Men building gender equality in the workplace

How can men help to build gender equality at work? How can workplaces and organisations engage men in progress towards gender justice? Men in workplaces, whether senior male leaders or blue-collar men, can play important roles in fostering gender equality in workplaces and organisations.

In this XY collection, we bring together key reports, manuals, and other items of interest. The first section below includes key reports and guides. See in particular, Men Make a Difference: How to Engage Men on Gender Equality (Flood and Russell, 2017). Flood's book on engaging men in violence prevention (free here) also includes useful discussion on engaging men (Chapter 5), changing men's organisations (Chapter 9), and so on.

The second section below focuses on short articles, tipsheets, and commentaries. See e.g. my compilation on what men can do.

Efforts to build gender equality in workplaces and other organisations often meet resistance and backlash. Check out this excellent guide to responding to and preventing resistance and backlash, as well as other materials on the area.

Reports and guides:

News articles, blogs, commentaries, and tipsheets:

• Ashcraft and Dubow, The Tricky (And Necessary) Business Of Being A Male Advocate For Gender Equality, May 28 2015
• Barker, The belief that women do care work and men get paid does a great disservice to society. June 16 2015
• Bowers, Men as Allies. Working Mother blog, Feb 18 2016
• Brancu, Breaking Down Biases: Men as Allies for Women in Leadership, May 31 2023
• BroadAgenda, Engaging Men Q and A with Michael Flood. June 16 2016
• Catalyst, Actions Men Can Take to Create an Inclusive Workplace, 2009
• Cavanaugh, The Power of the Male Ally - Engaging Men Advancing Women. October 21, 2016
• Glennerster, Practical steps you can take to reduce sexism in economics, Jan 7 2015
• Flood, What men can do in workplaces to build gender equality, Dec 14 2022
• Futures Without Violence, The Top 10 Things Men Can Do Right Now to Address Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Dec 6 2017
• Good, Helping men get work-life balance can help everyone, July 9 2015
• Halter, Why Men Should Support Gender Equality. On The Marc blog
• Harvard Gazette, Men on a Mission, Dec 16 2013
• Hauck, The Role of Male Allyship in Conscious Leadership and Business, Feb 29 2020
• Hauck, Nine Tips for Being a Male Ally at Work, May 19 2021
• Johnson and Smith, How Men Can Confront Other Men About Sexist Behavior, Oct 16 2020
• Krentz, M., Wierzba, O., Abouzahr, K., Garcia-Alfonso, J., & Taplett, F. B., Five ways that men can improve gender diversity at work, October 10 2017
• Levy, Men at the Harvard Business School An Unexpected Voice for Redefining Success, 2014
• Limonthas, Three Simple Ways to Be a Better Male Ally, March 3 2023
• Male faculty, Ten Things You Can Do Now to Improve the Climate for Women
• Moritz, White men Four things you can do to advance diversity. LinkedIn, March 6 2015
• Price, Where are those proud male 'champions of change'? Nov 25 2014
• Price, Male Champions of Change has an image problem, July 6 2020.
• Rincon, Roberta. (2019). The Importance of Male Allies: A Review of the Literature. SWE Magazine (State of Women in Engineering), April 11.
• Robb, Men as agents of change. Barclays / Women’s Business Council seminar, Jan. 22 2015
• Siegel, 6 Steps Everyone Can Take To Become An Ally In White Male-Dominated Workplaces, Nov 2 2019
• Smith and Johnson, 3 Ways to Advance Gender Equity as We Return to the Office, June 11 2020
• Smith and Johnson, 4 Ways Men Can Support Their Female Colleagues Remotely, Oct 27 2020
• Suhail, It's Time for Men to Lean In - For Gender Equity, Sept 23 2020
• Szakal, Stronger together – Engaging male allies in pursuit of gender equality | ACI World Blog, May 28 2020.
• Taylor, Calling all men – five ways you can be a feminist at work, Aug 2 2016
• Utah Women & Leadership Project. (2018, October 3). What male allies can do to strengthen the impact of Utah women in workplace settings. UWLP
• Warren, Why women need male allies in the workplace – and why fighting everyday sexism enriches men too, July 21 2021
• 5 Practical Things Men Can Do For Gender Equality At Work, Oct 2014
• A gender-equality club, run by men. The Washington Post, August 10, 2015

Note: If you are a male academic or in higher education, the following items may be of particular interest:

• Male faculty, Ten Things You Can Do Now to Improve the Climate for Women
• Ratele, K., Verma, R., Cruz, S., & Khan, A. R. (2019). Engaging men to support women in science, medicine, and global health. The Lancet, 393(10171), 609-610.
• Tenure She Wrote, Don’t be that dude - Handy tips for the male academic, 2013
• Wood, D. E. (2021). How can men be good allies for women in surgery?# HeForShe. Journal of Thoracic Disease, 13(1), 492-501.

Also see:

• The recent report Better Together - Increasing Male Engagement in Gender Equality Efforts in Australia, by Bain and Co. (2019);
• The report, Men Make a Difference: Engaging Men on Gender Equality, commissioned by the Diversity Council Australia and written by Dr Michael Flood and Dr Graeme Russell;
• This practical guide to challenging everyday sexist comments and jokes, and this outline of why sexist and violence-supportive jokes matter;
• A bibliography of published works on men building gender equality at work and/or in institutions;
• A bibliography of scholarship on work, class, and gender, including a section on building gender equality at work;
• A bibliography of published works on violence prevention in workplaces;
• The projects and organisations focused on men, work, and gender listed as part of this collection of links;
• The reports and resources produced by Male Champions of Change (Australia).

While this collection focuses on paid work and workplaces, other materials in XY's "Resources" collections are relevant for work with men in general to build gender equality. This page provides a guide to XY's vast collection of materials on men's roles in gender justice. Further suggestions are most welcome.