It’s 2019, and there’s no more denying it: hiring women is a good business decision. But keeping and retaining women is not only a matter of adding more family-friendly policies or flexible work hours. Leadership (often male) also needs to foster a workplace culture that shows women they are valued and will grow at the company.
Men may find themselves wanting to do better (well, not _all _men–a 2016 survey by compensation-focused website PayScale.com found just one in five men said gender disparity was a problem in their workplace). They are to be commended for that. But sometimes, they just don’t know how. From calling a female colleague “dear” to explaining something to a woman that she clearly already knows, even the best-intentioned of men can sometimes do things that slight the women around them.
Matt Wallaert, a behavioral scientist and cofounder of getraised.com, a free site that helps women ask for raises at work, has a simple recommendation for men who want to know whether they’re on track: They should ask themselves if a woman in their lives is able to tell them when something they’re doing is bullshit.
I love this.
And yes, I am fortunate that I have a number of women in my life happy to call me out on my bullshit.
This simple test assesses if men are being good gender allies
This simple test assesses if men are being good gender allies by Alexandra Ossola: