International Women’s Day is all about celebrating women in every possible way: socially, politically, culturally and economically to name a few ways. But this shouldn’t end when the day does. Women should be celebrated and treated equally everyday. Women have achieved so much since the first International Women’s Day in 1911, but there’s still a long way to go and it’s important to recognise that gender equality is an issue that impacts everyone in different ways, it’s just something that women should be focused on or worried about. But International Women’s Day, isn’t just for women or about women. It is a day that is for men too. This is a time for men to acknowledge and begin to challenge the permeating and persisting power dynamics that exist in all forms of life – from the everyday ‘normal’ life to the workplace and at home too. It’s integral to recognise, support, understand and become educated on this matter, since it is ultimately another step in the right direction of gender equality. Below are some ways that men can be allies to us women and to help us with another step in the right direction in reaching gender equality.
Male Privilege
One of the most important steps for being an ally (and this applies in any movement) is to acknowledge, understand and accept your privilege. In this case, it is to acknowledge male privilege within patriarchy. Acknowledging your privilege can include thinking about how your gender has impacted opportunities or experiences that you have had throughout your life. Stereotypical scenarios that will help you recognise male privilege include women being shamed for sex, men being congratulated for sex and women feeling anxious or worried about walking home at night. It’s easy to think these example factors are not a problem, but that is unfortunately part of the problem. Gender equality spans a wide variety of factors and the small factors are just as important as the larger factors. Recognition is a key and integral aspect to gender equality – it’s where it all begins.
Be Educated
Listening and understanding women and their experiences is a key part to being an ally for women. This is an important opportunity for men to assess their own male privilege so that men can educate others on how to help and support the women in their lives and their respective equality too.
Women at Work
It seems silly that when men and women have the same job, the same job title and the same responsibilities, that women are still being paid less. Now, once again, this is a generalisation and does not refer to every company or workplace. However, there is still a gender pay gap and it’s important to recognise this. You can learn more about the gender pay gap here!
Men can be allies by being unambiguous and unequivocal about how much they are earning for the same job that a woman has too. There’s certainly a stigma in talking about money and something like sharing your salary falls under this stigma too. However, by being explicit about money and salary, men can ally themselves with women, since it gives women the ability to be comfortable and confident in order to have the opportunity to discuss a higher salary, by having the correct facts and figures.
Salary is not the only example of gender inequality in the workplace, there are also commonly used terms that are applied specifically as to whether you’re male or female. Stereotypically in the workplace women are called ‘bossy’ or ‘aggressive’ when they try to give their opinion whilst men are labelled as ‘confident’. It is important to note that these are generalisations, which is to say that there has been a change in the workplace, but also it is important to acknowledge and recognise that these factors can and do still occur in everyday life. It is integral that men, women and queer people have the knowledge and the tools to recognise this inequality and be able to address problems when they arise.
Men can be allies to women by listening, understanding and recognising the repression that women have faced. By being an ally, men can further help women and this doesn’t just have to be on International Women’s Day, it can be everyday.