investors the potential impact on the
bottom line and stock value.
Companies with fewer women in
senior leadership positions are 48%
less profitable and have a 37% lower
return on equity.
Include men in the conversation about
the positive outcomes of full gender
partnership. Ask men what it will take
for them to be full gender partners.
Explore the ways that women, with
their innate tendency toward
communication, collaboration and
consensus-building, bring balance to
work place traditions and attitudes.
Read current thought leaders on the
future of leadership.
3. Help men “get”
that gender bias
still exists
Give your workforce the facts. For
easy access to a multitude of
statistics on the current state of
gender bias at work, see Harvard
Business Review’s: “Tell Me
Something I Don’t Know About
Women in the Workplace.”
Share a story with your male mentor
or sponsor from your personal
experience, without blaming or
shaming the people who made you
feel “less than.”
Encourage other men to ask the
women in their lives - mother, wife,
daughter, girlfriend, sisters, friends - if
and how they have been affected by
gender bias.
4. Engage men’s
sense of fair play
Set learning objectives for your
training content that help men
recognize the personal costs they
suffer due to gender bias. Provide
opportunities for self-reflection.
Let men know the facts in your
industry and in your company.
Find the point of connection for your
male colleagues and friends. Even if a
man is unable or unwilling to see how
unfair it is for him to have
unreasonable advantages over his
female colleagues, he may still be
convinced to take action so his wife or
daughters are not similarly
shortchanged.
5. Encourage men in
behaviors that are
linked to awareness of
gender bias
Have influential managers, men who
“get” it, play an integral role in inviting
employees to participate in company
efforts to increase gender awareness.
Identify strategic male partners and
engage them in a constructive
dialogue about their own gender
perspective.
Lead by example by ensuring gender
balance in the appointments and
teams you manage, control, or
influence.
6. Encourage men to
champion and be
architects of win-win
outcomes.
their next event.
7. Engage men’s
innate desire to take
action
Explore with groups of men and
women where conformity to
masculine norms is being rewarded at
your company.
Initiate exploratory win-win
partnership conversations with men.
Use inquiry based dialogue to find out
what the win is for your male peer(s).
Invest your time in mentoring women.
8. Attach
accountability to
actions to support
productive business
outcomes
Establish compelling metrics, like time
to promotion, retention, balance of
gender in the leadership pipeline, and
increase in female talent attraction.
Evaluate the men you manage on
their performance in building more
balanced teams.
Share with female colleagues your
intention to be a partnership
champion and ask how you can
support them.
Don’t Worry!
I will share these 
Templates and Exercises 
with you

WHAT IS THE
IMPACT
MILLENNIALS
CAN HAVE ON
GENDER
PARTNERSHIP?

“Their behaviour is coloured by their experience of the global
economic crisis.”
Price Waterhouse Cooper
THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MILLENNIALS

MY FIRST BUSINESS TRIP
IN THE “REAL WORLD”

Millennials are the ﬁrst native
gender-neutral generation.
THE SECOND THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MILLENNIALS

“97% of Millennials think their generation will ﬁnally achieve
equality of opportunity for emerging female leaders.”
ManpowerGroup
THE FIRST NATIVE GENDER-NEUTRAL GENERATION

The attitude of the millennial generation that will have most
impact on the daily lives of Americans is the distinctive and
historically unprecedented belief that there are no inherently male
or female roles in society.
 
“Race? No, Millennials Care Most About Gender Equality.” 
The Atlantic

More than two-thirds of people ages 14 to 34 say gender no
longer deﬁnes destiny or behavior as it once did.
The Intelligence Group

“Millennials prefer organizations that have open, transparent and
inclusive leadership styles”
Deloitte

“Neither gender seems very focused on that promotion.”
Pew
MILLENNIAL ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER EQUALITY AT WORK
WANT TO BE
THE BOSS
34%
WANT TO BE
THE BOSS
24%
WOMEN MEN

WHY ENGAGING MEN
(ESPECIALLY MALE
MILLENNIALS) IS SO
IMPORTANT

“FIFTY PERCENT OF MILLENNIAL MEN
AND 68 PERCENT OF WOMEN BELIEVE A
GLASS CEILING EXISTS.”
Spring 2016 Harvard Public Opinion Project poll
WHY WE HAVE TO START ENGAGING MEN

“MORE THAN HALF OF MILLENNIAL MEN THINK
THAT THEY ENJOY MORE ADVANTAGES THAN
WOMEN IN AMERICAN SOCIETY, LESS THAN 20
PERCENT OF THEM IDENTIFY AS FEMINISTS.”
Spring 2016 Harvard Public Opinion Project poll

“THE MOST SIGNIFICANT OBSTACLE
IDENTIFIED IS AN ENTRENCHED MALE
CULTURE, A BARRIER THAT EVEN MEN
ACKNOWLEDGED MUST CHANGE.”
ManpowerGroup

ONLY 1 IN 9 MEN BELIEVES
THAT WOMEN HAVE FEWER
OPPORTUNITIES THAN
MEN, AND 13 PERCENT OF
MEN BELIEVE IT IS
HARDER FOR MEN TO
ADVANCE BECAUSE OF
GENDER-DIVERSITY
PROGRAMS.
McKinsey & Lean In

“THREE-FIFTHS (59%) OF LEADERS INTERVIEWED
SAID THEY BELIEVE THE SINGLE MOST POWERFUL
THING AN ORGANIZATION CAN DO TO PROMOTE
MORE WOMEN LEADERS IS TO CREATE A GENDER-
NEUTRAL CULTURE, LED BY THE CEO.”
ManpowerGroup

HOW TO BUILD
SYSTEMS INTO
YOUR BUSINESS
TO ENGAGE MEN?
Go on a bias scavenger hunt
Bias or Blind Spot
Whose blind spot? Mine
or someone else’s?
How the bias is
holding us back
Male-bonding activity:
Watch for male-centered team activities like golf
or cigars. Ask women what they would like to do
as a team builder.
Mansplaining:
Watch for a man explaining something to a
woman who is likely to know as much or more
than him about the topic.
Manterrupting:
Watch for a man talking over or interrupting a
woman as she voices a concern or an idea; or a
man repeating what a woman says, only louder,
and then getting undue credit for her idea.
Irrelevant gender assumptions:
Watch for pre-judgments about what a person
might want because of their gender. For
instance, reading CVs and assuming a woman
won’t want to move or travel because she may
be a mother.
Contact Us to Learn More
About Quotes, Availability or Delivery
info@GenderLeadershipGroup.com
“Empowered Leadership Through Gender Partnership”
Be Time aware:
Watch for snap judgments that reward men.
Research shows that unconscious bias tends to
favor men in time crunches, and tends to be
more balanced when there is time to fully
examine all of the options.

IMPACT
WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO ME?
1

FIRMS WITH THE GREATEST GENDER DIVERSITY
AMONG EXECUTIVES AND BOARD MEMBERS
[EARNED] 300% MORE REVENUE  
AND 50% HIGHER PROFIT  
THAN THE AVERAGE COMPANY
UC Davis
400 public companies reviewed
THE BUSINESS CASE

GENDER DIVERSITY IN THE BOARD ROOM
AND C-SUITE INCREASES FINANCIAL
PERFORMANCE BY 33% TO 50% ON
MEASURES LIKE ROE AND RETURN ON SALES
Multiple studies by Credit Suisse, Catalyst,
McKinsey, and Deloitte
THE BUSINESS CASE

WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY
SPEND MORE MONEY THAN THE
ECONOMIES OF INDIA AND CHINA
COMBINED.
Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre 
Harvard Business Review
THE BUSINESS CASE

WE TRACK EVERYTHING POSSIBLE IN
ORGANIZATIONS EXCEPT THE
ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN AND
MINORITIES.
Jeffery Tobias Halter
Why Women?
THE BUSINESS CASE

I GET IT
GENDER PARTNERSHIP
IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS 
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

PERSONAL CASE FOR MEN
WHAT MEN GAIN PERSONALLY
▸ Less worry
▸ Less time at work
▸ More quantity AND quality
time with loved ones
▸ Better relationship satisfaction
▸ Better sex

OF THE 1% OF U.S. CORPORATIONS
THAT OFFERED UNPAID PARENTAL
LEAVE, ONLY 1% OF MALE
EMPLOYEES TOOK IT.
Michael Kimmel, PhD 
Harvard Business Review

IF YOU ARE NOT ADVOCATING FOR
WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE, YOU
ARE HURTING YOUR DAUGHTERS’
FUTURE.
Jeffery Tobias Halter 
Why Women?

I GET IT
GENDER PARTNERSHIP
IS GOOD FOR MY LIFE 
BUT IS IT TOP PRIORITY?

The economic case for gender parity
of additional annual GDP in 2025 in the full-potential
scenario of bridging the gender gap...
… equivalent to the combined
US and China economies today.
$28 trillion
Equal to 2x the likely contribution of women to global GDP growth in the business-as-usual scenario
McKinsey Global Institute’s Gender Parity Score points to
where 95 countries stand on gender parity.
0.71
Western
Europe
0.67
Eastern Europe,
Central Asia
These countries, grouped into 10 regions, are home to
93% of the world’s female population.
Gender inequality (1.00 = gender parity)
Extremely highHigh
0.64
Latin America
0.48
Middle East,
N. Africa
could be added in 2025 if all countries matched their
best-in-region country in progress toward gender parity.
0.57
Sub-Saharan
Africa
0.74
North America,
Oceania¹
0.48
India
0.61
China
0.62
East & South
East Asia (excl.
China)
0.44
South Asia
(excl. India)
$12 trillion

PREDICTORS OF RAPE-PRONE/FREE SOCIETIES
1. WOMEN’S AUTONOMY
2. FATHER’S INVOLVEMENT IN CHILD-REARING
Peggy Reeves Sanday, PhD 
MORAL CASE

WHAT’S THE CATCH
HOW GENDER EQUAL SOCIETIES BENEFIT MEN:
▸ The likelihood of being victim of violent death
decreases signiﬁcantly.
▸ In the most gender equal countries this likelihood is
almost half that of the least gender equal countries.
▸ Gender equal countries score much higher on well-
being…
▸ …and lower on depression among both men and
women.
▸ Gender equality has equally strong effects on
health and welfare as wage equity.
▸ The countries that have been most negatively
affected by the ﬁnancial crisis are also the ones in
which men participate least in unpaid care work (at
home)

COMMUNICATION
HOW ARE WE GOING TO TALK ABOUT
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM?
2

Go on a bias scavenger hunt
Bias or Blind Spot
Whose blind spot? Mine
or someone else’s?
How the bias is
holding us back
Male-bonding activity:
Watch for male-centered team activities like golf
or cigars. Ask women what they would like to do
as a team builder.
Mansplaining:
Watch for a man explaining something to a
woman who is likely to know as much or more
than him about the topic.
Manterrupting:
Watch for a man talking over or interrupting a
woman as she voices a concern or an idea; or a
man repeating what a woman says, only louder,
and then getting undue credit for her idea.
Irrelevant gender assumptions:
Watch for pre-judgments about what a person
might want because of their gender. For
instance, reading CVs and assuming a woman
won’t want to move or travel because she may
be a mother.
Be Time aware:
Watch for snap judgments that reward men.
Research shows that unconscious bias tends to
favor men in time crunches, and tends to be
more balanced when there is time to fully
examine all of the options.
Bias Scavenger Hunt

WHAT IS
INVISIBLE TO YOU
RELATED TO YOUR
GENDER?

Blind Spot Discovery Questions
3 questions to ask yourself to raise awareness about your blind spots
1. What advantages and/or benefits might you experience in work and life simply
because you are male?
2. If you had siblings of the opposite gender what do you recall about how they were
treated and have these experiences affected your present day interactions with the other
gender?
3. What did you witness in your home regarding partnership between parental figures?
3 questions to ask a woman that elicit honest answers about their experience
1. Do you believe you have the same opportunity for advancement in your place of
employment as men?
2. What are one or two things you want me to understand about what its like being a
woman in the workplace?
3. What kind of support can I offer you in partnership?
Notes

FISHBOWL
QUESTIONS FOR MEN
▸ Do you ever feel like you are walking on eggshells at
work… when or how?
▸ Where do you feel like you are getting mixed messages as
to gender equality?
▸ What is it that you want women to do to help your
company improve?

FISHBOWL
QUESTIONS FOR WOMEN
▸ Have you ever experienced not feeling heard or being
dismissed and what was the impact of that?
▸ What are some of the ways you have or still conform to ﬁt
into male culture?
▸ What is it that you want men to do to help your company
improve?

COMMITMENT
BY WHEN DO WE EXPECT TO ACTUALLY
CORRECT SYSTEMIC ISSUES?
3

ENGAGING MEN
WHERE ARE YOU ON THE ISSUE?
1.Unaware – I don’t see the issue as mission critical.
2.Afraid - I might lose something. What will others (other
men) think of me.
3.Apathetic – I don’t really care.
4.Frustrated - I see it, but I don’t know how to affect it.
5.Committed – I’ll do whatever is needed for full Gender
Partnership.

Diversity training.
Do people who undergo training usually shed their biases? Researchers have been examining that
question since before World War II, in nearly a thousand studies. It turns out that while people are
easily taught to respond correctly to a questionnaire about bias, they soon forget the right answers.
The positive eﬀects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies
suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash. Nonetheless, nearly half of midsize companies
use it, as do nearly all the Fortune 500.

COMMITMENT
WHAT’S AT RISK?
▸If we do nothing?
▸If we try, but fail?
▸If we succeed?

LEADERSHIP
WHO ARE VISIBLE ALLIES AND ROLE MODELS?
4

LEADERSHIP
WHAT YOU CAN DO
▸ Get interested and learn about your unconscious bias and how it inﬂuences your
leadership.
▸ Contemplate the unintended impact of your unexamined biases. Ask women in
your life (colleagues, wives, sisters and daughters) to share with you how they have
been impacted by gender bias.
▸ Lead by example in ensuring gender balance in the teams you lead, manage,
control or inﬂuence.
▸ Mentor and Sponsor women in your organization.
▸ Further develop your empathy skills.
▸ Identify strategic male partners in a constructive dialogue about their own gender
perspective.

SUSTAINABILITY
ANCHOR GENDER PARTNERSHIP TO
BUSINESS IMPERATIVES
5

• Engaging Men as Allies: Why and How – a 3-hour workshop with the Women’s ERG
• Quarterly conference calls: To celebrate wins and coach on breakdowns.
• Gender Partnership: What’s In It for Men? - Women's ERG-sponsored workshops for
men to learn about Gender Partnership and the case for men as advocates for it.
• Cross-Gender Communication: A “gender fishbowl” communication event to launch
the next era of gender relations (the men in the event in number 3 above would be the
prime audience for this event, and would be encouraged to bring other men as well)
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
•Enrollment of senior executives as advocates
• Full engagement from the top leadership is the single most important factor in culture change.
• Initial Engaging Men Workshop for senior executives followed by individual coaching and
quarterly one-day refreshers to engage with what is working well, needs improvement..
• Enrollment of middle management through a process similar to that for senior executives.
• Middle managers are where the rubber meets the road in terms of executing on the new culture
of gender partnership. They will need to be fully engaged and given tools to create gender
partnership in their teams, their relationships with each other, and to be role models for the
organization.
• Roll-out of the initiative to all levels of the organization through short workshops, webinars, brown-
bag lunches, and internal communications efforts
• Anchoring of inclusive leadership as a core value with creation of forums, structures, and processes
to ensure sustainability of the new culture.
A Foundation in Allies
Leadership Buy-In
Cultural Value
SUSTAINABILITY
LEADERSHIP
COMMITMENT
COMMUNICATION
IMPACT

THIS IS GREAT!
HOW DO I INSTALL
THIS PROGRAM?

I’M COMMITTED TO
BEING YOUR ALLY

Top 8 Ways to Engage Men 
In Full Gender Partnership in Your Workplace
If you are an
organization or
Team
If you are a
Woman
If you are a Man
who “Gets” it
1. Bring Men
Together
their next event.
2. Have honest
conversations about
the impact of gender
Start a men’s conversation. Share
with employees, suppliers and
investors the potential impact on the
bottom line and stock value.
Companies with fewer women in
senior leadership positions are 48%
less profitable and have a 37% lower
return on equity.
Include men in the conversation about
the positive outcomes of full gender
partnership. Ask men what it will take
for them to be full gender partners.
Explore the ways that women, with
their innate tendency toward
communication, collaboration and
consensus-building, bring balance to
work place traditions and attitudes.
Read current thought leaders on the
future of leadership.
3. Help men “get”
that gender bias
still exists
Give your workforce the facts. For
easy access to a multitude of
statistics on the current state of
gender bias at work, see Harvard
Business Review’s: “Tell Me
Something I Don’t Know About
Women in the Workplace.”
Share a story with your male mentor
or sponsor from your personal
experience, without blaming or
shaming the people who made you
feel “less than.”
Encourage other men to ask the
women in their lives - mother, wife,
daughter, girlfriend, sisters, friends - if
and how they have been affected by
gender bias.
4. Engage men’s
sense of fair play
Set learning objectives for your
training content that help men
recognize the personal costs they
suffer due to gender bias. Provide
opportunities for self-reflection.
Let men know the facts in your
industry and in your company.
Find the point of connection for your
male colleagues and friends. Even if a
man is unable or unwilling to see how
unfair it is for him to have
unreasonable advantages over his
female colleagues, he may still be
convinced to take action so his wife or
daughters are not similarly
shortchanged.
5. Encourage men in
behaviors that are
linked to awareness of
gender bias
Have influential managers, men who
“get” it, play an integral role in inviting
employees to participate in company
efforts to increase gender awareness.
Identify strategic male partners and
engage them in a constructive
dialogue about their own gender
perspective.
Lead by example by ensuring gender
balance in the appointments and
teams you manage, control, or
influence.
6. Encourage men to
champion and be
architects of win-win
outcomes.
their next event.
7. Engage men’s
innate desire to take
action
Explore with groups of men and
women where conformity to
masculine norms is being rewarded at
your company.
Initiate exploratory win-win
partnership conversations with men.
Use inquiry based dialogue to find out
what the win is for your male peer(s).
Invest your time in mentoring women.
8. Attach
accountability to
actions to support
productive business
outcomes
Establish compelling metrics, like time
to promotion, retention, balance of
gender in the leadership pipeline, and
increase in female talent attraction.
Evaluate the men you manage on
their performance in building more
balanced teams.
Share with female colleagues your
intention to be a partnership
champion and ask how you can
support them.
This is how you can get 
Templates and Exercises
Email me at:
Dale@DaleThomasVaughn.com

Engaging Men in Gender Partnership

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