Holding Space for Women All Year
As March draws to a close, I’m thinking about all that Women’s History Month has brought us. It is a special thing to commemorate all that women have brought to the world and to honor every intersection of woman we are blessed with on our planet. But much like Black History Month, the truths that Women’s History Month brings up don’t go away when the month ends. Through conversations with friends, family members, colleagues, and clients, I began to see a pattern of behaviors that create and maintain space for femmes. Here are some productive behaviors I’ve been thinking about:
Listening
This is the easiest step to hear and the toughest step for many people to accomplish. Listening to the experiences of marginalized groups is essential to any healthy relationship. That doesn’t mean listening with an intent to fix—far from it, actually. Listening generously with an intent to understand and affirm their lived experience builds stronger relationships and gives us valuable insight into lives outside our own. Instead of volunteering action, we should ask questions about how we can be most useful. You’d be surprised how often a supportive coworker can make a lasting difference.
Being Mindful of Bias
In Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis wrote, “Whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling as equal partners.” Implicit in this is acknowledging what privilege we benefit from (in my case, the privilege of being a white cis man) and dedicating time to introspection of our immediate assumptions. As we listen and learn more from other people’s experiences we see how different intersections can benefit or harm certain groups. Or, as diversity and inclusion consultant Brian McComak puts it, “What the concept of male allyship does, in my mind, is centers an understanding of the experience of men and the privilege of men in our society. The key element of it is having an awareness of how that identity shapes how I get to experience the world and how I use that identity to make a difference.”
Respecting the Space
As you listen to the experiences of people in your own life and interrogate your own biases, you’ll likely start to see moments around you to address bias in your workplace. You may notice opportunities to center women in meetings and presentations or ways to vocally signal that your female colleagues are talented and competent. This all stems from understanding the shared space and what is needed from us as men with social power. In the process of hearing their lived experiences, we must find ways to intentionally decenter ourselves and uplift the women around us. There are direct actions that we can take, such as repeating and attributing points that women make during meetings, or calling out sexist, racist, or ableist behavior as we see it. This all helps to create a safe space that addresses the needs of marginalized groups around us.
Strengthening Supportive Partnerships
Allyship isn’t a badge you wear, it’s a lifetime of work. Part of that includes being a reliable sounding board and continuing to decenter yourself from the equality process, but there are also active opportunities to foster these reciprocal relationships. Consider what social capital you can offer, including things like influence, organizational resources, and knowledge. I can’t help but think about the work I do with Impact Consulting, a woman-owned consulting firm committed to transforming organizations through diversity and inclusion initiatives. I continue to look for opportunities to share my expertise and stay proactive about inclusivity in my interactions; it’s one of the most important ways I can do the work in both my life and my career.
Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
The real work of dismantling oppression begins with informed action. When we’re taking actions towards equality and equity, we face uncomfortable truths about how we’ve reinforced or benefited from this inequality. Even the most well-intentioned person will make mistakes, that’s a natural part of the process. Yes, advocacy comes with social pressures and can often evoke a fear of messing up, but addressing these problems on an interpersonal level is an important step and more men should get comfortable doing so if they’re committed to equality. Mistakes happen so that we learn from them and dedicate ourselves to being better embracing these mistakes as growth opportunities.
It's easy to get overwhelmed by systemic injustice and lose track of what’s actionable in our lives. Learning to listen to the communities around us and advocating on their behalf (in both public and private ways) should be at the top of the list for anyone to incorporate into their daily life. Once these are worked into our muscle memory, we can easily carry the lessons of Women’s History Month long past March.